Presence

Every once in a while I see something in the bloging world that exemplifies how blogs are changing the world we live in. I don't mean as a new technology; the technology behind weblogs is trivial and basically irrelevant. A high-school student could whip up a decent weblog tool in a few hours. What I mean is the community that forms around the weblogs that makes it such a powerful force. Here is an excellent example.

Previuosly I linked to a post on Protocols where they review the movie Trembling before G-d. Protocols was discussing Mordechai Levovitz, who appears in the film (or the special features), and was a contemporary of theirs at YU (I was there at roughly the same time, and while I remember Mordechai, I have never met him, nor any of the Protocols guys). So far, no big deal. Then people start in with the comments, voicing their views on homosexuality, pretty much the usual fare you would expect.

And then the proverbial 'other shoe' drops.

In comes a comment from none other than Mordechai Levovitz. And you can sort of watch as the collective mouths of everyone reading the site hang open (notice that Mordechai posted at 1:32 AM, and the next response is not until 6:24 PM later that day). I have seen this a number of times, at least twice relating to homosexuality and Orthodox Judaism, where the empassioned response of someone who has actually experienced and dealt with the issues first hand, and has a real personal voice to add to the conversation, shows up and stops the show. Suddenly the pejoratives end and dialogue begins.

Take a minute to think about how revolutionary this is. When in history has an accused party been able to plead its case so plainly and openly to its accusers? When in the past have the asinine arguments of the mob been so utterly silenced by a single voice? When in history has the personal voice of the other been so present, that it makes sterotyping and generalizations about them impossible to sustain?

This is dangerous stuff, for the world in general and Judaism in particular. I'm not sure how this fits in with a concept of Halacha (my gut feeling would be that it makes not a whit of difference), but from the perspective of awareness and debate, this is ground-breaking. Sooner or later, Judaism is going to need to respond to these changes, and the response can not be to simply ignore it.