No birds sing. For all the promises of virtual communities, it's more important to live a real life in a real neighborhood. I began this meditation with a perplexed ambivalence toward computers, networks, and the culture that enshrines them. At first, I wanted to think about technical issues. The culture of information isn't knowledge.
Electronic networks erode important parts of our community.
Certainly, few will toss out their computers or back away from their keyboards. Our networks are far too useful, and there's so much available over the modem. Both concepts are fundamental. Religious Zionists also use other legal devices, e.g. farming under a tent, to avoid rabbinic legal violation of shmita. For many years, I wrote that an accurate cost study of the observance of rabbinic shmitta today should be done.