BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : DECEMBER 18, 2000 ISSUE
BOOKS Parallel Webs THE TALMUD AND THE INTERNET A Journey Between Worlds By Jonathan Rosen Farrar, Straus and Giroux -- 132pp -- $16 In his slender new book, The Talmud and the Internet, Jonathan Rosen raises a provocative subject: the similarities between the Talmud, an ancient text codifying Jewish laws, and the Internet, the futuristic information network. Rosen, a former editor at Jewish weekly The Forward and author of the novel Eve's Apple, wrote the discursive essay after his grandmother passed away in an attempt to ''make sense of the multiple worlds'' he has inherited. Although the book doesn't ultimately deliver on its premise, Rosen digs up enough insights to keep at least this reader's attention. The first and most obvious resemblance is that the Net and the Talmud are both vast, uncategorizable seas of information. The Net has its hyperlinked home pages, the Talmud, its cross-referenced tractates on a wide range of subjects. In fact, the Hebrew word for tractate, notes Rosen, is masechet, which means ''webbing.'' But Rosen sees deeper connections. Both are acts of ''communal collaboration.'' One of the Talmud's hallmarks is its commentaries--essentially an ancient online message board. On one page, Rashi, a medieval exegete, will comment on the Mishnah, the conversation rabbis conducted hundreds of years before. Rising up on the other side of the Mishnah is a commentary by the tosefists, Rashi's descendants. And so on. Flame wars have been going on for millennia. Also, both the Torah and the Internet may be seen as manifestations of a culture of exile. After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, the Jews created a portable, book-based Talmudic culture to preserve their religion. In the same way, the Internet is a virtual diaspora, appealing to today's rootless culture. All very interesting stuff. Unfortunately, Rosen has trouble keeping on point. The essay contains far too many digressions for such a short volume. (The book first appeared in briefer form as an article in the Atlantic Monthly.) One gets the feeling that Rosen ran out of ideas and was forced to pad his thoughts with chin-scratching asides and chapters from an unfinished PhD thesis. He devotes a chapter to a rambling discussion of John Milton's Paradise Lost, his dissertation subject, and, even more bizarre, his own ''strong connection'' to 19th century U.S. historian Henry Adams. Whatever. I was also puzzled by Rosen's extended discussion of the Roman historian Josephus and a chronicle of a trip Rosen and his wife took to Scotland. The fundamental problem is that Rosen has a case of V.S. Naipaul disease. In some of his nonfiction travel writing, Naipaul has shown a horrible tendency to analyze a culture from the confines of his air-conditioned hotel room. Similarly, Rosen seems more Net poseur than pundit, and that limits his ability to draw deeper links between the old and new. Rosen admits in the book's prologue that the essay is ''more a poetics of the Internet than a literal exploration.'' I only wish he had gotten his hands dirtier. By SPENCER E. ANTE _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Parallel Webs PHOTO: Cover, ``The Talmud and the Internet'' INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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