“In the
network, God created media systems for creating heaven and earth. When the earth was absolutely empty and dark,
God created light and separated between light and darkness (1 and 0).”
We can
read the first word of the Bible B’reshit (In the beginning) as B’reshet
(In the network). In Genesis 1:1,
the Hebrew word et appears twice, before heaven and before earth. “In the beginning God created et the
heaven and et the earth.” Since
English has no equivalent for the word et that links a verb to a noun,
it drops out in translation. et is
spelled alef-tav, the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
Spanning the full set of 22 Hebrew letters, et symbolizes media systems.
Wikipedia’s
definition of “postdigital” is based upon my definition in my book The
Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness (intellect
Books/University of Chicago Press) as “the humanization of digital technologies
through interplay between digital, biological, cultural, and spiritual
systems.”
My new
book PHOTOGRAPH GOD: CREATING A SPIRITUAL BLOG OF YOUR LIFE http://photogrpahgod.com brings postdigital concepts into the everyday world. I photographed goldfish in a pet shop next to
my house for the Genesis post for the “Torah Tweets” postdigital blogart
project. You can see five more photos of
the creation of world in and around my house at http://bibleblogyourlife.blogspot.com.
MEDIA
SYSTEMS LINKING HEAVEN AND EARTH
The media
system of heaven, the spiritual realm, is written in the Torah with Hebrew
letters that form words. The media
system of earth, the physical realm, is written with electrons and protons that
form atoms and molecules. The media
system of the digital realm returns us to the primeval binary creation of
darkness and light, 0 and 1. It is
written with the binary digits 0-1 called bits that form bytes. Every blog, website, video, song, and text
that you access in the Internet is written with the binary system of the first
day of Creation.
The
Lubavticher Rebbe Menachem M. Schneerson, the 20th century’s greatest Hasidic
leader educated as a scientist, recognized the spiritual power of the Internet
early on. Each of the nearly 3,000
husband-wife emissary teams who established Chabad Houses from Miami and Paris
to Mumbai and Katmandu have created websites.
The emissaries’ annual conferences can be viewed live via Internet
simulcast with a running Twitter commentary.
The Rebbe
teaches: “The divine purpose of the present information revolution, which gives
an individual unprecedented power and opportunity, is to allow us to share
knowledge – spiritual knowledge – with each other, empowering and unifying
individuals everywhere. We need to use today’s interactive technology not just
for business or leisure but to interlink as people – to create a welcome
environment for the interaction of our souls, our hearts, our visions.”
From my weekly Torah portion article at The Times of Israel
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