Healing Well of Miriam

During my time working for an Israeli tour guide, we prepared tours for an annual medical conference at Shaare Tzedek.  This conference was a meeting between rabbis and doctors to discuss halacha in light of new medical procedures.  The rabbis clearly recognized the need to address halachic views in a swiftly changing world. 

There have been questions about the status of Ger, Ger Toshav, Bnai Noah, etc.  The go-to answers are mostly based on opinions of Rambam.  And I must say that the world in his day would have had very different considerations.   Are we talking about inside the Land or outside the Land?  If a Jew is still a Jew outside the Land, is a Ger still a Ger outside the Land?  Is Ger only recognized in the time of Yovel (Jubilee)?  There have been some very compelling questions concerning status and timing.  I want to add another wrinkle.

Bnai Noah became an officially recognized status in 1990.  There was a conference in April of 1990 in Fort Worth, Texas, at which rabbis from Israel represented this view.  Interesting, 1990 is the year the Vilna Gaon named as crucial in the Redemption, understanding its parallel to Friday afternoon, going up to Shabbat.  Something else happened, though, that changed the world—the WorldWide Web.  It was invented in 1989 and went public in April of 1993—three years after the conference for official recognition of Bnai Noah.

In 2005, while working with Vendyl Jones, I became involved with Virtual Yeshiva at the time of its launch.  We discussed how, perhaps, this phenomenon had come into the world for this very purpose.  Now Torah learning was literally available to the entire world!  No longer did the non-Jew have to be “in the (literal) gate” to be exposed to Torah teaching.   This WWW brought all the world together.  And, yes, there has been dark use of this technology, but this does not negate the holy purpose of it.  And what is WWW?—vav vav vav—WOW!