Disclaimer: The following, also from the asifa brochure, is a work of fiction, and won’t prove anything to someone who thinks access to technology is not a dangerous thing.
Future e-Ramifications
Sunday, May 20, 2012
But Yitzy made sure to keep the hard facts carefully hidden from others. As far as his friends and acquaintances knew, he was successfully manipulating the opportunities offered by the internet to advance his fast-growing business.
May 2017
Still, Yitzy was careful to keep to his word. There was not one computer to be found in his home. None of the primitive hard drives, keyboards and processors were wired up together. That would be exposing his children to unnecessary risk.
May 2022
Sarah used her iShop to order her gown and jewelry for the evening. Nobody would have dreamed 10 years ago that someday you could sit in the comfort of your living room and view a complete catalog in 3D, just as if the item were right in front of you! The caterer, decorator and musicians were hand-picked, based on who had earned the best internet ratings.
Yitzy was reminded of the massive asifa of 10 years before when the rabbis had made such a big deal about the internet. Now they were arranging a follow-up asifa for the public to renew its commitment to avoid unnecessary use of the internet in any form. Over 100,000 Orthodox Jews were expected to participate this time around.
May 2027
Yitzy could tell the issue was closed and there was nothing further he could do. Fuming, he cut off the image of the principal without bothering to say goodbye. The Yom Tov passed in a blur and Yitzy frantically tried to find a new yeshiva for his son, but it seemed that they were all in communication with each other. Whomever he spoke to responded politely but firmly that there was no room for Yossi in their yeshiva.
Weeks passed and there was no improvement in the situation. Yossi was sitting at home wasting his entire day, from night until morning, with the newest device his father had given him a few months before. It was a fantastic phone, toy, player and much more all wrapped in one.
Of course, it was powered by continuous online interaction, but who was still concerned about that? After observing the change in his son, though, Yitzy was forced to face the sinking feeling that perhaps the yeshiva principal had been right after all. He sat back and thought the matter over. There was no other choice. He would have to find a way to get Yossi back into the same yeshiva. But if the principal was dead set against it, how could he accomplish that?
Their conversation was over, but Yitzy could not bring himself to move. He sat in the same place for a long while mulling over what the Rosh Yeshiva had just told him. Hardest of all was to admit that he, Yitzy, the self-proclaimed expert on modern technology, had erred drastically. The rabbis had been right after all, of course, and he of all people had been trapped by the yetzer hara into the most pernicious of errors.
May 2032
Now Yitzy could no longer find cheap suppliers for his products. With the gray market effectively closed, Yitzy tried competing directly with the wide range of new products and applications that flooded the retail market in the new Grid epoch. Massive fiber-optic cables now crisscrossed America, replacing the primitive telephone and cable lines that once transmitted messages and data. Now the entire Europe and North America relied solely on the unified cable service to provide VoIP. You could no longer get telephone service without being connected to the Grid. And that same cable delivered television and movies, including the most depraved. All you needed was a small device to access the information that was present. And despite all the efforts by responsible Jews to keep television and movies out of their homes, there was always the worry that one of the children would obtain any of various devices that would allow them to access everything.
Newspapers, that all-American pastime, had entirely disappeared to be replaced by iPapers that were updated hourly. And virtually any information you needed was now available in an instant using the TalkTalk technology. Anything you needed to know, find or buy could be presented as a verbal query and TalkTalk would tell you where to find out or whatever you wanted to know.
Recently, the new I-glasses had become an overnight sensation. Using a wireless connection to the Grid, these glasses provided you with all sorts of information about whatever building or site you looked at, such as what was inside and even the history of the building!
Even videos were almost entirely on their way out. Now holograms were used to give you the feeling of a live conversation with a person who was actually on the other side of the world. Teleconferences between executives now took on the feel of personal meetings as the realtime image of participants at widely distributed locations joined in holographic unity. When a major event was organized in Eretz Yisrael, Jews in America could participate fully sitting in their own auditorium. They watched a live hologram of the speakers as they delivered their message, complete with gestures, from thousands of miles away.
Yossi had long since left the picture entirely, and his minimal contact since then had only been to encourage his younger siblings to join his dissolute ways. Unfortunately, more than one of them had been convinced. Yitzy tried spending some time studying Gemara. After years of constant exposure to the ever-changing technology, however, he found that he could not concentrate on anything anymore.
May 2062
It was the voice of his wife Sarah, who sounded very concerned.