BOOK
When a man dies, John Donne wrote, he doesn't disappear but is "translated into a better language," and incorporated into "that library where every book shall lie open to one another." Seeking consolation in the wake of his grandmother's death, author Jonathan Rosen set off to find Donne's quote on the Internet. So begins a poetic and highly idiosyncratic meditation on the thirst for knowledge, the search for meaning, and the nature of truth.
After some observations about the Net, Rosen settles down to his real subject: the Talmud, which, like the Internet, he sees as "a kind of terrestrial version of Donne's divine library." A compilation of Jewish laws, and the lens through which all things can be viewed, the Talmud contains a blend of stories, folklore, legalistic arguments, anthropological asides, biblical exegesis, and intergenerational rabbinical wranglings.
First codified 1,500 years ago from an oral tradition and incorporating new layers of commentary from rabbis through the ages, the Talmud is a work in progress. Each generation of Talmudic scholars continues the discussion left off by its forebears, engaging the dead and the living in a millennia-long debate.
Alive to the currents of each age, the Talmud is more than a mere book, proclaims Rosen; it is, as he vividly puts it, "a drift net for catching God." Critically, it's a net that opens out "in ever-widening spools" through time and space. In this lovely image, one sees immediately the likeness with the Internet. Rosen, however, only alludes to these parallels. His book is a fine personal reflection on the Talmud, but anyone hoping for cyber-illumination is bound to be a bit disappointed.
The Talmud and the Internet: A Journey Between Worlds by Jonathan Rosen: $16. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: www.fsg.com.
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