Religion News Service
November 20, 2007 Tuesday 3:09 PM EST
Faithful keep the faith by clicking the mouse
BYLINE: By CHRISTOPHER DELA CRUZ
SECTION: LIFESTYLE
EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. — As David Magid studied for his bar mitzvah, his instructor directed him to an important blessing the 12-year-old would have to recite at the ceremony.
“Barchu et Adonai ha-m’vorach” (Bless the Lord, who is to be blessed), David said, speaking into the microphone attached to his computer in his East Brunswick home.
From a laptop in Brooklyn, Rabbi Yosef Goodman listened carefully to David’s words as part of his online tutoring session at barmitzvahlessons.com.
“I’d like to hear you say it nice and slow,” Goodman said, his voice booming through the speakers on David’s computer. “Point to the words as you read it.”
The year-old Web site is among several Internet venues for religious students to receive instruction amid increasingly hectic schedules for parents and youngsters. QuranReading.com and Islamicity.com provide connections between Muslim students and their teachers, some of them on the other side of the world.
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Robert Geraci, assistant professor at the department of religious studies at Manhattan College in New York, said such programs also raise concerns about the possible loss of a cultural connection.
“It is too early to tell whether it will encourage long-term identification with the Jewish people,” Geraci said of online programs. “I fear it will not because this kind of study discourages both parents and child from being a part of their local community.”
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(Christopher Dela Cruz writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)
LOAD-DATE: November 21, 2007
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