Jewish law and ethics in the digital era

Speech, language, and communication play a central role in Judaism. As an ethical religion, Judaism regulates not only man’s relationship with God but also with his fellow man. Judaism does not preach ascetism or social isolation, but encourages social participation. The Jewish Weltanschauung (philosophy of life) is that Man should use his free choice to raise his stature to emulate the characteristics of the Infinite God. The process of so doing can be said to yield a “Jewish” theory of the functions of speech in society. By Jewish theory and Jewish law, I refer primarily to dominant religious traditions as they have evolved over centuries, recognizing that there are increasingly plural perspectives with different claims to legitimacy. A theory of communication and society draws upon the Five Books of Moses, or Torah, which contains 613 positive or negative commandments. True, the Bible is multifaceted and is also a source of information about the growth of the Israelite people from the days of the Patriarchs, the 210-year-long slavery in Egypt, the forty-year-long travels in the Sinai desert to the Land of Canaan, as well as a chronicle of such media events as the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. However, the covenant between God and the Israelites appears paramount. Drawing upon the covenant made between God and the Patriarchs and Moses, Judaism provides an important ethical dimension; the commandments aim to establish a society that was just by the standards of the day and distinctive in its service of God. The covenant promised the Israelites that they would be God’s chosen ones if they observed God’s commandments. The most famous are those in the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, which include such fundamental rules of ethical conduct as those prohibiting murder, theft, adultery, and idol worship, as well other commands like observing the Sabbath day of rest. Judaism’s view of speech and communication, as I relate it here, draws upon edicts which originate in the Bible and have been subject to interpretation and extrapolation in the Talmud and to codification in books of Jewish law (Halakhah).