(NON) VIRTUAL REALITY
We Jews take our religion seriously.
What allows us to do that is our knowledge that it’s real. There are no illusions or delusions involved in how we view Yiddishkeit. We relate to each and every particle of our faith as a rock-solid piece of reality. In an age inundated with virtual reality, that’s a powerful claim to be able to make.
The word “virtual” means almost real. Even before the computer age, individuals have striven to achieve something that approximates reality as nearly as possible. Artists, for example, and sculptors, and writers, take what they see and try to imitate it on canvas or stone or paper. The closer a copy of reality they manage to produce, the more successful the result is acclaimed.
“Wow! It looks real!” That’s a compliment any painter loves to hear about his work. A still-life of apples so glistening and delicious that you want to pluck one right out of its painted bowl and take a bite. A verbal description that makes an image spring out at the reader. A fictional story that draws you so fully into its world that the real one feels pale in comparison.
The fashioners of Madam Tussaud’s waxwork figures in the London museum of that name doubtless take great pride each time a tourist walks right by their handiwork, assuming that what he’s seeing is not an inanimate object made of wax but a living, breathing person.
Every work of art, if well done, is a bit of virtual reality.
Using art to simulate reality is not the only way to imitate it. Objects in three dimensions can also be captured on film or as a digital image. Before cameras were invented, you literally had to be there. Physical proximity was absolutely necessary in order to see or hear things. In a breathtaking manipulation of nature and science, we can now see a real-time image even if we’re miles apart. We take it for granted because we’re used to it… but wow!
Each time something in the real world is photographed or videotaped, the result is basically a one-dimensional substitute for reality. There’s not really a person or a train or any other solid object on your screen. It’s just a projected image. An almost reality.
So far, we’ve come up with two ways to emulate reality: by trying to simulate or copy it, and by capturing a visual image to serve as a substitute for it. A third way was discovered long before digital photos were ever dreamt of. I’m talking about the use of symbols.
In mathematics, for example, we use a number to represent a quantity. Instead of taking a hundred stones and adding them to another hundred stones and then totaling the result, we can come up with the right answer merely by jotting down 100 + 100. Currency works in a similar way, with dollar bills standing in as scrip for the gold bullion that backs them. Using symbols to represent all those stones or all that gold is certainly a tidier and more concise way of doing things.
All three methods of imitating reality—simulation, substitution, and symbolism—are extremely useful. They are also, like everything else in life, susceptible to corruption. They can be misused. And that misuse can cause harm.
Token Gestures
When you take something real and water it down to virtual or nearly real, vital aspects are lost in the translation. No matter how beautiful a painting is, or how lifelike an image on film, there’s no depth to it. No substance. What you have is a flat, one-dimensional version of reality that can never take the place of real life.
The apple that looks so tasty inside its frame cannot actually be plucked from its bowl. And it certainly can’t be taken in for nourishment. Our bodies crave the real thing. And so do our neshamos.
To do the job right, the important things in life need to be real. Take marriage, for instance. A couple who doesn’t take their commitment to each other and to their marriage seriously, who put on a show of unity for their neighbors while adopting an uncaring attitude toward one another in private, are like a one-dimensional version of what’s supposed to be a rich, deep, and meaningful relationship. In the gap between the two lies a world of suffering.
Even worse are parents who take pains to present a doting picture of themselves to the world where their children are concerned, but who in reality don’t take the time or trouble to get to know their kids, or to give them the overflowing warmth and love that youngsters so desperately need.
Blandishments and gifts are nothing more than token gestures, designed to produce an impression rather than nurture a small human being. Yet those same parents would react with horror if accused of denying their children anything. They’ve fallen for their own self-created virtual reality.
True Reality
Judaism takes itself very seriously. It’s all about what’s really real. That’s why, when the time comes to mourn the loss of the Bais Hamikdosh, the Shechinah’s home in our midst, we don’t satisfy ourselves with token gestures. Instead, we behave the way a person does when he’s lost a loved one, r”l. We stop eating. We stop drinking. We sit on the floor and cry. We grieve.
There’s often an unfortunate gap between what we know and what we feel. Knowing that we’re mourning something of ultimate realness, we may feel disheartened if we can’t muster up an appropriate level of grief over a time and a place that we’ve never personally experienced. So, on Tisha B’Av, we also bring up memories that may be easier for us to relate to. Tragedies that our nation has suffered: pogroms and massacres, inquisitions and exiles. We can even weep over our own personal tragedies, because we’re told that everything we suffer, as a nation and as individuals, stems from that first great loss.
One day soon, when the world reverts back to the way it’s supposed to be, when peace will fill the land and knowledge of Hashem cover it like life-giving water, we’ll finally get a taste of the true reality we’ve been mourning for. Not the kind of virtual or almost reality that we can sometimes mistake for the real thing.
And then we’ll really live happily ever after.
