As the Mishnah Yomit cycle nears the conclusion of Seder Zeraim, I found myself looking for a resource that could help visually represent some of the more confusing aspects of Masechet Shabbat for my MishnahYomit video series on YouTube. (This is a great opportunity to join the program! Shabbat begins next Monday, February 22nd!) By the way, the website, Mishnah.co, will finally be up very soon! Last Friday I was in Yerushalayim for a Shiva visit, and took the opportunity to browse a Sefarim store to see what I could find. I found a wonderful series that I had known about called "Mishnah Behirah".

In Israel, people consider this a "youth" Mishnah series. I think that's far from the truth. Yes, there are pictures, but often pictures represent the very best way to visualize a complex idea. In addition, the series includes wonderful charts that display the information in the Mishnah in an organized fashion. I'm really into charts - and will often take a Mishnah and make it into a chart just to understand it better. So I bought the Mishnah, hoping to share some of the visuals on the Mishnah videos.
In the past, I would have just taken pictures and shared them without asking. I have recently become more careful about using other peoples' information without permission, so I called the Chorev publishing house in Jerusalem to ask permission to use their pictures. (Naively, I was hoping that they'd share the pictures with me, so that I wouldn't have to take pictures of the page...) The answer was immediate: No. We don't give permission to anyone to use our images. We've invested a great deal of time, effort and energy in compiling and producing this series, and we don't share it with anyone ever. After futilely trying to argue my case for about ten seconds, I gave up. My videos will have to include my own pictures, or whatever I can find on the web. I won't be using their pictures without their permission.

From one perspective, I understand their point of view. After all, if they would let me use their material, they might as well let everyone use it. Heck, they might as well just put up a website and give away their material for free! Why would anyone then buy their books?

Yet, I believe that in today's day and age, their logic - rather than saving them money - is actually costing them money in sales, publicity and distribution. My proof? Peninei Halachah from Rav Melamed.

If you haven't heard of this series, Peninei Halachah is, by far, the most popular set on Halachah in the Religious Zionist community in Israel today. Its popularity stems first and foremost from the fact that Rav Eliezer Melamed is a great posek blessed with a gift of not only communicating the halachah, but also explaining the beauty and logic behind the halachah. Over a period of many years, Rav Melamed wrote a weekly column in the B'sheva weekly paper which ultimately grew into the Peninei Halachah series sold around the world (a few volumes are even available in English). Yet, despite the fact that the books are sold for money, the entire text is available for free over the internet, on his website as well as in a free Android app. I would argue that rather than hinder sales, his free distribution model is precisely what has made his books so popular and boosted his sales significantly - in the unique market that of Jewish religious texts.

Most people don't read through Judaic texts straight. You don't buy a five volume set of Chumashim and then read through them. You use them when needed - as references. Sure, your daughter might be studying Shemot in high school. But we buy the full set of Mikraot Gedolot, and leave them on the shelf to be used when necessary.

With the advent of the internet, I imagine that people have been buying fewer and fewer books. And newspapers are indeed dead as we used to know them. But the religious Jewish community still needs its books for two reasons: despite the ubiquitousness of the web (and the fact that I teach Mishnah via YouTube), there's still no substitute for the actual book itself. Truth be told, I really don't enjoy reading on a Kindle that much. And there's always Shabbat - when we do a good chuck of our learning. So, despite the fact that the entire Kehati is available for free download for your phone, people continue to buy Kehati Mishnayot. I'll learn on my phone if I'm stuck somewhere. But I'll always prefer studying in an actual book - whatever the size.

This was my argument to the Mishnah Behira guy: Rather than hurting your sales, if you give away your material, more people will know about the books, and more people will then buy them to study a particular masechet. Of course some people won't. But in the end, I believe that good Sefarim have a future in the small market that is the religious community, and that rather than hurting a publisher, giving away access to material can actually be an important tool that drives sales of the books themselves. Who knows? If you get popular enough, maybe a well-known foundation will give you millions of dollars to publish your series online.

If the web has taught us anything, it's that nowadays, there's more than one way to sell a Jewish book.

The Facebook post started with a simple question:

Has anyone ever heard of a pregnant or nursing woman only fasting until Chatzos if Tisha B'av is a nidcheh? I remember someone once telling me this and I'm trying to find a source for it...

The post clearly touched a nerve with the Facebook friends who began to suggest answers to the question.

- There are definitely kulahs with a nidcheh fast. Ask your LOR (Local Orthodox Rabbi). Will probably depend on the specific situation.
- Ask your rabbi...I've heard a few different things.

Then, the poster responded with a semi-joking comment:

I'm trying to send my LOR in the right direction :-)

This was followed by a series of comments and suggestions, including piskei halachah by no less than two rabbis, both of whom offered different opinions. One said, "A choleh should fast until morning. There's nothing special about chatzos for fasting." In other words, she must begin the fast, but can break it by morning. Another wrote that, "On a tisha bav nidche pregnant women who experience even mild discomfort, break their fast . see biur halacha 559:9 s.v. vaino . nursing women are in the same category this means whenever you feel worse than normal fast even a headache alone is enough to eat you eat normally no shiurim." In other words, you must fast normally, until and unless you feel discomfort, at which point you can break your fast.

In the course of the thread, other posters shared the rulings of Rav Avigdor Neventzal (who rules that pregnant or nursing women need not fast at all) and Rav Yaakov Ariel (who ruled that they must begin the fast and can break it if they feel discomfort).

The entire thread and ensuing discussion raises for me the thorny issue of psak halachah in the age of the Internet. What is psak halachah, and can there even be such a thing, when every possible question has already been asked (and answered), and is readily available to anyone who knows how to search for it - and often those answers conflict?

Clearly, this "open information" has already affected the way that we ask our questions. The thread I mentioned above is a case in point: instead of asking her rabbi, the poster asked a "shaila" of the "crowd". Moreover, it's not really a question per se, but a search for a specific answer that she's heard of. If she wanted a "clean" answer, she could have texted her rabbi, "Hi! As you know, we just had a baby. Do I need to fast this year on Tisha B'av?" But that wasn't her question. As she herself admits, she doesn't want a clean answer. She wants the "right" answer: "I'm trying to send my LOR in the right direction."

Then, as I noted above, the post developed into a discussion about actual psak, pitting two sets of rabbis (LORs and Gedolim) against one-another, leaving our harried poster both confused and frustrated. She wanted a clear answer, not a "see how you feel". After all, who doesn't feel hungry and thirsty and in discomfort on a fast day? (She's totally right about that point.) Yet, her desire for a straight, clean answer of yes or no is directly in conflict with her posing of the question originally. Does she really want a "yes or no", or is just a "no, you don't have to fast" the answer that will satisfy her?

I wonder how these types of questions are now affecting rabbis and the pressure they feel to issue more lenient piskei halachah. Imagine that I receive this question from a congregant, and I feel that halachah requires women to fast (unless they feel "discomfort"). Yet, I know that the person asking the question has already looked up this issue on the Internet. And if she hasn't, she will then turn to Facebook to express her frustration that she has to fast on Tisha B'av. I can just see the post now.

Poster: Ugh! I hate fasting on Tisha B'av, especially when I'm nursing!
Friend 1: What? Why are you fasting? My rabbi (who lives in another part of the world) told me that I don't have to fast.
Friend 2: I never fasted for two years after I gave birth. Sefardim rule!
Friend 3: Rabbi Such and Such posted three years ago that if you're thirsty, you can break your fast...

It's not that difficult to imagine. It happens all the time.

The next time this woman has a question, will she turn to her LOR? Or, will she turn to the rabbi across the country, or just to the "hive" to figure out what psak makes the most sense to her. The rabbi knows all of this. He knows both positions. To what degree does this knowledge affect the answer that he gives her?

I find the whole thread fascinating in that it raises important questions about psak and poskim in an Internet age where everything is available on the Internet. How can there be psak when we all have five rabbinic "friends" who give different answers? What does it even mean to ask a question?

The answers to these questions might very well be determined by no less than our relationship to halachah. The answer to all of these questions will ultimately depend on the degree to which we can return to the famous concept in Pirkei Avot called, "Aseh lecha rav" - make for yourself a rabbi. Halachah is uniquely personal. It can be both rigid but also flexible when necessary. But we, as a community, seem to have fallen into such a robotic adherence to ritual, without its attendant deeper meaning, that we're always looking for the easiest way to fulfill our obligation and be done with it. To do that, all you need is information. You don't really need a rabbi. You need a website, and today there are plenty of those. Then its simply a race to the bottom, to find the most lenient "accepted" rabbi, and before you know it, the most lenient position becomes normative.

The job of a rabbi isn't just to be a website. I've never really liked SMS questions (which are all the rage in Israel - still!) because they rid the halachic process of any relationship between the petitioner and the rabbi. The job of the rabbi isn't just to issue black and white rulings. It's to transmit not only the ruling in a manner that's most meaningful and relevant to the person asking the question.

The entire discussion about fasting revolved around purely technical issues - must a nursing woman fast on Tisha B'av or not? Of course there are technical halachic issues at play, but nowhere in the thread did anyone raise the issue of why: Why should she fast? Why should she not? No one "wants" to fast on fast day. Today we wish each other an "easy fast". "Hope it's not too hard!" Does that really make sense? Isn't the idea of fasting supposed to be hard? In essence, wishing someone an easy fast is saying, "I know we're all fasting because we have to; But I hope the day goes by quickly, with as little discomfort as possible." Clearly people don't mean it this way, but that's what it boils down to. If you're going to do it, hopefully the bitter pill goes down easy.

Nowhere in the discussion of whether this woman must or must-not fast was the issue of meaning. Chazal felt that our actions influence our attitudes, nowhere more than on days of mourning, like Tisha B'av. Nowhere in the discussion, did the personal needs of the individual arise. What if, instead of asking Facebook, the person asking the question called her rabbi with the very same question, and got this answer:

R: Well, how do you fast? (That's a really important question in this discussion, which never really came up.)
Cong: Well, I get pretty thirsty - but not really different than most mornings. It's a fast day after all.
R: Do you get bad headaches? Does fasting make it challenging for you to function?
Cong: Not usually, but I'm worried about having to fast and take care of my baby.
R: Can your husband come home and help out, instead of spending all morning in shul? If we can find a way to handle the childcare together, could you fast in a meaningful way?

Thus, the same rabbi might very well give two different answers to two different women, depending on each one's personal situation.

Rabbis would love to answer questions in this way, but they also need to feel secure in knowing that their congregants aren't shailah-shopping. Aseh lecha Rav means asking a rav a question with the confidence that the rav will give me the best answer for me, regardless of what he answered someone else (or what someone else answered on the Internet). It means asking an open, honest question, without a predetermined answer. It doesn't mean that you can't push back - that's definitely part of the conversation. But it does imply the trust that when I ask my rabbi my question, I trust that he will, to the best of his ability, give the answer that he feels best applies to me, in my current situation.

In the end, it's all about trust. And trust in rabbis in general isn't a popular topic nowadays. I guess we all have a lot to fast for this coming Tisha B'av.

If you recently got an email from me (at my Hotmail account) offering you either:
1. A great way to earn money from home
2. A plea for money because I'm stranded without my wallet at a hotel in Europe
3. An offer to sell you a magical product that will enhance a part of your body
It's not me. I've been hacked! Thanks to the people who sent me emails notifying me of this sad development.
And yet, I feel fortunate, for I was hacked at my Hotmail account, which I abandoned years ago as my primary account, and only used for dumb websites that required me to supply an email address.
Also, a few months back I read a quite chilling account of email hacking in an article in the Atlantic, (read it - it will scare you too!) and was frightened enough to change my password (from the one my Gmail account used to share with my Hotmail account - oops) and to try and back up my email. For whatever reason, I couldn't get it to work properly.
The greatest danger of hacking isn't that my friends will wire money to Uganda. Rather, it's the loss of critical information. Because hackers - once they're into your account, will usually just delete it all and start sending mass emails.
Think about it this way: how much of your critical personal information - not only stuff that identifies you and is the gateway to your money - but the stuff you need and use to function in today's digital world? If you lost your main email account, how much of your life's history would be gone?
For me, it's a lot. Which is why:
1. I changed my password yet again.
2. I'll take the time to properly backup my email.
I strongly recommend that you do the same.

Gil Student just published an important piece on the various forms of internet filters available. I highly recommend it, and especially the advice for parents with children on the web that he shares at the end of the post (which I haven't fully implemented yet - but will). In Israel, the server-side filters are far more developed than they are in the United States (we use Internet Rimon, but there are other options available as well), and are even cheaper than many of the regular internet providers.
And yet, despite all of our efforts, we know that internet filters don't really work. For every effort that we make to make the internet safer in our homes, we know, deep down, that our children are often way, way ahead of us.
I was recently invited to speak to a group of seventh-grade boys, and I spoke with them about the challenge of making good choices. When I casually alluded to the choices that they make when they're sitting at the computer and noted that we have Internet Rimon in our home, their teacher chimed in.
"You know," he told me, "there's a program that you can download to get around Rimon's limits - and all of the kids know about the program?" I didn't know. "Even worse," he said, "is that you can download the program from the web, and Rimon doesn't block the site from which you can download the program!"
I can't say that I was that surprised. After all, children throughout time have exerted immeasurable efforts to circumvent the limits that their parents place upon them.
And yet, despite the fact that these filters are limited; despite the fact that they have holes - they're critical tools that every religious person needs to install in his or her home. Moreover, they're not just for our children. These filters are important - perhaps even most important - for ourselves.

Let us not mince words. The Internet doesn't only present a danger to our children. We fall prey to those very same dangers ourselves. We seek not only to protect the members of our families from their lapses; rather we must also protect them from our failures as well.
How then are we supposed to protect ourselves from ourselves? After all, if I'm the one that set up the web filter; if I have the passwords, and can circumvent the censor, of what value is the filter?
I believe that they offer great value, especially when we examine an important aspect of how the yetzer hara functions, and one of the principal ways that he (the side of us which draws us toward sinful activity) operates.
Essentially, our yetzer hara doesn't want us to think. He wants us to do anything but think. He wants us to yearn, to desire, to act impulsively. He realizes, perhaps better than we do, that when we pause to examine our actions, chances are that we'll make the right choice. When we stop to weigh whether we really want to sin, and consider not just the benefits, but also the consequences, there's a strong possibility that we won't sin after all. It's just not worth it.
Our yetzer hara knows all of this. So his best bet is to avoid the thought process entirely. So he tells us to, "Just Do It." Now. Don't Delay. Don't think. And that, to our great dismay, is precisely what we do.
The best illustration of this tactic that I've ever read can be found in the first letter of C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters." (While Lewis himself was speaking about Christianity - in fact, the entire book is a series of "letters" from a head tempter to one of his junior associates - the work is perhaps the most effective mussar work I have encountered, and I try to reread it before Rosh Hashanah each year.) In the first letter he writes,

My Dear Wormwood,
I note what you say about guiding your patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naif? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy's clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons, we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" or "false," but as "academic" or "practical," "outworn" or "contemporary," "conventional" or "ruthless." Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.
The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy's own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below. By the very act of arguing you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result! Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it "real life" and don't let him ask what he means by "real."
Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (oh, that abominable advantage of the Enemy's!) you don't realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument, I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control, and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear what He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line, for when I said, "Quite. In fact much too important to tackle at the end of a morning," the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added "Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind," he was already halfway to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of "real life" (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all "that sort of thing" just couldn't be true. He knew he'd had a narrow escape, and in later years was fond of talking about "that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safe guard against the aberrations of mere logic." He is now safe in Our Father's house.
You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can't touch and see. There have been sad cases among the modern physicists. If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology; don't let him get away from that invaluable "real life." But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is "the results of modern investigation." Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!
Your affectionate uncle,
SCREWTAPE

If what Lewis wrote held true in England of the 1930s, how much more true are his sentiments today! We live in an era of constant distraction, when we can't get anything done without being interrupted by texts, instant messages, emails, status updates, tweets, calls - the list is unending. It seems that if we're not doing three things at once, we're not really doing anything. And, with smartphones, we're distracted even while interacting with other people. Even when I'm giving a shiur, people constantly check their phones, text, send email. (As a teacher, that's really distracting.) It seems that what happens on Facebook today is, in fact, more real than the actual lives that we're leading. That's just how the yetzer hara likes things. Don't think. Click. What's next. Click on that link.
The greatest danger of the Internet isn't simply the content. Rather, it's the fact that the most dangerous, insidious, pernicious content is instantly accessible. Back when I was a kid (yes, I know, ages ago, when they still distributed movies on tapes), if you wanted to watch something remotely inappropriate, you had to have gumption to actually rent it from the video store. There was some sense of shame. But not today. With the web, you're there in literally an instant, without thinking. And, before you know it, you've enmeshed yourself in a website from which it's difficult to disengage.
This, to my mind, is one of the primary motivations for internet filters.
No, they're not perfect, and clever people can get around them, perhaps easily. But filters make us pause, if only for a moment. And a critical moment it is. If I've got to get around the filter that I myself put into place, I must take at least one additional step in order to access a site that the software thinks I should not.
That instant is crucial, because it's the moment that I must stop and ask myself, "Do I really want to access that site?"
More often than not, the answer is no. So I click elsewhere.

I'd like to thank the good people of Group-e, the Orthodox Groupon (that's right, the people that brought you Arba Minim over the internet), for the following email.

I eat at my desk a lot. That's just the way things work out when I'm at the office - and sometimes even at home. I'm too lazy to go down to the lunch room to eat, and I often bring food from home. Only problem with eating at my desk, is that I have, at times, found myself forgetting to recite Birkat Hamazon. Moreover, I've got to find a siddur, get the page. (I try to bentch from a text when I'm not driving. I find that driving and reading don't often go well together.) You know - difficult things to do when I've got work to do.
I just found an internet site that makes all that a thing of the past. No need to open an actual book, or even take our your iPhone and tap on the bentching app. Nope, now there's eBirkon.
You click to the site, tell it what nusach you want, and presto - the text of Birkat Hamazon is right there on the screen.
Only one problem: What will my excuse be when I forget to bentch now?

I work on a number of different computers: home, netbook, work, other work, and often find myself in need of files from one job at a different computer. (This is a rather common need. I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone.) A few months back I stumbled upon a great web app that fills exactly this need called Dropbox. Basically, it creates a folder on your computer in which you put any document you want. Then you install Dropbox on any other computer you want, and you'll immediately find every document that you use in the folder automatically updated. Even better, if you use the file and make changes on one computer, those changes will be updated on every computer.
You can even access the files on the Dropbox web site if you need. So now, wherever I am, the files that I need are right where I need them, and I don't have to wonder whether I've got the latest version of that file.
I must admit: this is not rocket science. It's something that a zillion people have needed for ages, and one wonders why Microsoft never built this into Windows. Oh yes, they're trying with something called Windows Live Skydrive from Microsoft. In typical fashion, Microsoft has succeeded in creating a convoluted, cludgy, difficult-to-use web application that I can't see anyone adopting. (expect Dropbox to be bought out by Google in the near future.)
Stick with Dropbox. It's simple, intuitive, easy, simple, and useful.
And oh yes, for up to 2gb of information it's also free.

Disclaimer: I am not an employee of Dropbox or any of its subsidiaries. Nonetheless, I would be happy to receive free stuff from them at any time. To that end, if you're considering trying Dropbox (which you should), I'd be very happy if you used this link to connect to the service, so that I can get some free space. Thanks.

Pretty much the entire world uses gmail. Or if you don't, at some point your probably will.
And while gmail offers an incredible array of options and capabilities, for some reason gmail does not offer the ability to create sophisticated email signatures, including html, links, colors, etc. I've been looking for a while for this type of capability, and came across a great little tool called WiseStamp.
In my old emails, my signature was:

For free divrei Torah, articles and audio, surf on over to www.spolter.net!
Also, we've updated our US number. It's now 248-809-1048

But with Wisestamp, my emails now end with;

Rabbi Reuven Spolter
Cell: 054-220-4347
Home Phone in Israel: 077-501-1327
US Phone Number: 248-809-1048
rspolter@gmail.com For Torah articles and shiurim, visit my website, spolter.net or my blog, Chopping Wood

It's more visually appealing, useful and informative. You can also add feeds and other information. (I'm thinking of trying to add my shiur feed from YU Torah. But it might be too much.)
Anyway, Google has a habit of buying companies that improve its products and then incorporating them into the googlesphere. What a great investment opportunity, I thought. But it's not a publicly traded company. No, Wisestamp was created by a small group of programmers from, you guessed it, Israel.
I always find it exciting to learn that a new exciting product or service emanated from the Holy Land. It's the side of Israel that the world never really sees (or just doesn't appreciate) - Israelis making great things to make the world a better place.

Usually, I like being at the front of a tech curve. I like technically oriented magazines, blogs, podcasts, etc. I designed my own website, and do all kinds of things with digital media. Despite all of this, I never opened a Facebook account (nor do I Tweet). I've been thinking about why not for a while, and I can now boil it down to a few reasons:

1. Time Wasting: The NY Times posted this article about kids swearing themselves off of Facebook and watching their grades (and real friendships) improve. I already blow a staggering amount of time on the Interwebs. (see above). I console myself by telling myself that at least some of it carries a redeeming Torah value. At least I hope so. I also spend too much time reading news, checking the weather - you name it. I'm pretty confident that this is not a phenomenon unique to me. But Facebook takes time-wasting to a whole new level. Now it's not just famous people that I'd have to keep up with, but everyone: my friends, their friends, and their friends. And their pictures. And fun videos that they've flagged. And articles they'There's an almost infinite amount of Facebook worthy material for me to peruse, and I don't have time for it.

Then there's Farmville, Mafia Wars and other social network games - which I am intentionally not linking to. These are incredibly addictive, viral, mind-blowingly-time-wasting game that suck people in and then get them to pay real money for online stuff. I actually think that these types of game border on evil. If you want to waste your own time, that's one thing. But creating a game that asks people to waste time along with you to suck them in - that's an ethically questionable practice. End Farmville rant.

2. Silliness, Minutia and Friends: The funny thing about "friends" on Facebook is that they're not really friends. They're more like acquaintances; people that you know casually and keep track of. I don't care what my friend had for lunch or whether his kid has a cold (sure, it's a pain to them, but do I really need to know?), but I would love a forum where I could talk with real friends about real things. Facebook isn't built for that. It's more about quick hits and short status updates - Twitter on steriods, 140 characters at a time. I probably could build a closed Facebook group for my close friends to discuss real things, but then I'd have to deal with issue #1 (see above).

3. Modesty: There's something inherently immodest about the whole idea of Facebook. I don't mean immodesty in the skirt-length way, but rather in a lifestyle kind of way. Facebook is about broadcasting my status - what I'm doing, thinking, eating, which video games I'm playing - for the world to know. It makes everyone a mini-celebrity. We promote ourselves, because my gripes about my kids' homework, or what we had for dinner must obviously be important news. But this very notion of celebrity runs against the principle of modesty. Modesty teaches us to live a proper life without broadcasting details to the world - the very opposite of the Facebook ideal.

We live in a world fascinated with celebrity. Everyone wants to be famous - either for gatecrashing the White House or planting sweet potatoes in their virtual garden. Judaism wants us to do the opposite: to lead real, meaningful lives in which we engage with and study Torah with our real friends, children, and families. And, when we do these real things, we don't tell anyone about them.
God knows. And that's more than enough.

If you've ever been to a shiur of mine, you know that I generally try and hand out source sheets to the shiur with copies of the original text as it appears in book form. (Some people just copy the text from a CD, but I feel that the form factor of the text is important, and contributes significantly to the learning experience.) So I faithfully scan the books, edit the scans and paste the material using Microsoft Publisher. I once even gave a short presentation on how I make my sheets at the Soloveitchik Institute (a"h) for a bunch of rabbis. At the Tzohar Conference last week a fellow participant told me that since then he's been making his sheets that way, and he always thinks of me because of it.
I recently discovered a new tool that has the potential to save me a ton of time. HebrewBooks is a website that has put literally thousands of old seforim - most of which you've never, ever heard of - online and available for download. It's truly incredible. But they also helped me quite a bit, because they recently added a shas section which has the entire Shas available online both for reading and download. If you learn daf yomi and need a quick printout of today's daf, they've got you covered. If you're giving a shiur on masechet Brachot, and need a perfectly scanned copy of the entire masechta with the Rosh, Rif and Rabbeinu Yonah (like me), you can do that too. Oh yes - it's also totally free.
My chavruta and I were learning recently and we came across a reference to a Teshuva of Rav Moshe Feinstein in Igrot Moshe. I was about to get up to get one from the library when he opened his laptop, and quickly opened a pdf file with the entire eight-volume work. When I asked him where he got it from, he answered me in his heavy Hebrew accent: "Hebrewbooks."
You know how we're always complaining about how terrible the Internet is, with the pornography, violence, gambling, and pretty much everything else. We're right too. Except we don't often acknowledge that there's another side too. The Internet also has amazing learning sites (like, ummm, I don't know...spolter.net?), where you can download thousands of shiurim for free, and even learn the entire shas.
It's not that the Internet is bad. It's neutral. The trick is learning (and teaching our children) how to use it, and how to have the self-control to know where to go, and where to stay away from.