Meanwhile, individual communities are creating their own resources -- such as Chicago's Anshe Shalom publishing and regularly updating a .pdf list of acceptable kosher standards -- in order to wade through the muck of too much information.
Lately, the biggest internet advances haven't been about discovering new information so much as organizing the information that's already there. Facebook's mass attraction is not the plethora of information so much as it is the republishing and organization of already-there information in easily classifiable ways (Tweets from friends in San Francisco, photos from any comics convention I've ever attended). In terms of observance -- both in spreading information and ideas that are already around, as well as in ways of dealing with future challenges that we haven't even come in contact with yet -- information organization will play a more significant role. Imagine being able to scan any packaged food item and tell instantly whether your rabbi/kosher organization/high-school best friend would eat it. But imagine the possibilities on top of that -- that you could not only tell what foods are safe to buy, but be able to figure out where a ruling came from, read the original text, find out exactly why different rulings exist and even share your opinion instantly -- and you're one step closer to having a religion that's of the people, by the people.
Matthue Roth is an associate editor at MyJewishLearning.com, and the author of the novel Losers and the memoir Yom Kippur a Go-Go. With Sarah Lefton, he is the co-creator of the animated Torah series at G-dcast.com. He lives in Brooklyn with his family, and he keeps a secret diary at www.matthue.com.
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