Virtuosos of the Virtual

The virtual hugs and kisses to children and grandchildren through pantomime and gestures; the virtual visits through windows and porches; the virtual handshakes between friends by rubbing elbows. With this lockdown we have been introduced to the reality of the virtual. We have grown accustomed to virtual classrooms and lectures, virtual synagogues and study halls, virtual wedding receptions and simchahs, virtual shivah calls. And now, Major League Baseball, with grandstands corona-empty, is using carboard cutouts to fill their seats to create virtual overflow crowds who, through recordings of crowd noise, cheer virtually.

So far we don’t have virtual meals, since restaurants are delivering real meals, but perhaps our human ingenuity will someday invent a process by which we can actually be satisfied by virtually eating virtual food. Which would be a blessing, because then the weight we gained would only be virtual.

Fortunately, one can still daven alone in reality, but it is not like being in a real shul with Torah reading and Kaddish and Amen — plus other people. We can study Torah, but doing so alone or even with an electronic study partner or rebbi is not the same as sitting in a large study hall with the background hum of many others who are studying with living chavrusas. Virtual is still not reality — not yet.

But the danger is that with a little more time in lockdown, the demarcation lines could become blurred, and before we know it, we could become virtuosos of the virtual. So accustomed might we become to our make-believe activities that virtual would tend to become reality, while actual reality would become virtual.