haishihongxia

I clicked on the small blue box marked "map" at the bottom of my screen. A menu of landmarks appeared and I clicked on "Second Life Synagogue." Immediately another box appeared asking if I'd like to teleport to this location. I clicked "teleport" and my screen went black. I could hear the sound of air rushing past as a blue horizontal bar began moving across the screen to let me know I Discount Tiffany 1837 nearing my destination. As soon as the bar reached the far side of the screen, the lights flashed back on and I could see my avatar standing in the synagogue.) About a dozen avatars were already gathered at the back of the shul where five sets of candles were ablaze, having been lit by avatars from earlier time zones.

The room grew silent and respectful as the angel, the cowboy, the rabbit, the disco queens, and the Hadassah lady watched [Beth] perform the magic that makes the virtual candles flicker to life. "Baritch Atah Adonoi, Eloheinu Melech ha'Olam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav it'tzivanu I'hadlik ner shel shabbaf appeared in the chatbox at the bottom of my screen. "Amen," Discount Return To Tiffany the angel, "amen," typed the cowboy, "amen, amen, amen," added each avatar in turn. "Omein," typed Shmoo, the rabbit who types with a Yiddish accent. Jieux Shepherd passed out free bottles of "wearable mani" ( Discount Paloma Picasso bottles of Manischewitz wine) that attached to our hands when we clicked on them and animated our avatars to drink. (Jieux had bought the Manischewitz as well as its facility to enact guzzling.) We resembled an AA meeting that had tripped and fallen down all 12 steps as the last bars of "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" faded from our computer speakers.

Beth listed the synagogue as a Second Life location, advertising its existence to all SL residents. (In other words, if a person went into "search" and typed the word "Jewish" or "synagogue," a photo of the new Discount Frank Gehry would appear along with an offer to teleport the resident to its location.) Without realizing it, she'd created the first Jewish content in Second Life. It took only two days tor a nascent Jewish community to begin coalescing around the new structure. Curious avatars, soon dubbed "Javatars," began wandering in from Great Britain, South Africa, Australia, Israel, Germany, Argentina, Spain, and every time zone in the US. Beth welcomed the newcomers, showed them around, answered questions, and soon knew many of their real-life names and stories.