David gross

David Gross

David Gross

Second Religion

“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain!” My 4th grade rabbi, Rabbi Klein, would often shout the Biblical verse at us in some mangled mixture of Hebrew and Yiddish. Such an epileptic spout was his instinctual response to hearing curse words (English curse words; we did not yet know how to curse in Hebrew). I always found it strange that Rabbi Klein considered “Shit” to be the Lord’s name; but, I found it even stranger that the Bible would decree such a law in the first place, and issue it amongst the ten most sacred commandments.[The “10 Commandments” are considered the most sacred of the commandments issued in the Bible. They include such heavyweights as “Don’t Kill” and “Don’t Steal.” Traditional Jewish sources count an additional 603 Biblical commandments, for a total of 613. 1]

At that time in my life, I fully believed in God, and believed that He was angry, and jealous, and temperamental, and quick to take action (think: alcoholic NRA member who just caught his wife in bed with the milkman). God sent the Jews to be slaves in Egypt in order to show Abraham who was boss. God helped the Jews escape Egypt, but forced them to wander aimlessly in the Desert for 40 years until they all died. When God’s biggest fan, Moses, made a tiny slip up,[In attempting to draw water from a rock in the Sinai Desert, Moses hit the rock instead of asking it nicely, as God thought was more appropriate. 2] God killed him before he had a chance to enter the Promised Land, and fulfill his lifelong dream. God was a badass, but I was worse. I would yell “Shit” and “Fuck” and whatever else could not be said on public television, and I did so knowing how much God hated it. I was fully prepared to do my time, and He certainly knew where to find me.

Alive and healthy by freshman year of yeshiva high school, I started to think God was deaf. A couple years later, I was convinced. This realization led me to a new God, one that wasn’t very interested. This new God was a passive investor, the type that checked in on the portfolio once every couple of millennia. I began to read the Bible metaphorically and eventually had rationalized away every instance of God’s interaction with this universe. Reward, punishment, and prayer were soon entirely absent in my unemotional conception of Judaism. Commandments no longer were fulfilled to appease God, but rather for utilitarian purposes, such as to construct a specific type of society, or to instill a certain philosophical notion in the believer.

“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain,” no longer concerned the uttering of a forbidden or profane word. Instead, it became an educational verse. My understanding of the verse was that it proclaimed that God’s essence is unknowable, and therefore any attempt to characterize God in anthropomorphic language was futile. More generally, it taught the lesson that labels and names can only go so far in truly getting to the heart of an issue; God was just one example. I certainly imagined that the Bible would have outlawed the utterance of any name, even that of another human, if it believed that society would be able to function in such a cloud of anonymity.

Prior to Second Life, I never genuinely felt like I had experienced the lesson of this verse. But now, after toying with the software, if I were absolutely forced to give myself a label, to choose a name that would best represent my identity, can I honestly say that the most correct answer would be “David Gross” and not “Vikingmoonshot Akroyd” (hereinafter: “V”)? Historically, I have logged more official time under the guise of David, about two and a half decades more. But, does that really matter? While V was only recently born, or officially registered, as a Second Life avatar just three months ago, does that mean he never truly existed, as a meaningful part of my identity, before that time?

Of course he has, and sometimes that notion scares me. It is easy for someone like David to be troubled by the implications of having an alter ego as radical as V. David at least appears to be straight laced. He is a somewhat traditional law student with interests in hockey, classic rock, and brunettes; nothing close to V, who might describe himself (herself?) as a busty, ageless, transgender, gothic, Second Life resident extraordinaire. Each morning, when David selects a certain color polo shirt to wear, V selects a sexual identity and preference. When David sits down to write a final paper on criminal law, V trespasses onto private virtual property in search of danger. When David takes an Amtrak train to visit his parents in New York, V explores the metaverse by virtual motorcycle.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if these two personalities, David and V, should ever meet. My first intuition would be that V would immediately write off David as a square, and David would immediately dismiss V as having absurdly low self-esteem. But if they could possibly sustain more than just a brief first interaction, what type of rapport would ensue? Perhaps they would be enemies, or rivals. Perhaps they would assume the roles in a teacher-student relationship. Could they be friends? Lovers? There are so many possibilities, but I know they would certainly have something to talk about. After all, they share at least one thing in common.

That one commonality is a soul. David and V share a single soul. They are kindred spirits, twins separated by the circumstances of their respective environments, and there is so much they need to catch up on.

The external shells of David and V suggest a stark dissimilarity; however, that may just be a product of the culture within which they were born. Take, for example, your ordinary case of time travel. If David went back in time, as a newly born infant, to The Middle Ages, the Dark Age, or the Age of Innocence, where social norms could not be more different than America in the 21st Century, would he not turn out differently? Now take your ordinary case of reincarnation. If David’s soul incarnated the body of Tórfa, an estranged 10th century Viking woman, who grew up on the frozen tundra, would her lifestyle not differ dramatically from middle class city-boy who currently attends HLS? Her (my?) passion, her intensity, her desire to find meaning would express itself, at least in part, as a reaction to the particular environment that molded her.

V is the reincarnation of David in Second Life. At the same time, David is the reincarnation of V on Earth (First Life? Real Life?). David’s desire to push the envelope and test boundaries, and his willingness to go at it alone would surely play out differently in an alternate time or place. The radical nature of Second Life lends itself to pushing its avatars past boundaries and into places their ‘real’ world counterparts may not normally have gone. In Second Life, V is doing exactly that - but since the environment in Second Life allows for acting out without real consequences (i.e., big daddy (David) is always around to pay the rent, buy more Lindens, watch so he doesn't get booted out), V is less outrageous than he would first appear.

Second Life, then, has provided an outlet, a judgment free zone within which David’s smallest personal instinct, no matter how socially perverse on Earth, can manifest itself as a fully fledged socially acceptable entity. In essence, it provides a metaverse formed with an unusual social contract, namely, that anything goes. Second Life offers the possibility for the comfortable unfolding of repressed desires and hidden lives. Freud would have a field day with this interface, and would probably locate it somewhere between psychoanalysis and dreams.

Thus, Second Life is so much more than Facebook or MySpace. It serves not only as a social networking tool between distinct individuals, but between different pieces of those individuals. It offers a space for every element of my personality to independently exist and interact. The best analogy I can think of is a prism. A prism takes in a conglomerate, the color white, and divides it until it returns the spectrum. Second Life takes in X, and returns V, as well as any other of personalities I wish to let loose.

But Second Life is not only a place for pieces of one's personality to act out in an environment where anything goes. It is a place for one's whole personality to experiment with alternative ways of life. In that respect it is different than a dream, which is pushed ahead by the subconscious in ways that need interpretation. In Second Life, the conscious person can test different ways of being. If V gets tired of Goth, he may revert to khakis; or maybe not, because even though Goth is played out for V, David still needs the experiment to continue. If David dropped out of school, and resorted to a life of heroin, prostitutes, and fast food, don’t you think V would have a wife, kids, job, and a mortgage? Or at least become respectable in some way or another?

David and V have a symbiotic life on a continuing basis. David’s actions and thoughts affect how V acts and thinks, and what V does affects David, on a daily basis. Since David and V are parts of the same essence, existing simultaneously in parallel universes, it is impossible that they are existentially disconnected. There is always a subtle, if subconscious interaction. Indeed, the best path to David’s own self-awareness is to examine V.

So David started examining V, to surprising results. In V, David rediscovered religion. More specifically, for the first time since before Rabbi Klein’s 4th grade class, he experienced a truly religious emotion, awe for God.

As a child I read the biblical texts that described the dimensions of the Holy Temple. I learned about the miracles that would occur daily in the Temple, and about the priests that would service the altar. As I grew older, I studied the oral and mystical tradition, and their allegorical understandings of the Temple service, but never experienced what these texts and traditions described, for the Temple has long been destroyed … at least until recently.

King Solomon built the First Holy Temple in Jerusalem during the 10th century BCE, and the Babylonians destroyed it 500 years later. Cyrus and Darius (the Greats) authorized and ratified a Second Holy Temple, again built in Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount, but that too was destroyed (this time by the Romans). Almost 2000 years later, a Third Holy Temple was built, or programmed, by Rabbi Writer, on the virtual Temple Mount in Second Life.

I had read about a virtual Jewish congregation in Second Life, which was hosting a candle lighting ceremony for the festival of Hanukkah.[http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847275426&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

3] The article discussed the growing Jewish presence on Second Life, and made mention of a virtual Tabernacle built by one of the congregation’s members. The conception of religion in the virtual world always intrigued me, and after finishing the article, I immediately summoned V to open the gateway to the metaverse.

As V waited anxiously, I found the correct coordinates to teleport him to the Holy Temple. This was no Berkman Island. The Holy Temple Island was a virtual ghost town, not another avatar in sight. As I turned the volume up, I was able to hear the faint sound of running water, almost as if the island constantly repeated a relaxing “Sounds of the Jungle” spa mix tape.

Most strikingly, the programmer that created this island had figured out some way of disabling the flying option, so V was forced to walk. It occurred to me that the programmer might have opted for this “no-fly zone” in order that visitors show respect for the Temple. I remember thinking that walking was a more reverential means of transportation than flying (maybe only because it is a more traditional means). Since this was the holiest Jewish sight in the metaverse, I somewhat agreed that clipping my wings was an appropriate measure.

V began walking, and walking, and walking. I then realized how much slower walking is than flying. When you walk in Second Life, it really takes time to cover ground. The virtual environment in which you find yourself has time to seep in. It then occurred to me that the slow nature of walking could be a way to allow the avatar to spend enough time in the Temple for it to level some emotional or religious impact on the person behind the scenes. Could this be a way to attract Second Life users to the religion?

V eventually made it to a staircase. As he hiked the twelve stairs, he was confronted with a gate, which opened up into the sprawling women’s section of the Holy Temple. The women’s section was the largest of any section of the Temple, and also was essentially empty, except for the storage rooms that occupied each corner. David let V wander into each room, as if on a scavenger hunt.

At the far side of the women’s’ section was another staircase, this one made up of 15 steps. The Temple was built on a mountain, and as one ventured deeper into the heart of its structure, towards the holier rooms and ultimately the most sacred room, the “Holy of Holies,” there were steep increases in elevation. After climbing this second set of steps, V confronted yet another gate, this one leading into the men’s section, or more specifically, the Israelite Courtyard. Male Jews were divided into 3 groups, Priests, Levites, and Israelites. Priests performed the services in the Temple, and were allowed to wonder anywhere within the Temple; Levites played the music and were resigned to their pews; and Israelites, the least holy of the three groups, were allowed to stay in the Israelite section and observe everything that transpired. V was now in this section, and it occurred to me, that this is how far David would have been allowed to venture, for he is an Israelite.

Yet another small step led from the Israelite Courtyard to the Priest’s Courtyard, and just like that, V entered forbidden territory. Not only was it unclear whether V was a priest, it was unclear whether he was male. V was certainly trespassing, but Second Life often allows for such questionable access. It was in the Priest’s Courtyard that I experienced yet another motive for disabling the flying option. It was there that V came face to face with the main Altar. The Altar towered over V, and for the first time in Second Life, V felt both physically and emotionally small. From his grounded position, it became clear that the virtual Temple had been built to scale, and without the ability to fly each structure’s magnitude struck hard.

Behind the tremendous Altar were the 30-foot doors that led to the main chamber. In order to visually experience their sheer size, I had to change my viewpoint from one in which David looked at V, to one in which David saw only through V’s eyes. At that moment, there was a real synthesis; David stepped inside V’s body and they shared one viewpoint.

I knew what had to occur next. I marched straight through those huge doors, and entered the second holiest room in the Temple. Overwhelmed with emotion, I saw the Inner Altar, the Candelabra, and the Bread Table, entities that I had studied extensively since elementary school. I had seen physical reconstructions previously, but never in the greater context. Never where they stood side by side in the room they were meant to inhabit.

Just behind one more curtain was the “Holy of Holies,” the most sacred room in the Temple. Nobody, except the High Priest, was granted access to that room. The Bible illustrates that the “Holy of Holies” was so exclusive, that the High Priest was granted access to it on only one day during the year, Yom Kippur. Legend had it that if the High Priest did not maintain perfect concentration while within that room he would instantly die, and the other priests would then pull him out by a string they had tied around his ankle. I was about to enter this room. This entire journey was about entering this room. Although I came to Temple Island in order to experience something sacred, a part of me wanted to walk right into that holiest room and see what would happen. To turn right to God in the “Holy of Holies” and scream “Fuck” and get shot down instantly. I was ready to do my time, but unlike those days of cursing in 4th grade, I was so nervous I was shaking.

I never made it into the “Holy of Holies.” I wish I could say my computer crashed at that moment. I wish I could say I felt the presence of God as I stood outside its door, and I politely turned away. Nope. Whoever created this Island, this virtual Holy Temple, whoever disabled the flying option, did not create a “Holy of Holies,” or at least forgot to create a serviceable entrance. I stood there for an hour trying every way I could to get inside, but to no avail.

Even Second Life has boundaries. That is what makes the interface so lifelike, and so emotionally empowering. When I perused articles about virtual spouses or virtual religious gatherings, or when as a class we conducted mock trials and legislative hearings in Second Life, I witnessed a necessary importation of real life structure into the otherwise infinite realm. It was that structure which served both to undermine the force of a purely magical virtual existence and to give that experience significant meaning. Ultimately, I think it is that structure which allows for the symbiotic relationship between the avatar and the person sitting in front of the computer screen. Without it, there would be no way to relate.