When the rabbis of the Talmud were faced with ritual innovations the Jewish people had themselves introduced, they turned to a maxim, puk chazei look around and see what people are actually doing.

Like other sensitive religious leaders past and present, they understood that a community's creative religious genius cannot easily be squelched. When they saw that an innovation had become entrenched, even beloved, the rabbis stopped forbidding and started legislating. They claimed the idea such as breaking a glass at a wedding or casting sins out into the water was not even new, but established long, long ago. They would attempt to create a role for themselves as gatekeepers, setting rules and standards.

Nowadays, when Jews want to refresh a familiar Jewish ritual or perform it with a new mind-set, they may still seek guidance from the traditional arbiters of such matters – sacred Jewish texts, rabbis, and one's parents. But like the rabbis of old, they may also consult popular wisdom when seeking ways to reframe or reshape traditional practices so that they harmonize with current ideologies. They're likely to do so by casting their nets widely – not just among their circles of intimates, but in cyberspace.

This seems to be just what Ilana Streit of Waltham, Mass., was doing just before this past Passover, when she posted a message on a listserv. She was looking for a new way of singing Hallel, the traditional Hebrew psalms of praise:

"I'm looking for Hallel-type songs to use at my family seder," she wrote. "Given who'll be at the seder, it doesn't make sense to do much singing in Hebrew". I'd really like to do something in this slot of the seder. I'm thinking of using familiar and/or English songs, perhaps about freedom, Spring, or celebration. Please let me know if you have seder traditions or creative ideas to offer."

Quickly, she (and everyone else on the discussion group) heard back from Suzanne Silk Klein:

Over the years we've used a number of Negro spirituals (obvious ones like "Let my people go" "Down by the Riverside"), "If I had a Hammer" and even "Solidarity Forever." In addition both the peace and civil rights movements have wonderful songs that fit the spirit of the seder. We also mark the Warsaw Ghetto uprising with "Zog Nit Keymol" -- there's a good translation of it around. And we have sung "We shall overcome" when we consider contemporary plagues.

Jews who don't intend to change traditional practices but want to find new ways of thinking about them also turn to cyberspace, as did Sarah Chandler. There were only four days remaining before her four-day-old nephew did or did not have a bris. She posts that her sister:

is still considering whether or not to have a bris. She has decided however that she knows that when she makes the decision, it probably won't be logical, but she wants to make it with intention. So i am asking for your help. She is looking for any information you have about why someone would and wouldn't circumcise their son.... Even if it's a 3-sentence e-mail, "I am so glad I am circumcised! I feel connected to all the Jews!" or "Wish my parents hadn't done it" I think it would be helpful for her to hear a range of ideas.

Many people respond, including University of Virginia anthropologist Lise Dobrin. She posted her own thinking before her son Elie was circumcised:

Though we didn't really consider NOT doing it, we gave it a lot of thought, and it was still far from easy. What we underwent really felt like being there with Abraham at the akedah commanded to do something that cuts way too close to your heart, with no reason or rhyme, just to give expression to your relationship with God. Well Elie healed fine, and the trauma of the moment is long past. What I can wonder with you now though is, how would I feel if I hadn't gone along with it? Would I feel like MY feelings had come between my son and his Jewishness? And I think I'd always feel I had a lot of explaining to do (I know about this all too well because of the nontraditional choices we are making about educating our kids, which require much justification all the time). So, despite all the ugliness then, I think it brought me (and ultimately him) a certain ease and peace of mind we otherwise might not have.

All this activity indicates that in today's world, Jewish rituals are less likely to be embraced or rejected without a process of searching and reflecting through conversations in cyberspace with a community of strangers. When we, like the ancient rabbis "look around," we might even realize that these virtual conversations are a new spiritual practice. They display the hallmarks of ritual innovation that I see as positive indications of religious vitality: When people grapple earnestly with ancient sources, it shows that they know and respect the weight of inherited practices and care about them enough to subject them to scrutiny. When they demand to have choices in new practices and want to find ways to make them more personally relevant, they distinguish themselves respectably from the child of the Passover seder who asks uncaringly, "What does this have to do with me?"

The landscape for sacred insight has been expanded, as we look around and see what people are actually doing in real, and now virtual, worlds.