A few days ago my computer screen showed me the dreaded words “your keyboard batteries are low.” Well even I know how to replace batteries or so I thought. For then I discovered that one of the batteries was completely wedged and stuck in the small tube that governs the keyboard. I could not remove it no matter how hard I tried or whatever instruments of destruction I used.

So I took the keyboard to my friendly Apple distributor here in Jerusalem and asked them to remove the battery. They labored mightily, consulted with each other often in dire whispers, and finally told me that they would have to send the keyboard away to some mysterious laboratory that would pursue the problem but they could not guarantee any results. And they also told me I would have to pay a considerable amount of shekels for the laboratory's unguaranteed attempt.

Needing my keyboard to produce my immortal prose and seeing that a new keyboard was almost the same price as fixing the old one, if the old one could in any way be fixed at all, I opened my wallet and plunged into the purchase of a new keyboard.

Arriving at home I followed the instructions as to how to install this miraculous device so that it would pair with my computer. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to follow the instructions on the screen some miracle happened and the keyboard began to work. Hence this brilliant article which you are now reading.

Since the keyboard is a wireless one, to my technologically ignorant mind its effectiveness borders on the miraculous and I am grateful for its ability to somehow transfer my thoughts on to the computer screen and eventually on to paper and into your psyche.

It struck me that my advanced computer with all of its gadgets, programs, preferences and connections to the entire world is fairly ineffective without a keyboard. Without it I could not respond to my emails nor could I work on the book that I am currently toiling to write. And certainly, I would be unable to write this article if I did not possess a working keyboard that somehow pairs with my computer.

For the first time I really realized why this device is called a keyboard and not a word board or letter board. Because it is the key to the entire project and to all of the technology associated with it. Without the keyboard one can perhaps receive but certainly not send messages and responses. Without the keyboard one cannot give written expression to one's thoughts and ideas. Without the keyboard the computer and all of its wondrous complexity is pretty much a useless machine.

And this set me thinking further about how halacha and ritual are the keyboards to Torah and Jewish life generally. Pretty much everyone agrees to the value system and general moral ideas that the Torah represents – charity, compassion, peace, human and personal harmony, knowledge and purposeful living. Yet that value system pretty much resembles the computer without the keyboard, for there is no detailed instruction sheet that will enable us to activate and actuate these values in our everyday lives. Without the keyboard that pairs with our moral computer, that system remains pretty much vacuous phrases and piously uttered platitudes.

Since I am mechanically challenged, I was delighted that somehow I was able to get my new wireless keyboard paired with my computer and working. I can't really explain how I did it or how the keyboard and the computer work together to produce written words. Yet, as you can see by reading this article somehow it works and pretty much to perfection.

The same is true of halacha, detail and ritual regarding Jewish life. The observance of the commandments, of the traditions of Israel and even of the apparently nagging minutiae in Jewish law and daily behavior somehow connects us and pairs us with the great computer of Torah values and eternal life.

All of Jewish history proves this axiom of Jewish personal and societal life to be true. Meaningful survival as a people and as individuals has always been connected to having a keyboard that works and pairs us with the value system and eternity of Torah.

It would be wise for all of us to recharge the batteries of our keyboard and to make certain that they are strong and full so that we may also be blessed with the greatness of Torah observance and with a productive and valuable Jewish existence.

Shabat shalom

Berel Wein