At his blog Windows and Doors, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield encourages Jews to attend Yom Kippur services, even if they have to do it online:

That’s the invitation being offered by many individual synagogues and even by the Jewish Television Network, a pioneer in using many forms of communications technology to meet the needs of Jews, and anyone else interested in Jewish thought and practice. While some in the Jewish community object to the very notion of people tuning in online for their Yom Kippur experience, there is much about this that deserves to be celebrated. As I told the Steve Lipman of the New York Jewish Week, “The more opportunities there are for people to connect, the better it always is.”

[…]

While I wish that more people broadcasting their services better appreciated how new technology and new means of communication create genuinely new understandings of community and connection, the changes they are bringing are no more radical than the writing down of the oral torah, Maimonides popularization of a simplified law code over the more complex Talmud, or the institution of regular prayer that could be performed anywhere as a substitute for animal sacrifices offered exclusively in the Jerusalem Temple.

Read the full post here.