Dear Rabbi,

What on earth was the wisest of the wise thinking when he said, "There's nothing new under the sun?" I wonder if King Solomon would have said the same thing if he had Internet access.

Dear Gaon,

In the Book of Koheles King Solomon wrote: "There is absolutely nothing new under the sun." He meant that in the physical world nothing is created new. There is no creation ex nihilo, only the transfer of energy and reassembling of different parts into different structures. All of "modern technology" has existed since ancient times, in potential. When G-d created the physical universe, telephones, fax machines and "Internet access" came into existence, in their component parts. It was only up to us to figure out how to put them together.

Only in the spiritual world - "above the sun" - is there renewal. Through the power of free will a person can create a spiritual reality that was not preordained and is not just a continuation of a process already started. Repentance, choosing against one's conditioning, acts of altruism - these are all acts of creation. This is what King Solomon meant when he said "nothing new under the sun."