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It's a question rooted in an age-old practice but made new by the vicissitudes of modern technology: Is it kosher to ask mechila by e-mail?

Asking forgiveness, or mechilah, for wrongs committed against others is emphasized during the month of Elul, and given particular attention during the 10 Days of Repentance from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur.

Even today, the rabbis in centuries past who wrote and codified the religious texts that guide our behavior tell us that we must take personal responsibility and repent, do what's necessary to repair the wrong, apologize and ask forgiveness for hurts we may have caused others. And do it before the new year fully begins on the Day of Atonement.

Our sages intended that we ask forgiveness in person, though they address the possibility of doing so by letter as well. The telephone and of course, e-mail, didn't exist in their day.

E-mail, however, has become the favored form of routine communication for many. But should it be used to ask mechilah?

There is precedent, technologically speaking, in Jewish life.

In the last few years, people have been faxing requests for God's intervention to the Western Wall. The faxes are placed in the crevices of Judaism's holiest site.

And hundreds from around the world fax and e-mail their requests for blessings and intercession to the grave of Lubavitch Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994. Three fax machines print out 600 to 700 such letters each day, said the young rabbi in charge. Rabbi Abba Refson added that 100 e-mails are received daily, as well.

Refson lays each paper on Schneerson's grave. The pile later is removed and the paper burned.

"A couple hundred" people also visit the Queens gravesite each day, says Refson, and while there is a difference in the intensity of petitioning for the rebbe's help up close and from a distance, "the results are the same," he says.

That may not be true when it comes to asking forgiveness.

Most of the rabbis solicited for opinions said mechilah is best sought in person, and that e-mail is a distant third choice, at best.

Rabbi David Wolpe of the Conservative Sinai Temple in Los Angeles was unequivocal in his opposition to the use of e-mail for mechilah.

"Part of the experience in asking someone to forgive you is the difficulty of actually confronting them," he said. "The problem of e-mail is the same problem, to some extent, of that of the telephone, but it goes even deeper. The telephone offers intimacy without danger, and e-mail offers exchange without intimacy.

"With e-mail it's just too easy to just push buttons, and it doesn't argue for a deep enough level of contrition," he continued.

Rabbi Samuel Intrator of the Upper West Side's Carlebach Shul agreed.

"Mechilah should be in front of a person. There are concepts in halachah [Jewish law] that you have to have the experience right before a person, for them to see your face, and you have to see theirs, the face of forgiveness," he said.

Other rabbis allowed room for e-mail requests for mechilah.

"It's legitimate only if you don't have the means to speak with someone by phone. It's not preferable," said Rabbi Valerie Lieber of the Reform Temple Beth Ahavath Sholom in Brooklyn.

"When asking for forgiveness it's important to allow another person to respond, which e-mail does, but it shouldn't be used as a cowardly substitute for directly speaking to someone."

The mechilah matter touches on a wider debate about the Internet, say those who watch the new technology. The Web can be a positive or negative force in personal lives, depending on how it is used, said Judith Klavans, a computer scientist specializing in the study of language, and director of the Columbia University Center for Research on Information Access.

"The last five years have seen a major change in the way we can define community because of electronic communication," she said.

E-mail makes it easier to stay connected with busy relatives and friends, and the anonymity of using a machine as an intermediary frees people to be more intimate than they would normally in a face-to-face encounter.

Sensing the potential problems of in-person meetings, a few rabbis said an e-mail request can better open an exchange.

"The preference is definitely to do it face-to-face," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, the gay and lesbian synagogue in Greenwich Village. In the days between the High Holy Days, she holds open office hours so those who have felt slighted or hurt by her can walk in to discuss it.

"There's a difference between what's ideal and what people can do. There are a lot of reasons people have a hard time facing difficult things," Kleinbaum said.

"Doing it by e-mail is better than not doing it at all. If it encourages contact between people, then it's all for the good."

Some rabbis see no difference between the approaches.

"The act of asking forgiveness has to be judged by its outcome," said Rabbi Meir Fund of the Flatbush Minyan in Brooklyn. "It matters not what the means were for procuring it. It matters not whether it is by carrier pigeon, phone, fax, e-mail or in person if it succeeds in eliciting forgiveness."

He added, however, "if indirect methods are not effective, then a direct approach is obligatory."