My name is Rabbi Yonah, and I am over-wired.
Tethered to my iPhone. Waiting for the ding or buzz to announce some new tidbit of information. Someone re-tweeted. Breaking news from who-knows-where. Is that a text message? An appointment?
At the office the routine doesn't change. Even on vacation, no roaming farther than my portable WiFi hotspot can find service.
The intended consequences of our wired world creates such a host of distractions and interruptions that it's a wonder some days that I manage to get anything accomplished.
Even before I became a permanent IP address in the great server in the sky, I discovered the Jewish Sabbath during college and fell in love with unplugging from the info-byte matrix. Finding a home in personal connections and spiritual devotion provided an oasis in time to refresh my soul.
While Sabbath observance is often dismissed as archaic, attitudes are changing as the pace of information and methods of delivery are unrelenting.
I am not the first to realize that over-connectedness is a harmful side-effect of our digital world, interfering with our personal, spiritual and professional lives.
We are starting to recognize the dangers of addiction to being connected to a device-based community at the loss of real conversations and communications that take more than 140 characters.
As a response, my friends at Reboot created The National Day of Unplugging, a tech-detox day, in 2012.
With roots in Jewish tradition, this day of rest "brings some balance to our increasingly fast-paced way of life" and reclaims time, "to connect with family, friends, the community and ourselves."
The Day of Unplugging advocates that for 24 hours -- from sundown Friday, March 23 to sundown Saturday, March 24 -- "shut down your computer. Turn off your cell phone. Stop the constant emailing, texting, Tweeting and Facebooking to take time to notice the world around you. Connect with loved ones. Nurture your health. Get outside. Find silence. Avoid commerce. Give back. Eat Together."
This can be a challenge. Changing ingrained habits is never easy, especially for 24 hours.
Reboot is not advocating an Amish or Luddite culture shift. The wheels of the wired world will start spinning soon enough. However, the opportunity has arrived for many of us together to take a chance on finding serenity. Be brave and try it!
Those ancient Hebrews were on to something 3,500 years ago when they laid down their tools to "rekindle" their souls.
Click here to take the National Day of Unplugging pledge and read the Reboot Sabbath Manifesto.
Follow Rabbi Yonah Bookstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RabbiYonah
National Day of Unplugging - NYTimes.com
National Day Of Unplugging: Take A Tech Break This Weekend
The National Day of Unplugging Starts Tonight. Are You Ready to ...
That's unplugged enough, right?
I see all this electronic dependence as just another form of addiction. As with all other things, moderation is the key. Also, we have to ask ourselves "Do we REALLY need these gadgets? Would it REALLY kill us to not actually TALK to someone face-to-face?" This "tech detox" needs to become more commonplace, not be merely a one-day-a-year event. The benefits to society would be enormous.
you cannot truly be free
when harnessing yourself
or being harnessed
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The technology is addictive. We need to reign it in. Shabbat is a good place to start.
When it comes to observing Shabbat, I think it is important to differentiate it from the other days of the week, otherwise (obviously) it loses all meaning. Do something special that you wouldn't do any other day.
Phones outsell PCs. People have become immersed in social media that they cannot take a step outside their door without informing the world. If you believe that's necessary, then I believe you have lost perspective. We got along fine using landlines and writing letters. I'm not sure, stress-level-wise, that we are better off for all the means of instant communication. What started out as expensive conveniences are now inexpensive necessities.
It is a matter of prospective, underlining the importance of maintaining your own. If using Shabbat as a reason to slow down, to disconnect, to help re-establish your priorities is what you need to do, that's great. Many have used Shabbat for that purpose, and more. The concept of taking a day off is always a psychologically sound idea.
Jews over the ages have found that in preserving the Shabbat, the Shabbat has preserved the Jews. Let's hope that Cyber-Shabbat can accomplish the same thing for the overly connected.
Sensory overload and information glut and plugged in instantaneous communication has begun to dominate our lives so there is little time for quiet refection on what's really going on here. It has become a blur as the pace has been ratcheted up slowly by our contraptions an innovation at a time and now we are consumed by our consumption and unable to think straight.
And while we are in this stupor drunk with distractions we hardly notice what's going on and the people pulling the strings behind our backs are free to do what they will knowing we don't have the time or inclination to question their plans. It's easier to believe what they tell us and go with the flow and they know it and use every chance they get to promote a sanitized version of their brutality against the people and make it appealing as if this were the right thing to do.
So the need to have as little to do with the systems of this wicked world as possible, and especially it's systems of religion.
A simple and spiritual life allows one to yet experience life as it was meant to be, free from stress, delusion, deception, destruction, dysfunction, dis-order, media, education, religion, and all other dis-ease's that are the product of mankind's "imag"ination.
For mankind's "imag"ination is a playground for "the father of lies".......
Spirit IS Life, IS Real, IS Forever, and not of the "imag"ination, for The Life is experienced by those who have received "a love of The Truth"!
And Truth is simple, and simplicity is of The Truth, and dis-ease(no-peace) can not abide where Truth resides.......
Father Help! and HE does.......
asimpleandspirituallife.org
The religious Jews would stop fussing about the 600+ commandments of Rabbinical Judaism.
The Muslims would take a break from praying to Allah five times.
And the Christians would forget about worrying about everyone else going to hell.
The precept keeping Buddhists could let themselves kick back with a burger and some beers.
And the Sikh's could spend the day not wearing those turbans.
The list goes on and on...but you get the idea.
That's as good an example of religious narcissism as any other.