About 20 years ago our daughter came home from school and introduced us to her friend and told us that this friend also sits with her family and eats dinner together. At the time, this was an unusual occurrence for many young people, and this was before smartphones! Now, even those families who may gather together for dinner aren’t fully present for each other because they’re checking their smart phones, worrying about missing out on some new text or Facebook post, Twitter post, or email. To just be with each other is becoming more and more rare. If someone is sitting across from you and is expressing an emotion that should be paid attention to, you may not notice because your eyes are looking down at a smart phone.

Sherry Turkle is an ethnographer and the director of the M.I.T. Initiative on Technology and Self. She has been speaking out about how addiction to our smartphones reinforces our fear of being in silence and our fear of being bored. There is a constant craving for stimulation provided by media on your smartphone. We forget how to just sit in silence or to speak eye-to-eye with the person across from us.

I will confess that I am not immune from this smartphone trend. I am trying to put the phone away when I’m with people, but I feel the pull of it. I don’t want to miss out. What if someone is writing to me? I know it can wait but I want to respond right away. This is a bad habit! Recently I bought a new phone. I clicked on a link that activated my new one but there was a software glitch. The panic I felt was all out of proportion to the situation. I became obsessed. I had no smartphone. I stopped everything else I was doing and spent hours on the phone with the phone company and then the manufacturer of the phone. I experienced this phone as an extension of my body. It was as though a part of my body was not working and had to be fixed immediately. I knew I was out of control but I kept on pushing through until I had my phone working. I know from my own experience that smartphone attachment and addiction is real and powerful.

What is my solution? I am trying to disconnect once a week on Shabbat. From sundown Friday night until Saturday evening I’m trying to stay disconnected. One way to do this is to put an “away” message on your email and perhaps post “Shabbat Shalom” on Twitter and Facebook. That’s a start. What do you do to temper your smartphone addiction?

We are entering an important, challenging time in the Jewish calendar, a time to reflect on the past and seek to find a better way forward. This is a time to change our habitual self-centered orientation. We forgive those who wronged us and ask for forgiveness from those whom we wronged. We seek to be more understanding and compassionate. There are many websites that help us at this time. We don’t have to rely on a particular rabbi or synagogue for our inspiration. I found a website that I thought was particularly inspiring. It’s called Jewels of Elul, and though I don’t agree with every contributor’s orientation, one of the pieces was particularly inspiring to me. It was posted on the fourth day of Elul (Elul is a month in the Jewish calendar – leading up towards Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – the High Holidays) and I’ve pasted it below:

Elul 4: Mohini ~ Rabba Sara Hurwitz

As we age, our brains are hardwired to reject change. We are conditioned to resist new challenges and remain within our comfort zones. However, growing older should not mean that we must exist within self-imposed boundaries.

In the 1960s, President Eisenhower received the gift of a rare, white tiger named Mohini. For years, Mohini lived in the Washington Zoo and spent her days pacing back and forth in a 12-by-12 foot cage. Finally the zoo decided to build her a larger cage so Mohini could run, climb and explore. But when Mohini arrived at her new home, she didn’t rush out, eagerly adapting to her new habitat. Rather, she marked off a 12-by-12 foot square for herself, and paced there until her death, never enjoying the new opportunities in front of her. Mohini exemplifies the classic conditioning most of us live within. Although she was a magnificent, powerful creature, Mohini was convinced her “place” was just a 12-by-12 foot square. We all have the propensity to behave exactly like Mohini. Based on our conditioning, we create invisible cages for ourselves, limiting our lives within their boundaries.

But we don’t have to succumb to our internal imprisonment. Throughout the High Holidays, we will hear the shofar blast. Historically, the shofar signaled the release of all slaves at the end of the Jubilee year. That sound should make us ask, “What enslaves us? What weighs us down? What baggage do we hold onto?” And then, let it go. The High Holidays present us with a tunnel: an opportunity to break free from our self-imposed cages, to find our route to freedom and to live life with renewed passion. The shofar inspires us to free the Mohini inside and move beyond our boundaries.

Rabba Sara Hurwitz is the Dean of Yeshivat Maharat, the first Orthodox institution to ordain women as spiritual leaders.http://www.yeshivatmaharat.org

Recently I had the privilege of interviewing Barry Daniel for the Middle Way Society Podcast. Was Barry promoting a book? No. Was he promoting a movie or play or particular event? No. Barry simply talked about his life, a life that has been packed with adventure and transformation. He talked about his youth in Manchester, his time with the navy, and the many places he has lived all over the world. I was inspired by the work he has done – offering his emotional support working with the Samaritans in the U.K., his experience working with Mother Teresa helping the dying in Calcutta, and his work with the Green Party to name a few.

Barry Daniel is usually the voice you hear interviewing others for the Middle Way Society Podcast. I invite you to hear about his life in his own words. I’m grateful to have heard his story and I think you will be also.

http://www.middlewaysociety.org/the-mws-podcast-69-barry-daniel-member-profile/

Audio only: http://www.middlewaysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/podcast69BarryDaniel.mp3

For some reason the following Karl Marx statement has stuck in my mind since I first read it as a young adult:

“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.” [from German Ideology, 1845]

Though I don’t share his choices of activities, I always thought that an ideal society would make it possible for people to do various activities and not be confined to one, potentially boring, job. His hopes for creating such a society never came to be except in one way. In well-off first world countries, if you have the good fortune of living to retirement age, and you can afford to retire, there is a limitless wealth of activities from which to choose. Here is a sampling of my own choices from the last couple weeks.

Everyday: I wake up whenever my body tells me to wake up. I stretch, brew some coffee, and read the local paper. I walk over to my computer, check my e-mail, and write for 2 hours. I follow up on any letters related to political and professional groups with which I’m affiliated. I also read various journals online, such as Tablet, Tikkun, The Forward, and interesting links that Facebook friends post. What a pleasure! I like to walk an hour a day. Not a day goes by when I’m not grateful that I’m able to do this. When I was wheelchair bound, 13 years ago, I wasn’t sure that walking an hour a day was in my future.

Typical Monday includes Barre Assets class, a ballet-based core strengthening and limb stretching exercise class. After that, I go grocery shopping. I take my time because I can! I cook a delicious dinner that will last a few days. Included will be a walk with my husband and perhaps a Netflix movie. In between activities I’ll read from one of the three books I’m reading. Right now I’m reading The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch, Sam Harris’ Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, and Oliver Sack’s autobiography, On the Move: A Life. What a joy! Another typical Monday includes preparing for Toastmasters which I attend every Tuesday.

Typical Tuesday includes a great Tai Chi class taught by Cecilia Tom at the UCSF Mission Bay fitness center, Bakar Fitness. She runs a demanding but rewarding class. I rush off to Toastmasters across the road. Our Toastmasters community is warm, supportive, diverse, and, wonderful! I look forward to participating and hearing the speeches. If you want to learn to do public speaking in a supportive environment, I highly recommend Toastmasters!

Tuesday activities continue into the evening. Lately, I’ve been taking a storytelling class at The Marsh, a local small theatre that specializes in producing monologue/plays written and performed by one person. I’m creating a short piece, receiving coaching from Charlie Varon, a stellar writer, performer, teacher – stretching myself to my limits! Yikes! This is HARD!

The high point of Wednesday is caring for our 10 month old grandson. He’s a joy to be around. Seeing the world through his eyes is a special rewarding experience. We adults become so jaded as we get older, seeing everything in a habitual way. Looking at the world and hearing sounds by closely observing a baby is a great learning experience. You don’t need a grandchild to do this – find a baby and see if you can hang out with him/her!

Thursday is play rewrite day. Also, it’s a day for Zumba (aerobic dance) and Feldenkrais (a form of movement education – especially good for people who have range of motion issues, as I do from a serious injury).

Friday is open; a time for reading, writing, and whatever comes up. I may decide to make it a Shabbat preparation day.

Saturday is Shabbat, a non-productive, restful day for mindfulness.

Sunday is socialize with friends day.

I’m so happy to do my own creative work and to have time to exercise, babysit, and cook. I realize that I am privileged to do these activities. Not everyone is able to retire. I had the good fortune of working at a place that offers a pension. This is just the beginning of my retirement. It’s been less than a month. I’m still looking for volunteer opportunities. What a joy to be able to do this! I am grateful beyond words!

We are approaching the holiday of Shavuot, an ancient holiday that used to be a harvest festival and has morphed into a holiday that celebrates the giving of the Torah at Sinai. This holiday is a good example of how Judaism has evolved over time. There is no Temple to celebrate the original pilgrimage festival that occurred at the time of Shavuot, but the rabbis created a new holiday that encouraged the community to celebrate the giving of the Torah. The Torah is a central text in rabbinic Judaism and it makes sense that a holiday would have been created to celebrate that text. Many people stay up all night to study Torah and other Jewish texts on this holiday, and the story that is associated with Shavuot is the story of Ruth.

I’d like to talk a bit about the story of Ruth, but first I’d like to share my approach to the stories in the Bible. I assume these stories from ancient times were written by men. We cannot know what their experience was. We have very limited knowledge about that, but, at the very least, I do not believe that the texts were divinely written or inspired. For me, and many other humanistic Jews, to treat the text as sacred severely limits our possible interpretations.

The Bible is not a book. The Bible is a collection of many stories, and these stories are not told from one perspective. In fact, two of the most opposite stories in the Bible are the story of Ruth and the story of the return of Ezra to Judah after the exile in Babylonia. Ezra, with a great degree of anger, asks the people (am ha’aretz – people of the land) who have stayed in Judah, to divorce their foreign wives. Ezra represents a parochial, exclusive, elite point of view. The Book of Ruth, which sounds more like a fairy tale than an elite proclamation, is about a Moabite widow (from Ezra’s point of view a foreign wife) who follows her Judean mother-in-law, Naomi, back to Judah. Everyone has heard the famous line from Ruth: ‘Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God;. . .
(Jewish Publication Society Translation)

Ruth simply joins the Jewish people. Later, rabbis created a story to say that Ruth converted to Judaism, but whoever wrote this story had a very different idea about how people joined the community. The story of Ruth is written from a completely different point of view than the story of Ezra. Studying Jewish texts, like Ruth, could be a good starting point for us to open the boundaries and welcome all people into our communities.