blogs/rabbi-huberman

A National Day of Unplugging

It isn't unusual for a prospective member visiting our congregation for the first time to make a bit of a disclaimer: "I'm really not that religious."

At first, I wasn't really sure what that meant.

But over time, I've learned that this means that so many Jewish people -- observant or not -- feel judged over how and what they eat, whether they can read or understand Hebrew, and whether they completely understand the "secret handshakes" of Jewish practice.

There is a term for it, coined by Archie Gottesman, founder of JewBelong, a group dedicated to breaking down the barriers between Jews and their religion.

She refers to a phenomenon called Jewsbarrassement, and we've all felt it.

Should I be standing or sitting in synagogue?   God - please don't let the rabbi ask me to do anything. Am I tapping my chest hard enough? Is God going to punish me for taking an Advil on Yom Kippur?

It really is a sign of the times that so many Jewish people feel Jewsbarrassed as they interact with a religion which is meant to organically reflect their spirituality.

It is perhaps one reason why there are more Buddhist converts from Judaism than from any other religion in the New York area. It may also be one reason that the fastest growing religious affiliation across America is comprised of those who self-identify as "spiritual, not religious."

A survey conducted six years ago by the Pew Research Center noted that the number of Americans who do not identify with any formal religion rose from fifteen percent in 2007 to twenty percent in 2012.

Of these religiously unaffiliated Americans, thirty-seven per cent classify themselves as "spiritual,  not religious." Sixty-eight per cent say that they believe in God.

So the question remains: why do so many Jews remain Jewsbarrassed? And if they are the majority, should the concern be with them, or with the way that Judaism has been presented?

This is the week in our Torah reading Ki Tissa, in which the Israelites are provided with one of our most important commandments. We are told to observe the Sabbath.

So: what exactly does that mean?

The Talmud lists thirty-nine different categories of things we shouldn't do on the Sabbath. Most of them relate to the trades what people practiced two thousand years ago.

If you were a water carrier, you were commanded to lay down your bucket. If you were a tanner, you were forbidden from rending material. Add to these the prohibitions against plowing, reaping, weaving, building, threshing-and two dozen other restrictions.

So how did we get to the point that, in some circles, it is customary to tear toilet paper before the Sabbath? Why is it is okay to ride a Shabbat elevator -- provided it was programmed on Friday prior to sundown? Why is the carrying of water in a towel after a swim equated by some with a prohibition against carrying water?

...and we wonder why so many modern Jews feel out of touch.

Nevertheless, within the last fifteen years, many have begun to organically revisit their religion. They just don't call it religion.

In 2003 a movement was launched by a group of television executives, Web developers, writers, filmmakers, and CEOs. These were people desperately searching for a way to disconnect from their seven-day-a-week jobs. They were reaching for a dose of common sense.

The Reboot Movement, whose supporters now number in the thousands, encourages families to unplug and slow down from sundown to sundown, from Friday to Saturday.

They developed a Sabbath manifesto which centered on ten principles:

1) Avoid technology;

2) Connect with loved ones;

3) Nurture your health;

4) Get outside;

5) Avoid commerce;

6) Light candles;

7) Drink wine;

8) Eat bread;

9) Find silence;

10) Give back.

And, to punctuate the point, they designated one day a year-- a National Day of Unplugging -- which this year falls from sundown to sundown next Friday to Saturday, March 9-10.  I will be encouraging our congregation next week to join the movement, at least for one Shabbat.

Tanya Shevitz, National Communications Coordinator, for Reboot states that the National Day of Unplugging empowers users of technology to develop a modern, personal interpretation of a day of rest.

She stresses, "The National Day of Unplugging is really about recognizing that it's important to take a pause from technology -- to reconnect to people who are all around us but who are basically lost in the noise of the relentless deluge of information." 

The need has never been greater.

How many of us obsessively check our emails, or search to see what is trending, or feel compelled to instantaneously answer text messages?

How many of us have become so fixated with political events that only do we watch these trends unfold during the week - but feel compelled to revisit and rehash them over the weekend?

How many family and friend connections are not being maintained? How many mitzvoth are not being performed?

It is one reason why this week's Torah portion is a fitting precursor to next week's National Day of Unplugging.

It reminds us with the words V'shamru, v'nei Yisrael et haShabbat...."The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath in every generation as an everlasting covenant"-- are as important today as they were three thousand years ago.

And it's okay to practice it in our own way.

In early July 1970, two days after my seventeenth birthday, I sat with a group of seventy youth on the steps of ruins outside of Tiberius, Israel. It was Shabbat evening, as we watched the sun set.

Menachem, our group leader, shared these words with our group of American and Canadian students on our first trip to Israel.

"Each of you comes from a different background," said Menachem. "Each one of you is Jewish in a different way.

"But as the sun sets in this holy land please try to do something -- anything -- to make the Sabbath a day distinct from all other days.

"Whether you are observant or non observant, religious or not -- if you make this day special, you will be the best Jew in the world."

I remember Menachem each year as we read this section of the Torah. On that evening in Tiberius was no official ceremony as we quietly we watched the sun fade below the Sea of Galilee.

The way God wants it. Each in our way.

There were no prayers. There were no instructions.  But -- under the stars -- there was an intense feeling of closeness with God and creation.

It was perhaps the holiest Shabbat of my life.

It was on that night -- with no rules, books or rabbis -- that a boy of seventeen experienced true religion.

It really wasn't that complicated at all.

God, a boy and a simple day of rest.

Shabbat Shalom, v'kol tuv.

Rabbi Irwin Huberman