Rav Yonah GoodmanDirector of Religious Education, Orot Israel College
Background
TIME magazine recently named Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the Facebook social networking site, as their “Person of the Year” for 2010. According to the magazine’s editors, Facebook is not just another successful website. Rather, it is a phenomenon which is changing the very face and nature of humanity. The editors explained that Facebook has half a billion subscribers (so far) – i.e. about a tenth of the world’s population – and that Zuckerberg earned the recognition for:
“Mapping the social relations among [Facebook users], for creating a new system of exchanging information and for changing how we live our lives.”
The article also stated that Facebook grows “at a rate of about 700,000 people a day” and referred to it as “a social entity almost twice as large as the U.S.” Moreover, TIME’s editors believe that we have now entered a new era – “the Facebook era” - and that it impacts our approach to life.
A personal note
Before we address TIME’s choice, I should note two things. First of all, our year is not based on the secular calendar, and what is referred to as “New Year’s Day” has no significance for us. Nevertheless, new phenomena - which affect our world and us – are significant, albeit without any connection to the specific timing of the discussion. Second, in our Jewish world, the most influential person is not necessarily the most famous. Perhaps he or she is one of the Lamed Vav Tzadikim (literally, the “36 Righteous Individuals”), whose covert actions change reality and bring us and the world closer to the Geulah (Final Redemption). However, even top experts agree that there are events which occur in unknown ways, and they are only able to investigate discernable and explicable processes. These investigations are important to us as well.
Why Facebook?
Perhaps the reader thinks that this is all nonsense. He is not a member of Facebook, and the notion that computer software can change the world seems ridiculous to him. But for half a billion people, it is not ridiculous at all. Furthermore, experience has shown that profound global trends eventually influence us as well. Their influences extend to our very doorsteps and present us with educational and spiritual challenges.
All this raises the question: Would we choose Facebook’s founder as Man of the Year? Is Facebook a brilliant innovation which we should actively embrace? Or is this the time for us to stand up for ourselves and demonstrate our independence, and to recognize that “being there” is not necessarily the same as actually experiencing and living?
The lessons of Facebook
Much can be written about Facebook, but for now, let us suffice with three items for consideration:
1. According to Zuckerberg, in the “old” Internet, people were afraid to reveal their identities – even though in real life, they trusted each other. Therefore, he started Facebook in order to enable them to live their real lives on the Internet – openly and with confidence.
Yet, is Facebook truly an accurate reflection of real life? After all, it mainly allows you to upload pictures, to update your status, etc. You collect “friends” at a wholesale rate, but you have little to do with most of them. On Facebook, you see your “friends’” faces instead of their personalities and midot (character traits). Instead of focusing on the fundamentals of yirat Shamayim (fear of Heaven) and avodat Hashem (serving Hashem), we have become enslaved to a time-sucking application which lets us look at countless photos and learn who is mad at whom and who is now friends with whom. Can we honestly say that the application inspires us to think? To contemplate? To be creative?
2. Chazal instructed us: “Acquire for yourself a friend.” (Pirkei Avot 1:6) But nothing could be further from the concept of friendship than that which takes place on a social networking site. It involves neither giving nor cooperating in real life. Note that the word chaver (friend) comes from chibur (connection). What kind of connection can one simultaneously maintain with hundreds of alleged “friends”? True friendship requires sharing a deep bond with a limited number of friends. It does not mean a superficial chat with ten acquaintances or posting personal status updates, which reach hundreds of people at the same time.
More profoundly, Facebook provides an ostensible solution to modern man’s loneliness (hence, its success). However, this solution is no more than a virtual illusion. Would it not be preferable - rather than spending hours amassing virtual “friends” – to build real relationships with real friends? After all, Facebook only allows “friends” to exchange information. But real life human interactions are not only based on information, and they cannot be reduced to a simple click on the “like” button. True friendship cannot be compared to so-called “social networks”, which entangle you in their webs but do not offer you actual friendship.
3. We are commanded to act modestly. In contrast, Facebook “teaches” you to post your personal pictures where anyone can see them and to record your innermost thoughts on a public “wall”. It exposes your intimate world, and as a result, you find yourself unintentionally revealing many of your private sentiments. In addition, the knowledge that hundreds may be reading your thoughts affects and shapes your inner world. The Facebook culture encourages extroversion in lieu of quiet contemplation and looking at other people’s pictures in lieu of delicately working on one’s midot.
Conclusion
TIME’s editors observed that Zuckerberg essentially founded the world’s third largest “country”, surpassed only by China and India (at least for now). To a certain extent, we have all become citizens of that country – without making a conscious decision to emigrate from here. And yet, we believe that our job is not to live in foreign countries. Rather, we are meant to live in the Jewish State with its unique ethos and lifestyle.
It will not be easy, but the time has come to make aliyah back to Eretz Yisrael:
Background
TIME magazine recently named Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the Facebook social networking site, as their “Person of the Year” for 2010. According to the magazine’s editors, Facebook is not just another successful website. Rather, it is a phenomenon which is changing the very face and nature of humanity. The editors explained that Facebook has half a billion subscribers (so far) – i.e. about a tenth of the world’s population – and that Zuckerberg earned the recognition for:
“Mapping the social relations among [Facebook users], for creating a new system of exchanging information and for changing how we live our lives.”
The article also stated that Facebook grows “at a rate of about 700,000 people a day” and referred to it as “a social entity almost twice as large as the U.S.” Moreover, TIME’s editors believe that we have now entered a new era – “the Facebook era” - and that it impacts our approach to life.
A personal note
Before we address TIME’s choice, I should note two things. First of all, our year is not based on the secular calendar, and what is referred to as “New Year’s Day” has no significance for us. Nevertheless, new phenomena - which affect our world and us – are significant, albeit without any connection to the specific timing of the discussion. Second, in our Jewish world, the most influential person is not necessarily the most famous. Perhaps he or she is one of the Lamed Vav Tzadikim (literally, the “36 Righteous Individuals”), whose covert actions change reality and bring us and the world closer to the Geulah (Final Redemption). However, even top experts agree that there are events which occur in unknown ways, and they are only able to investigate discernable and explicable processes. These investigations are important to us as well.
Why Facebook?
Perhaps the reader thinks that this is all nonsense. He is not a member of Facebook, and the notion that computer software can change the world seems ridiculous to him. But for half a billion people, it is not ridiculous at all. Furthermore, experience has shown that profound global trends eventually influence us as well. Their influences extend to our very doorsteps and present us with educational and spiritual challenges.
All this raises the question: Would we choose Facebook’s founder as Man of the Year? Is Facebook a brilliant innovation which we should actively embrace? Or is this the time for us to stand up for ourselves and demonstrate our independence, and to recognize that “being there” is not necessarily the same as actually experiencing and living?
The lessons of Facebook
Much can be written about Facebook, but for now, let us suffice with three items for consideration:
1. According to Zuckerberg, in the “old” Internet, people were afraid to reveal their identities – even though in real life, they trusted each other. Therefore, he started Facebook in order to enable them to live their real lives on the Internet – openly and with confidence.
Yet, is Facebook truly an accurate reflection of real life? After all, it mainly allows you to upload pictures, to update your status, etc. You collect “friends” at a wholesale rate, but you have little to do with most of them. On Facebook, you see your “friends’” faces instead of their personalities and midot (character traits). Instead of focusing on the fundamentals of yirat Shamayim (fear of Heaven) and avodat Hashem (serving Hashem), we have become enslaved to a time-sucking application which lets us look at countless photos and learn who is mad at whom and who is now friends with whom. Can we honestly say that the application inspires us to think? To contemplate? To be creative?
2. Chazal instructed us: “Acquire for yourself a friend.” (Pirkei Avot 1:6) But nothing could be further from the concept of friendship than that which takes place on a social networking site. It involves neither giving nor cooperating in real life. Note that the word chaver (friend) comes from chibur (connection). What kind of connection can one simultaneously maintain with hundreds of alleged “friends”? True friendship requires sharing a deep bond with a limited number of friends. It does not mean a superficial chat with ten acquaintances or posting personal status updates, which reach hundreds of people at the same time.
More profoundly, Facebook provides an ostensible solution to modern man’s loneliness (hence, its success). However, this solution is no more than a virtual illusion. Would it not be preferable - rather than spending hours amassing virtual “friends” – to build real relationships with real friends? After all, Facebook only allows “friends” to exchange information. But real life human interactions are not only based on information, and they cannot be reduced to a simple click on the “like” button. True friendship cannot be compared to so-called “social networks”, which entangle you in their webs but do not offer you actual friendship.
3. We are commanded to act modestly. In contrast, Facebook “teaches” you to post your personal pictures where anyone can see them and to record your innermost thoughts on a public “wall”. It exposes your intimate world, and as a result, you find yourself unintentionally revealing many of your private sentiments. In addition, the knowledge that hundreds may be reading your thoughts affects and shapes your inner world. The Facebook culture encourages extroversion in lieu of quiet contemplation and looking at other people’s pictures in lieu of delicately working on one’s midot.
Conclusion
TIME’s editors observed that Zuckerberg essentially founded the world’s third largest “country”, surpassed only by China and India (at least for now). To a certain extent, we have all become citizens of that country – without making a conscious decision to emigrate from here. And yet, we believe that our job is not to live in foreign countries. Rather, we are meant to live in the Jewish State with its unique ethos and lifestyle.
It will not be easy, but the time has come to make aliyah back to Eretz Yisrael:
To join the builders, not the “taggers”;
The deep thinkers, not the “surfers”.
To stop building the “People of the Faces”
And to assist in building the “People of the Book”.
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