You’re sitting on the train, and you see a man sitting by himself, and then you see a woman sitting by herself.
After about two minutes, the man pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through his newsfeed. He’s reading about sports, celebrities, and other pieces of news. The woman also pulls out her phone, and starts playing video games.
Is there anything wrong with this scene?
It seems pretty innocent. They’re keeping themselves occupied. Right?
I don’t like it. I think this is so sad.
Why?
The Snakes and Scorpions
Yosef’s brothers wanted to get him out of the family, and so they threw him into a pit, and then decided to lift him out of the pit and sell him a slave. The Torah says about this pit, והבור רק אין בו מים – “The pit was empty; there was no water in it.”’ The Gemara asks, once the Torah tells us that the pit was empty, why does it then need to tell us that it had no water?!
The answer, the Gemara explains, is that the Torah is telling us something important about the pit: it had snakes and scorpions. It wasn’t totally empty. It didn’t have water; but it had snakes and scorpions that would have killed Yosef, if G-d had not miraculously protected him.
Why is this significant? Why did G-d do this – have Yosef thrown into a pit with deadly snakes and scorpions, and then save him?
The Horn of the Ox
I would like to ask also another question, about the holiday of Hanukah.
Hanukah celebrates the victory of the Hashmonaim over the Greeks, who issued many different decrees against the Jews. One of the lesser-known decrees was that every Jew was required to write on קרן השור – the horn of his ox – the words, אין לנו חלק באלוקי ישראל – “We have no share in the G-d of Israel.”
Why the horn of an ox? Isn’t this a strange place for the Greeks to require the Jews to announce their rejection of religion? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have them write this on their front doors? What do oxen having anything to do with this?!
Yosef and Greece
Finally, we need to understand the mysterious connection between the story of Yosef and the story of Hanukah. The gematria of the name יוסף is 156 – the same gematria as the words מלך יון (“king of Greece”), and as the name אנטיוכס – the Greek ruler who made these decrees. What do Yosef and Antiochus have anything to do with each other?!
It’s POURING Nonsense!!
I was once talking with a woman from the community about the unique challenges we have today raising our children. She asked me, exasperated, “Why does it have to be so hard?”
I told her I didn’t really know, but I do know that G-d created the world to be hard. Life is supposed to be challenging.
It seems like whenever life gets easier in some way, it gets harder in some other way. In our generation, many things are so much easier than they used to be. There are so many things we can do by just pressing a button. But life has to be challenging – so those buttons are giving us a lot of problems!
Every generation has a certain pull, a temptation, a difficult challenge. In our generation, the great challenge is: the addiction to nonsense.
The amount of time and energy invested into nonsense is unreal. It is astonishing to watch people obsess over celebrities, over sports, and over irrelevant news stories. It is astonishing to see how many hours people spend watching Netflix videos. It is astonishing to see how many hours people spend playing video games.
It’s POURING nonsense, and people love it!
Studies show that an average American teenager spends ten hours a day (!!!!!!) – yes, ten hours a day! – in front of a screen.
Studies also show that an average American teenager spends just 10-12 minutes a day (!!!!!!) – yes, just 10-12 minutes! – talking to his parents.
This means kids today spend 60 more times in front of NONSENSE than they do having a relationship with their parents. This is mind-boggling.
But it’s not just the kids. The adults are also obsessed. Maybe it’s five hours instead of ten. But that’s a huge chunk of the day gobbled up by sheer nonsense.
We are a society consumed by nonsense!
Tech = Tobacco
The good news is that the world is starting to take notice.
In November, 2017, a famous op-ed writer for the New York Times named David Brooks wrote a fascinating article entitled, “How Evil is Tech?” He begins by making an astute observation:
Not long ago, tech was the coolest industry. Everybody wanted to work at Google, Facebook and Apple. But over the past year the mood has shifted.
Some now believe tech is like the tobacco industry — corporations that make billions of dollars peddling a destructive addiction. Some believe it is like the N.F.L. — something millions of people love, but which everybody knows leaves a trail of human wreckage in its wake.
People are starting to notice the “wreckage” of all this nonsense, how instead of making life better, it’s actually making life much worse.
Brooks points out the main critiques of tech:
1) It’s destroying the young.
Social media promises an end to loneliness but actually produces an increase in solitude and an intense awareness of social exclusion. Texting and other technologies give you more control over your social interactions but also lead to thinner interactions and less real engagement with the world.
As Jean Twenge has demonstrated in book and essay, since the spread of the smartphone, teens are much less likely to hang out with friends, they are less likely to date, they are less likely to work.
Eighth graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they are unhappy than those who spend less time. Eighth graders who are heavy users of social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent. Teens who spend three or more hours a day on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, like making a plan for how to do it. Girls, especially hard hit, have experienced a 50 percent rise in depressive symptoms.
2) It’s causing an addiction – to make money!
Tech companies understand what causes dopamine surges in the brain and they lace their products with “hijacking techniques” that lure us in and create “compulsion loops.”
Snapchat has Snapstreak, which rewards friends who snap each other every single day, thus encouraging addictive behavior. News feeds are structured as “bottomless bowls” so that one page view leads down to another and another and so on forever. Most social media sites create irregularly timed rewards; you have to check your device compulsively because you never know when a burst of social affirmation from a Facebook like may come.
Technology started as something “cool,” as a way to make life easier and more efficient. But it’s ended up flooding our brains and consuming our time with addictive nonsense, preventing us from focusing on the things that really matter. And it seems that people are finally started to see the problem.
So how do we handle this? How should we respond to this great challenge?
By learning the story of Yosef.
Let Go!
The Torah tells that when Yosef was a slave in Egypt, he was יפה תואר ויפה מראה – very handsome and good-looking. The commentators tell us that this does not refer only to Yosef’s natural good looks. It means that he started paying more attention to his appearance. Living in a foreign culture, he tried to fit in, and so he started dressing nicely and styling his hair.
But then, an Egyptian woman – the wife of his master, Potifar – tempted him. After Yosef continually resisted, he was one day alone with her and she grabbed his clothing. Yosef at that moment ran away, leaving the garment in her hands.
There is a subtle but powerful message here. At a certain point, we need to let go. Even if society obsesses over certain things, like dress, we shouldn’t. We have to let go of this obsession – just like Yosef let go of his garment and ran away from Potifar’s wife.
Let’s face it – we’re Americans, living in American society and participating in American culture. We accept it, we understand it, and we can even appreciate it. But this does NOT mean that we need to dive headfirst into everything that everyone around us dives into. We do NOT have to run out to buy the newest iPhone or hottest gadget, and we do NOT have to rush to download the latest app.
Like Yosef, at a certain point we need to stop and let go. We need to remind ourselves that our lives are worth so much more than that. Our lives are far too important to waste them on nonsense.
So yes, if a 40-year-old spends hours on video games, watching sports, or reading up on celebrities, I find that very sad.
I understand we all need a break once in a while, but for hours and hours? You don’t have anything more meaningful to do? You don’t have anything more important to do? You have nothing left that you want to accomplish?
I’ve always loved cookies, even as a grown man. At a certain point, though, I needed to let go. I needed to tell myself, “You’re a 50-year-old Rabbi, you’re a grandfather. You’re still stuffing yourself with cookies?!”
As grownups, we should be taking ourselves seriously, and we should be showing some self-control and maturity. It’s NOT okay to spend hours on nonsense, on video games, on movies, or on social media. We need to LET GO.
Yosef was thrown into a pit full of deadly snakes and scorpions, and he got out safely. The message is that he would soon be living in Egypt, in a place with spiritually poisonous lures all around him, and he had the power not to be harmed by them.
And this is the message for us, as well. We don’t need to be “bitten” by the all the “snakes and scorpions” in society, by all the nonsense and vanity. We are capable of avoiding it, and we are fully expected to avoid it. We can and must let go.
Things I Don’t Care About
I have a rule that I try to live by: I don’t want to care about things I don’t care about it.
Our society tells us we should care about celebrities, about movies, about the latest fads. There’s no reason for us to comply.
Why do we want to care about these things? What do they do for us? Society fools us into thinking that these things are important, but they really aren’t. There’s no reason to care about all this, so let’s stop caring.
I like to look at it this way. I have a limited number of “bullets” in my “gun.” I have limited amounts of time, energy and resources. Doesn’t it make sense to use it sparingly? I want to use my “bullets” on things that matter, and not waste them on things that don’t matter.
Which brings us to the Greeks and the story of Hanukah.
The Greeks were not like Haman. They did not want to kill the Jews. Their plan was to force the Jews to assimilate, to pull them in.
The Hebrew word for Greece is יון, which is spelled with three letters, each one longer than the one before – י,ו,ן. The Greeks wanted to pull the Jews into their culture, slowly but surely, until they were consumed by it.
This is what the surrounding culture does – it sucks us in. First we buy one device, we download one app, then another, and another… We download one game, then another, and then another… We subscribe to one social media account, and then another, and another. Before we know it, we’re obsessed.
Both Yaakov Avinu and Moshe Rabbenu, when they blessed the twelve tribes, compared Yosef to an ox. The Greeks told the Jews to declare on the ox that they had nothing to do with Judaism. They wanted the Jews to reject the concept of “Yosef,” the power to let go, to stay back and not get sucked in.
But the Hashmonaim refused. They continued the tradition of Yosef, and refused to get pulled in, to be bitten by the “snakes and scorpions” of Greek culture.
The Hanukah miracle occurred with oil – the only liquid that does not mix with other liquids. This was the great power of the Hashmonaim. They were able to let go and not get submerged. Greek culture threatened to consume them – but they said, “No!” and, like oil, they stood apart.
This is the message for us!
What on Earth are We Doing????
If we think about it, it’s just unbelievable what has happened to our society.
Imagine somebody who was warned by his doctor that he needs to lose weight, and so he goes ahead and orders truckloads of cake and cookies right to his driveway. This is what our society has done.
We have given nonsense free reign over our lives.
“You want my time? Sure, take it. All of it.”
“You want my attention? Sure, take it. All of it.”
“You want my kids? Sure, take them. All of them.”
We willingly brought nonsense into our lives so it could control us and our children. Tech companies like Netflix and Facebook set out to make money off of us by stealing all our time and attention – and not only did we not put up a fight, but we enthusiastically handed them the keys to it all.
WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE DOING???
The Gemara tells us that Yosef received the strength to resist Potifar’s wife from the image of his father, Yaakov, which appeared to him. We, too, can gain strength from the image of our parents and grandparents. They did things that mattered. They spent their time on things that they cared about it. They lived lives that were meaningful and important. This is the image that should help us pull away from all the nonsense.
The Gemara says that Yaakov’s image appeared to Yosef בחלון – “in the window.” The word חלון can be read as ל"ו נ"ח, which represents the 36 (ל"ו) Chanukah candles (נר חנוכה), the sum total of the candles we light over the course of this holiday (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8). We receive this power, the power of Yosef and the power of the Hashmonaim, by adding a bit more light each day. We take one step at a time to increase the light, the meaning in our lives, and to drive away all the darkness, the nonsense.
We need to ask ourselves:
· Do I really need all these apps?
· Do I really need these social media accounts?
· Is it really so important to see what other people are posting about their lives?
· Do I really need to care about the sports scores, or about the latest trades?
· Does it really matter how I score on video games?
We should be taking small steps to gradually let go of this obsession, to gradually pull away, to gradually reclaim our minds, our time, our energy and our attention.
Nonsense is…Nonsensical!
David Brooks ends his article by saying the following:
Online is a place for human contact but not intimacy. Online is a place for information but not reflection. It gives you the first stereotypical thought about a person or a situation, but it’s hard to carve out time and space for the third, 15th and 43rd thought.
Online is a place for exploration but discourages cohesion. It grabs control of your attention and scatters it across a vast range of diverting things. But we are happiest when we have brought our lives to a point, when we have focused attention and will on one thing, wholeheartedly with all our might.
Digital technology is like the Greeks. It started as a small י, as something nice and useful that made communication and sharing information easier and more convenient. It then grew into a ו, a major force in modern life, but now it has become a ן – it has completely taken over.
Yosef and the Hashmonaim teach us that we must work to bring light, more clarity, more focus, more strength, more courage and more meaning to our lives. When we have this, we begin to realize just how truly and utterly nonsensical all this nonsense is. We begin to realize that there is no reason in the world for us to care about things that we really don’t care about.
Let us resolve to add light, to have the strength to pull away, and to treat life as something far more precious and important than the nonsense all around us.