I'll read you a piece of an article that somewhat triggered this topic. There's a newspaper, a frum (religiously observant) newspaper called the Yated Ne'eman. They have a CV. There are a few writers in there whom I consider friends, but there's one I know pretty well. His name is Yitzchak Hisiger, Rabbi Yitzchak Hisiger. He writes stories and things. This week, he wrote an article called The Pulse.
Maybe I don't really have time to read this, but I opened it up. I said, “Oh, he has an article. I never saw him have an article. Let me see.” I thought the first couple of paragraphs captured my mind. He said: There are people walking around this world with brains that once produced legendary sefarim (religious books) and, lehavdil (with all due distinction), split the atom, discovered penicillin, built the Panama Canal, and composed Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. And they are currently using those brains to wage psychological warfare over the person who removed them from the neighborhood shop. Not metaphorically—literally. Adults, mortgage-paying, child-raising, carpool-driving adults are lying awake at 1.13 in the morning because they waved to someone in Gourmet Glatt and the other person did not see them, or worse, they did. Adults, people with businesses and responsibility, are staring at ceilings at night, wondering why another couple walked past them at a recent engagement party without saying hello. I said, “engagement party”; I made it serene. Adults are losing sleep because a neighbor answered, “Oh, nice,” when they mentioned where their son got into yeshiva. Like, just “Oh, nice”?
Adults are spending Shabbat afternoon analyzing whether another person's quote-unquote interesting comment about “if she do suggest him” meant something negative or not. You ever hear someone say, “Oh, you know, my daughter's dating so-and-so,” or, “I got this suggestion; what do you think?” And they'll say, “Interesting.” And now you have a whole—what does she mean?
Adults are sitting in traffic, emotionally processing a two-word text message that ended with a period. I get that way. If you ever text me, I give you a whole text and you just text back, “Thank you.” What does that mean? You like me? You don't like me? Adults are exhausted from trying to decode whether “beautiful family” was a compliment or something otherwise.
People are emotionally unraveling because someone else got more emojis on a status post. Their neighbor didn't like the vort (engagement celebration) picture. A random guy in shul (synagogue) walked past them without giving them sufficiently enthusiastic eye contact. Their cousin's wig looked suspiciously more expensive than they expected their cousin to be able to afford. Someone took their seat at the pizza shop. The takeout store changed the texture of the potato kugel (baked casserole). Someone else got a call for aliyah (call to the Torah) two weeks in a row. Their name was spelled wrong in the shul seating chart. Another mother sent a casual WhatsApp message that somehow sounded too confident. Or because someone they barely know viewed their status within 30 seconds and didn't respond. All a bunch of nonsense that he is accurately describing.
In some houses, these topics are 70% of the conversation. In some houses, among some sisters and some friends, this is all they talk about. It's not just 15-year-olds. It could be 60-year-olds who are busy with dumb things.