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It’s a crazy electronic world — so take a well-deserved break

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Message: If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/34958/full/34958/it-s-a-crazy-electronic-world-so-take-a-well-deserved-break/ It’s a crazy electronic world — so take a well-deserved break Friday, May 16, 2008 | by rabbi michelle fisher Behar Leviticus 25:1-26:2 Jeremiah 32:6-27 Welcome to modern life! We all live in a seemingly endless mode of multi-tasking, rarely giving our minds a rest. At least once every few months, I come across yet another newspaper or journal article — even cover stories in broadly read magazine like Newsweek and Time — about the omnipresent and ubiquitous use of electronic devices by modern society, especially by teens. This is a wired (and quickly becoming a wireless) generation whose brains are incessantly stimulated by iPods, handhelds, “smart” phones, Game Boys and Xboxes. The days when sitting on a train or plane, running in the neighborhood, or even swimming in the pool were “down” times for us to relax from external input are long gone. Scientists are just beginning to examine the effects of continuous stimulation: What does it mean to never have a “brain break”? Our Torah reading this week seems to directly address this challenge, albeit in the language of an agrarian community. Behar focuses on the laws of shmitah, the seventh year of the Israelite farming cycle. During this year, farmers in the land of Israel are not allowed to plant any crops, nor harvest any produce that grows. It is to be a year of complete rest for the land, a Shabbat in the seventh year for the land, just as the seventh day of the week is Shabbat for Jews as a people. “When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land must be given a rest period, a sabbath to Adonai. For six years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, but the seventh year is a Sabbath of Sabbaths for the land ... it is a year of complete rest for the land. You may [only] eat whatever the land during its Sabbath will produce” (Leviticus 25:2-5). Throughout the ages, many have scoffed at the real world observance of and adherence to these mitzvahs: these farmers actually left the land fallow for a year and just “hoped” for God to provide? As Zionism brought waves of farmers to the land of Israel, and even more so since the founding of the state of Israel 60 years ago, there has been earnest discussion, much wrestling and many halachic arguments presented about how to observe these laws in a modern state. (This year, 5768, is a Shemitah year on the Jewish calendar.) In practice, the concept is challenging, and some solutions are theologically or philosophically difficult. Yet as a biblical mitzvah, the practice was and is taken seriously. On any level, these laws should be considered seriously. Scientific research (and proto-scientific observations by early farmers) has shown that soil continuously farmed without a rest or crop rotation does become depleted of minerals and over time becomes less fertile. Land needs rest. The farmers who work the land need rest. And, what many of the news articles I continue to read conclude, some three or four millennia after these shmitah laws were formulated, is that our brains need rest, too, in order to work best and remain strong. Our nonstop stimulation of the mind and our senses by electronic sounds and sights, by electronic media, is not healthy. Every time I study Torah, I see again that it teaches universal messages — sometimes written in highly specific, even ancient technical language, but also with real applications, interpretations and parallels that can be observed today. Is it possible for us moderns to “unplug”? Is it possible for us to use Shabbat as a day to let our brains relax from electronic images and sounds? Can we interact with our family, go out for peaceful walks or lie down in the hammock without causing our brain neurons to incessantly fire? Can we consider doing this without scoffing: “It won’t work,” or “I don’t have the time” or another excuse? In letting the land lie fallow for a year, our ancestors (and modern Israeli farmers) turned outside themselves to see the world around them more clearly. I encourage each of us to learn from this biblical example and use this Shabbat (and future Shabbats) to slow down, to disengage from our technology in order to spend time in the physical and emotional company of human beings. Spend a Shabbat to more deeply interact with your family and friends, to talk and to share without distraction. I promise the break will reinvigorate, revitalize, refresh and rejuvenate you and your relationships with the world and others. Rabbi Michelle Fisher is the spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Shalom in Walnut Creek.

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