The iPad and Disconnecting from Technology

This week, Apple introduced the iPad, a new tablet computer. The Wall Street Journal said: “Last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it.” The iPad looks like an iPod on steroids, with a large screen about the size of a piece of paper.

With an iPad, you will be able to do email, watch movies, surf the web, listen to music, look at pictures and read books. And I want one. In fact, every time a new piece of amazing technology is released, I want to head straight to the store and pick up the new LED HD TV, or iPhone or now the iPad. It is only the reality of budgetary constraints that keep me from filling our house with new gadgets.

While I am a big supporter of technology, it is also important for us to be able to disconnect, to unplug from our modern world sometimes. If we spend all of our time in a realm of email, cell phone calls and websites, we may miss opportunities in the real world, the world right in front of us.

One of the problems with modern life is the ability to be able to work twenty-four hours a day. With a Blackberry, we are always able to check email, take phone calls and deal with work issues. While this certainly increases our productivity, it also makes it harder for us to take a break from the stresses of our jobs. When I go on vacation, I do not check voice mail or email. I have discovered that simply taking a break from email is enough to make a vacation relaxing, even if I do not leave home.

We all benefit from finding ways to disconnect from work on a regular basis. Of course, this is what the Sabbath, a day of rest is all about. The essence of the Sabbath comes from the Bible where it says: on the seventh Day God rested and was refreshed. Taking time on Shabbat to pray, to walk, to enjoy a leisurely meal, these are the things that provide us with renewal and strength to face the week ahead.

Another reason to disconnect from technology is to allow us to reconnect to family and friends. Sharing a meal together is perhaps the most important opportunity for families to be together. Yet our amazing technology makes it possible for a family to be sitting around a table and yet not notice one another. I see it in restaurants where kids are texting or playing games and not speaking to their parents. Or at home, where a family watches television during dinner. We are all so busy, and we have so little time to spend with our loved ones. Yet it is easy to squander the moments that have the greatest potential for family bonding.

One final benefit of unplugging from technology is the opportunity to reconnect to yourself. It is in moments of quiet reflection and introspection that we think about our lives, plot new directions for ourselves, and contemplate repairing our mistakes. Each one of us has activities that allow us to escape the everyday. We go to the gym, we go for a long walk, we pray in this Sanctuary, or we spend time outdoors. I find these moments on the trout stream.

It is often easier to reflect on our lives when we are alone. It was no accident that Moses first met God while alone on the mountain, standing before a burning bush. Spiritual moments of introspection are easier to find if we allow ourselves to be disconnected for a while.

Technology is a good thing but like anything else, it must be used in moderation. Our task is not throw away the computer or destroy the tv, not that this would ever happen anyway. Rather, we just need to remember to disconnect from technology on a regular basis. I may still pick up the iPad when it comes out in a few months as I find it hard to resist. Yet, I’ll also try to remember to press that little black button in the upper corner that says “off.”

The Dubai Tower and What We Build In Life

On January 4th, the Burj Dubai, arabic for the Tower of Dubai, was officially opened as the tallest building in the world. The Burj Dubai is 2717 feet tall, 160 stories. It is roughly as tall as the two World Trade Center towers placed one on top of the other. It is a beautiful building, designed by an architect from Chicago.

The Burj Dubai was built at the height of the global real-estate boom. It cost 1.5 billion dollars to build and due to the real estate crash, it is currently mostly empty. With a hotel, apartments and office space, the tower flooded Dubai with more residential and commercial space than the market can possibly bear. This beautiful tower will probably remain mostly empty for years to come.

The Burj Dubai can be a metaphor for pursuing goals in life that ultimately prove empty, like the current tower itself. In the recent terrific film “Up in the Air,” George Clooney works for a firm that a company hires in order to fire its employees. Clooney travels over 250 days a year, going from city to city, company to company, following a script to fire people and “ease their transition.”

As Clooney is alone and has a soul-destroying job, he finds an outlet in another goal, reaching 10 million American Airlines miles, a feat only accomplished by seven other people. When Clooney finally reaches that goal, he receives a special platinum card and a visit from the head pilot of American. Sitting together in first class, Clooney says to the pilot something like: “I’ve been thinking about this moment for years, what I would say to you. But now my mind is empty.”

In a sense, Clooney’s character built his own empty tower, 10 million American Airlines Miles tall, but like the tower in Dubai, it is empty. When we set our goals in life of building higher, acquiring, or hoarding, these material goals may not provide us with the satisfaction that we desire. Even if each of us won the lottery, and could stack up dollars bills in a tower that reached towards the sky, we all know that money does not buy happiness.

If we want to build something, we should not strive for a 160-story skyscraper. Each of us has plenty of work to do to build and strengthen our relationships with family members and friends. If we want to build something, let’s build our communities, seeking to strengthen our town and our connections to others.

The pursuit of material goods and taller buildings is perhaps only a form of self-aggrandizement and it can never provide us with ultimate satisfaction. It is when we shift the focus away from ourselves and to others, to strengthening the bonds of family, to building community and to helping those in need, then we have the potential to build something meaningful and lasting in our lives.

Spiritual Fly Casting and Wading

Casting a fly rod and wading through a cold-water stream can be spiritual experiences. It is an art form to cast a fly correctly. Using an eight to nine foot rod, a fluorescent line and clear leader and tippet, the fly fisher casts the fly out on to the stream. One can learn the basics of casting in a few minutes, but it takes practice to drift a fly correctly and to lure a trout to the surface.

I was first inspired to take up fly fishing after seeing the beautiful casting in the film “A River Runs Through It.” Being a self-taught kind of person, I went to the local fly fishing store in St. Louis, bought a fly rod and reel, and started casting in my front yard (without a hook!). Over the years, I picked up tips here and there from other anglers. Even after bringing dozens of fish to the net and releasing them, my casting skills are intermediate at best. The perfection of the fly cast is a life long pursuit.

Patience is required to cast a fly. In the traditional shadow cast, the fly line travels back and forth, in front of and behind you, until you release it forward. The angler waits for the fly line to extend fully behind him and then flicks it forward gently onto the stream. The fly fisher then watches the fly patiently, waiting and hoping that a trout will rise. Grace happens in fly casting when the cast unrolls in a slow uniform motion on the water and the fly lands ever so gently on the stream.

After the fly drifts down with the current, the fly fisher casts once again. Fly fishing is not like watching a bobber on a lake. For hours, the angler engages in the graceful repetition of the fly cast, in what could be described as a form of meditation. In Eastern religions, a mantra is used to enter a higher spiritual state. Buddhists chant the syllable “Ohm.” In Jewish meditation, the spiritual seeker chants the Hebrew letters that make up the name of God, Yud-Hey-Vav-Hay.

Like mantra meditation, the casting of a fly rod allows the angler to let go of the everyday and access the spiritual side of him or herself. Often I am so busy casting, focusing on my line and how gracefully (or not!) the fly lands on the water that I fail to realize that three or four hours have passed. In the meditative state of fly casting, my being and senses are focused on the fly line, and I lose track of time and place.

Along with casting, wading in a cold-water stream can also be spiritual. The fly fisher wears boots and neoprene waders up to the chest, allowing him or her to walk into the river. Waders are necessary to bring the angler closer to the trout and to keep the fly fisher warm. Wading in a river is like snorkeling on a coral reef. During one snorkeling trip in the Red Sea in Israel, I took a moment to reflect on my surroundings. Looking up from the water, I saw the sky and the shore. Lowering my head and snorkel mask down in the sea, I entered a new world, filled with the whites and pinks of the reef and colorful fish swimming all around.

When wading in a stream, the fly fisher enters a new world as well, that of the river. Moving around becomes more of a challenge, as we feel the strength of the current and the slippery rocks below. We are visitors in a new realm where we do not quite belong, a fascinating place of water, rocks, plants and trout.

A wading staff, a three or four foot long metal pole, helps the angler to navigate the foreign world of the river and maintain one’s balance. A wading staff also gives the angler more freedom to explore the stream. When I became the rabbi of my congregation in Connecticut, I heard about the great fly fishing on the Housatonic River.

On my first trip to the Housey without a wading staff, I could walk only five or ten feet off the shore before the current became too strong and I feared losing my balance. A month later on a return trip, wading staff in hand, I crossed the river from shore to shore, up and down the river. That day on the Housey, I did not catch a single trout, but I reveled in the freedom of exploration.

Perhaps the most powerful wading staff in history was that of Moses. After the Israelite slaves fled Egypt, they stood at the shore of the Red Sea, trapped between the waters in front and Pharaoh’s approaching army behind. At God’s command, Moses lifted his wooden (wading) staff and the sea split in two, allowing the Israelites to cross through on dry land.

When on the opposite shore from where I started or in a deep pool, I sometimes wish that I could lift my staff and split the waters like Moses. Yet I remain content with my metal wading staff, and the freedom to go well beyond the shore, into the world of the river.

Keeping a Trout for Dinner?

I have not taken a trout home for dinner in a few years. Out of the few dozen rainbow, brown and brook trout that I brought to the net, each fish was released back to the stream and swam back into the depths. I practice catch and release fishing for the health of the streams, knowing that if we were all to keep every fish caught, the rivers would soon be empty.

The simplest reason why I release the fish that I catch is that I do not enjoy killing a fish. Rainbow and brown trout are beautiful creatures, sleek, elegant and graceful. When holding a fish in hand, I feel the power of its body and I see the beautiful dark purple spots of a brownie or the long pink stripe of a rainbow. To kill such a beautiful and graceful creature feels somehow wrong.

Perhaps I have started to view a trout as more than just a fish, like a pet. Although other cultures eat dogs as part of their cuisine, we would never want any harm to come to our canine friends. I feel a similar attachment to the trout of the stream, as if all of the rainbow, brown and brook trout are like pets that I sometimes have the opportunity to look at and hold for a few brief moments.

Despite my appreciation for trout, I have been thinking that next spring when I find myself back on the water, I may take the occasional trout home for dinner to fulfill the basic human need for food. On a fishing trip a few years ago, I kept two good size rainbow trout. I broiled the fillets with olive oil and salt, and they tasted amazing.

To eat a trout for sustenance is part of being human. In the Bible, after the great flood, God told Noah that humans could eat animals, as long as they removed all of the blood from them. The blood was seen as the very life force of the creature, and to not eat the blood was a way of respecting the animal. God told Noah and all humanity that we are able to consume other animals as long as we respect them and acknowledge their Divine source.

While the Bible acknowledges the relationship between humans and animals as hunter and prey, many of us today have lost this fundamental aspect of being human. We purchase our beef and chicken at the grocery store, packaged in cellophane, sterilized and removed from all connection to the animal from which it came. Most of us urban dwellers never kill an animal ourselves in order to eat. Instead we leave that job to others in meat processing plants far away.

Killing a trout is not easy, and I do not enjoy it. I try to end the life of the fish in a humane manner. I do not use a creel, keeping the fish alive for hours, which I consider cruel. Instead, I dispatch the trout as quickly as possible and I place it in a cooler that I bring along with me for that purpose.

The fly fishing tool used to kill a trout is called a priest, with a wooden handle and a brass end used to strike the fish. We call it a priest because you are offering “last rights” to the trout. However when dispatching a fish, we can also think of ourselves as priests, rabbis or ministers. Just as we expect our religious leaders to conduct themselves to the highest ethical standards, we too must kill the fish in the most humane way possible.

Picture: a fly fishing priest.

Ending the life of a beautiful trout is difficult and I sometimes feel guilty doing it. But it can also teach us spiritual and ethical lessons. We realize what it actually means to kill another animal and so we strive to treat animals with respect. We also remember that a trout is one of God’s creatures, a true miracle of creation. While we are able eat this fish, we do so with a heightened sense of appreciation for the trout itself, and for the world in which it lives.

No Family is Perfect

During this time of year, we wish to be near our families and share the warmth of holidays with them. We may also have mixed emotions and can encounter difficulties in being with our loved ones. No family is perfect, and often we deal with family issues during this holiday season. In Hebrew we call family mishpecha, or in Yiddish, mishpocha. Judaism offers a number of helpful ideas for dealing with mishpecha during the holidays.

Judaism teaches us that no family structure is perfect. We tend to idealize the nuclear family, believing that the perfect family gathering occurs when grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins gather together for a meal and celebration. While this vision of family life is beautiful, it is rare.

Today, many families are simply not structured in this traditional way. We have blended families from multiple marriages. Boyfriends and girlfriends of every age from teenagers to seniors join at the holiday table. In the Bible it says that we are to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger. By this same principal, our task is to welcome everyone to our holiday tables with kindness.

The Bible is filled with many examples of unique family structures. Jacob had four wives, 12 sons and 1 daughter, making for a very complex family life. Naomi from the book of Ruth had a very difficult family life as well. She lost her husband and two sons. Her daughter in law Ruth stays with Naomi and Ruth even converts to Judaism, saying: “Wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.”

The measure of a family is not how closely it matches the traditional structure, but rather the warmth, love and support shared by its members. It is probably no accident then that Kind David descended from the loving family of Ruth and Naomi.

Just as no family structure is perfect, individual family members are not perfect either. It is easy judge our relatives by high standards. Yet Judaism teaches us that benefit in trying to accept our family members despite their flaws.

Beginning with Cain killing his brother Abel, one family member after another in the Torah argues, does not get along and occasionally disowns one another. In many cases, we can learn from the families in the Torah exactly what not to do to promote family unity. A hint: almost sacrificing your child, as Abraham did with Isaac, probably does not engender good family dynamics. All of these stories of difficult family dynamics from the Torah are perhaps meant to teach us that grandparents, parents and siblings are imperfect.

One way to help us accept the imperfections of family members is to look at the core of the relationship which is love. Remembering the love shared between siblings or parents and children can go a long way towards overcoming family issues.

We can all come up with a laundry list of ways that our family members caused us harm. Perhaps we will use the holidays as an excuse to bring up old grievances, or punish family members for past mistakes. Yet if we can try to remember that our family members do love us, we might find ourselves relating to them with kindness and compassion. There are families out there where there is a lack of love, and if we are fortunate to have love in our family, this is reason to be grateful.

In Jewish tradition, one of the guiding values for family life is shalom bayit, which means peace in the home. As the holiday season continues, we benefit from striving for shalom bayit and creating an atmosphere of peace, acceptance and tolerance in our homes.

Judaism does not counsel us to forgive and forget, or to pretend that difficulties in relationships do not exist. However, if we recall the love at the center of our family relationships and seek to let go of some of the difficulties of the past, we can make theses holidays into a warm and joyous time, even if they are a bit exhausting.