We attended a semi-Orthodox Bar Mitzvah last month. Although we were happy to see our friend’s 13-year-old move onward and upward, the Bar Mitzvah is inevitably embedded within a long service in Hebrew. Young people of my generation were accustomed to managing boredom. But how can kids today sit through two hours of mumbling in what to them is an unintelligible language? They transition from an exciting phone or tablet game to staring blankly and daydreaming?
I wonder if Judaism and similar religions can survive the smartphone age.
Readers: What do you think? Public schools can continue to operate in an arbitrarily boring manner because children are required by law to show up and teachers are entitled to lifetime pay regardless of outcomes. But there is no law requiring young people to show up to a synagogue rather than stay home with Xbox and no law requiring parents to keep paying the rabbis. Judaism has survived for about 4,000 years, so it seems rash to forecast its demise, but we’re only in roughly Year 8 of the ubiquitous smartphone age.
Related:
- Facebook is bad for us (one of my posts on the book iGen, chronicling big changes since the introduction of the iPhone)
Seems to me that the Jewish intermariage rate of over 50% is more likely to lead to the demise of Judaism than the smart phone, incomprehensible (to most Americans) liturgy, and so on. On the other hand with ultra-orthodox and Hasidic having very large families, the fact that Hebrew is now a living language for the first time in several thousand years (albeit different from biblical Hebrew) who knows? But if Judaism survives or perishes I doubt smartphones will have much to do with it.
Remember when everyone used to smoke? Bad habits are a disease of prosperity. They change with fickle fashion.
I saw a middle-aged woman checking her phone at the end of today’s mass. A remarkable occurrence because of its rarity. I look forward to church services because they are free of modern distractions.
My daughter made the unprompted point of turning off her phone as services started. She just came back from a week of technology-free summer camp in good spirits and full of song.
It is the parents (us) who are to blame for our children’s failings. Do not give Google access to your good.credit in your children’s name. We unintentionally diminish their good character and our bank account in so doing.
Ehhhhh…..Parents set the rules. The jew parents can simply take away the kids phones when they go to Temple, Hebrew school or religious events. Jews have it lucky because after 13 years old all bets are off anyways.
Google’s free translate app for smartphones bi-directionally translates voice + text (via camera + augmented reality). Language isn’t a barrier for the post-millennials.
Endogamy brought the Jews to where they are now, and any chipping away at that will tend to erode their tribalism.
Maybe non-Abrahamic religions are the future; nothing focuses the attention like ritual sacrifice!