The Simple Life

Here’s a thoughtful essay by Ari L. Goldman, former religion reporter for the New York Times, on why, as an Orthodox Jew, he appreciates enforced deprivation from our modern gadget-saturated world during holidays:

Growing up Orthodox, there were few things we feared more than the three-day yom tov — that oddity of the Jewish calendar that juxtaposed a festival with a Sabbath, giving us a stretch of days we called “the triple whammy.” For us, it meant three days with no radio, no records, no television, no telephone, no travel and no shopping.



As a series of three-day yom tovs approaches this year, however, I actually find myself looking forward to the experience. … It’s not only that I’m an adult and have come to appreciate what once was oppressive. It’s not only that I have a family of my own that I want to savor for an extra day. The main reason that I look forward to nine days of yom tov in the coming weeks is the galloping growth of technology in our daily lives.

Sadly, most Christians (at least in the U.S.) have all but abandoned the notion that there’s anything particularly sacred about the day of worship. This may have its roots in a laudable attempt to avoid “legalism,” but the result, often as not, is to push the spiritual life further to the margins. Sure, we may go to church in the morning, but the rest of the day is often for shopping, watching the game, or catching up on work. Taking a regular break from our media and technology-saturated world could probably do us all a great deal of good, regardless of whether we’re religiously observant.

(link via Godspy)