Do you worship your blackberry?

Last week I was praying in shul using the downloaded prayers on my blackberry. Throughout the entire service I noticed a man staring at me constantly. Sure enough, when I was done, this total stranger made his way over to me and angrily exclaimed, “If you were in a meeting with a high profile CEO, would you also check your e-mails and phone? How can you do that while praying to G-d?”

I looked at him calmly and then showed him the siddur downloaded to my blackberry. In fact, in addition to the prayers, I also have the entire mishna, Rambam, chumash and code of Jewish Law so I can study in peace on the subway. Needless to say, the man was very apologetic.

The ancient Egyptians counted the sacred sheep among their gods. The sheep was the “in thing”. They worshipped it. G-d commanded the Jewish people to take a sheep and tie it to their bedposts for four days in preparation of slaughtering it. And should the Egyptians query as to what exactly they were doing, they should tell them nothing but the truth. The reason behind G-d’s command was because taking the Jews out of Egypt was no problem at all, but taking Egypt out of the Jews was a different matter altogether. The Egyptian culture of pagan idol worship was so embedded in the Jews that G-d knew the only way to break the obsession was to take the Egyptian god, mock it, and flush it out their systems.

Four thousand years later, we in America also worship the sheep. Only we call it the internet. Or TV. Or blackberry. Now, I’m not suggesting G-d forbid, that we slaughter our gods (although that may not be such a bad idea!).  But perhaps once a week we can make a 25 hour commitment to turn off all our technological gods. This is the beauty of Shabbos. G-d granted us a day to disconnect from the rush of life, choosing instead to spend quality time with our families, focusing on building the bonds and relationships that truly bring meaning to our lives. Not only that, but for half an hour each day turn off your blackberry and spend quality time with the people you love. Try it out - you won't regret it!