This week I started planning our Chanukah party for young Jewish professionals, who will be joined by 12 severely wounded IDF soldiers. I created a Facebook event for the party and called it “IDF meets NYC with a Night Aglow.”
This is certainly not the first Facebook event I’ve created. Far from it! I’ve been using social media for years, and I create and host several events per month. Until now, upon receiving a Facebook invite, users could choose from three options:
1. “Going.”
2. “Not Going”
3. “Maybe”
But this week, Facebook replaced the “maybe” option with the new “interested” option.
When I create an event on Facebook most people simply ignore the invite. Especially with the holiday season approaching, and people receiving dozens of invites a week to all kinds of events and parties, people simply don’t respond.
But then there are people who cannot ignore me because we have a relationship, so the easiest solution is to respond with a “maybe”. The“maybe” acknowledgesthat they have received my invitation and don’t want to be rude, but they cannot commit just now.
This was frustrating. Were they just being polite? Did they have any intention of attending? It was impossible to know. Facebook agreed that the “maybe” option was too non-committal and ambiguous, so they replaced it with the “interested” button, in an endeavor to better engage users into giving a meaningful response.
This week’s Torah portion describes the very first shidduch. Eliezer was tasked with finding a wife for Isaac. He narrowed it down to Rivka, and when her family asked her “Are you interested?” she responded with a resolute “Yes!”
Firm, confident decisions serve us well when it comes to dating and marriage.
“Are you interested in another date with the guy?”
“Well…maybe...I don’t know…if he wants to…”
As we travel life’s trajectory, it’s very easy to pass the buck with an ever-ready “maybe.”
But we need to learn how to change that “maybe” into an “interested.”
Very often I email congregants, “Can you make it to Shabbat morning services?” and they respond, “Maybe.” From experience I know that “maybe” means “probably not.”
Like the new Facebook option, Judaism requires a firm commitment. With Facebook, it’s as easy as a click of the button. With Judaism it requires a little more effort.
We can all learn from this week’s Facebook update. We need to do away with the easy, non-committal “maybe” and decide that from now on we are interested. Interested means moving forward, committing to one more mitzvah and then another and another…
From now on, I am an interested Jew!