Sabbath (or) Holy Unplugging, part XXIII
Richard M. Wright
I really like it. But it means I can never completely get away from work.
What one member of University Baptist Church said when I asked him about his Blackberry.
I don’t know about you but I am beginning to lose patience with electronic devices. Said the man who cannot stand to go anywhere without his trusty laptop.
In my last article on Sabbath keeping I wrote, “I will argue in a future article that an important part of practicing Sabbath is unplugging for one day. Television off. Ignore your Blackberry. Stay off the Internet” (“Sabbath [or] Holy Questions, part XXII”, The Window, October 23, 2007). For several months I have been haunted by that passing remark about the blessings and the curse of having a Blackberry. I also heard about a family in this congregation where the husband was asked to put in some extra time at work. No – they were about to go on vacation. The response was, “That’s okay. Go ahead and take your vacation. But bring your laptop with you.” Sheesh – not much of a vacation then is it? My experience is that if you do anything work-related during a vacation – no matter how small – then that time is no longer truly a vacation.
Brothers and sisters – we need to unplug.
If one of the first tasks of faithful Sabbath keeping is do no work then one of the first things we must do is turn off (or at least ignore) those devices that connect us to our work. Would you believe that at Young Israel House at Cornell University they actually put a chain and lock on the phone during Sabbath? (Yeah yeah I know. What would they do during an emergency? One can set aside Sabbath rules in order to save life – the rabbis are very clear on that.) That is how seriously they took the call to create a “palace in time” (Abraham Heschel) in which we are free from the demands and expectations of the world.
I understand that some of us must always be available in case of emergency – including ministers. But how much do we protect Sabbath from the intrusions of what is not a matter of life/death/health? My major professor in graduate school would not answer the phone during dinner so that the family could have at least that time uninterrupted. Let the answering machine take it. One can always (a) call back if not urgent or (b) take the call if it is a true emergency.
I do believe we need to consider seriously getting away from computers and television during Sabbath. (Again – I am the worst of hypocrites here. Joining my friends online is one of my favorite Saturday evening diversions. But it means I am not hanging with my family. Or with friends and neighbors who are physically rather than virtually present.)
Heschel writes,
Technical civilization is the product of labor, of man’s exertion of power for the sake of gain, for the sake of producing goods…. To set apart one day a week for freedom, a day for being with ourselves, a day of detachment from the vulgar, a day on which we stop worshipping the idols of technical civilization… The solution of mankind’s most vexing problem will not be found in renouncing technical civilization, but in attaining some degree of independence from it.” (The Sabbath, 27-28; emphasis added)
The point is not that Blackberries or the Internet or television are evil. They are not (necessarily). But rather we unplug in order to say, “You do not control me. I can turn you off – in order to pray and play with the people I can see and touch here and now. Because I am more than what I buy or do or make.”
