Today marks the beginning of my life in the fast lane of technology: I have an assignment to become a blogger for my Technology in Jewish Education class from Gratz College! I have also been given a mission. So for those of you who don't know me well, I will start by saying that I am an OB/GYN in private practice in Florida. My iphone lives in or on my person just about 24/7. I spend lots of sleepless nights... many days I sing prayers in the car (through the bluetooth connection to my iphone)on the way to a delivery or emergency, or coming home from one, or the office. Oh yes, I am also a modern day Mom. So add to that schlepping my DD to and from school and activities, homework, "quality time", etc. I have a black Lab puppy and a partner: there is never a dull moment.
I participate in a weekly Torah study with a great group of mostly women (once in awhile a male Pastor and a Husband or two,) led by our wonderful Cantor, who BTW, sings like an angel, and other than taking DD to Religious School (she is 6) I seldom make it to my Temple. It is sad because I love the sense of community I feel when there ( our Rabbi says He wants us to think of it as our second home and I do in many ways)and always leave with a pearl or two to help me live my life in a more integrated and Jewish way.
Over the past couple of years I probably have visited as many Jewish themed sites as there are on the net.I have an iT'filah program loaded on my iphone so I can Daven anywhere and anytime. I haven't yet looked for the iTanakh, but I will. I also recieve the weekly Parsha through two different sources as well as a children's version from another source. I READ THEM FROM MY IPHONE. I DON"T BELIEVE THAT THIS ACT DECREASES THE SANCTITY OF THE TEXT. Even the prayer we recite before studying these texts encourages us, in any way that is appropriate. We engage with the words of the Torah.
In this century engaging has to be accessible (check), beneficial (check), cost effective(remains to be seen), and easy to use(check): the iphone is on me 24/7 remember? We are part of a community who is also engaging with these words, even if we are not in the same physical space or at the same moment in time. The URJ's epublication V'Shinantam (the Union for Reform Judaism National Teacher's Newsletter) No II, 5763 speaks about our comfort learning with different tools. Using the iphone is a tool. Just a tool. The text, if treated appropriately, can be studied anywhere really. And just as sacredly :-)
I agree with you. I think it is completely ok to use the phone to go over torah. When studying torah we know that we need to be respectful. We don't always have time to sit down with a tanach, but at least we have our phones to study with.
ReplyDeleteI had not thought about studying Torah this way before. After reading your post, I found that I completely agree with this new method of studying Torah. Your use of the iPhone to study is very adaptive to 21st century learning. Kol Hakavod!
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