I read a job posting on Friday morning, asking for a reporter "to oversee coverage of the changing world of technology" -- at a newspaper. What journalist with a sense of "the changing world of technology" would sign up for a job with no online possibilities in sight? Who would be interested in working for an employer with their head in the sand? What HR rep wrote that job description? Please tell me that someone has since sat them down and explained this grand ol' thing called the Internet.
Later, I went to synagogue with a friend. We arrived late (My fault. Well, in all fairness, we should blame our tardiness on the 1 train.) so we had to sit in the balcony, looking out across the large congregation of smiling faces seated amongst old Gothic pillars. I exhaled, and felt the week's worries start to drop from my shoulders as easily as my winter coat had a moment before...
And then the band began to play. I've been to my fair share of "Shabbat Unplugged" experiences, and I am all too familiar with Debbie Friedman; this was not my first time at the musical Shabbat rodeo. But, one musician began to play a clarinet (or maybe a recorder?), swaying rhythmically in their seat as the congregation began to sing psalms, and I couldn't help but think: "Is this 'The Prince of Egypt: Live'? Was the big blue genie in Aladdin a Member of the Tribe? Why on earth are we praising G-D with a snake-charmer?" Hearing a live band while singing a prayer for Sabbath peace seems a bit oxymoronic to me.
Worst of all, the rabbi focused his d'var torah on silence, urging everyone in the shul to find a way to set aside the noise of their week. "Put aside technology for a moment," he advised us, his voice booming ironically from the microphone. He said that his hope for all of us this week would be that we would truly find Sabbath peace in that moment of silence... It was a beautiful thought, until, seconds later, the band picked up where it left off.
I am so sick of all of this hypocrisy -- be it from journalists, Jews, or otherwise. I may not always know what I want, or how to do something best. I may not always make the right decisions. I am not always on time, and I don't always know the answer. I'm not the richest, or the skinniest, or the bravest. But I know what's important to me. I know what I value. I know who my loved ones are, and I know my hopes and dreams. I am who I am, and I don't pretend to be anyone else.
A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.
-Joan Anglund
