Last week, the New York Times Book Review (February 16, 2025) almost got it right. The Times reviewed two new books that finally caught up with the Torah asifah and other Jewish events. Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Are Tearing Us Apart by Nicholas Carr and The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes have at long last discovered that “Social Media and the Internet are weapons of mass distraction.” Not that Rav Matisyohu Solomon and the Skulener Rebbe need anyone’s haskamah, but it is somewhat reassuring to know that even the most liberal of media are doing a mea culpa about what they have done to our children and future generations.
Ironically, neither of these authors, nor the Times reviewer, is particularly concerned by what bothers our gedolim and any Jew even mildly touched by the Torah. None of these “experts” are at all perturbed by the decadent and destructive content our children – and yes, adults as well – are being exposed to. Their worry is solely about how we are “ill-equipped for the infinite scroll of the information age, which we indulge to our detriment.” They liken the content of the internet to “junk food,” which may not kill in small amounts, but certainly does in its current incarnation of occupying the major portion of our day and night. They also point out that whereas in earlier generations, when people were forced to think before they wrote anything, texting “has enabled us to let loose our worst instincts.”
Of course, perhaps inevitably, the two authors and the reviewer irrationally blame President Trump for all this. That is clearly unwarranted and patently false, but it is par for the course when reading liberal “jeremiads,” as the pundits arrogantly refer to themselves. However, despite these lapses, at least they recognize that “our phones are ‘little slot machines we hold in our pocket’ – and…capture our attention on the cheap.” In other words, these authors are much more concerned with our diminishing ability to think for ourselves, while we waste our time and lives, than with the toxic poisons our people have been worrying about since the various asifos.
Let’s take a moment to listen to how Torah giants have analyzed this situation well before the internet and social media have been ruining mankind. Shlomo Hamelech (Koheles 1:8) declares that “all words are wearying, one becomes speechless; the eye is never sated with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing.” Although Rashi teaches that he means that everything is tiresome and wasteful except Torah, the Medrash (Koheles Rabbah 1:5) states that even Torah study initially makes us tired as well. The Maharal (Derech Chaim 2:14) explains that since we are all a composite of body and soul, the body does not react immediately well to the offerings of kedusha and Torah we bring to it. It takes time, effort, and persistence until we reach the point where the body is also satisfied with the spiritual food with which we are plying it.
I have a vivid memory of a moment high in the air. I found myself on a plane with Rav Simcha Wasserman, whom I knew only slightly. Suddenly, he said to me, “Rabbi Feitman, do you know what a speed bump is?” There was no context or introduction to this inquiry, nor did I have any idea why he was asking. My reply was, alas, the obvious. “It is a small structure that slows us down when we are going too fast.” The smiling rosh yeshiva responded, “You are correct. That is a blatt Gemara,” and then sat down in his seat. I understood what he was saying, but it took two weeks for me to appreciate it.
I was on my way to Eretz Yisrael to speak for a Torah Umesorah-sponsored series of lectures designated for young would-be mechanchim, rabbonim, and kiruv professionals. After one of my presentations, one of them asked me the following: “I have been teaching Gemara for years, but I still don’t get it. Why did Hashem have to make learning so difficult? Why couldn’t it be easier and more palatable?” My response here, too, was obvious. “Have you ever heard of a speed bump?” I don’t know how Rav Simcha knew I would need it in my Ohr Lagolah lectures, but I launched into a drasha on his sagely words. “When we go too fast, we can’t smell the flowers. When we just sail through words, we don’t stop to think about them. That’s why we have to slow down.” That was well before the internet and social media, but Rav Simcha’s nevius was akin to that of Rav Matisyohu and the Skulener Rebbe years later.
Rav Shmuel Rozovsky (Zichron Shmuel, page 540), one of the most prolific and profound teachers of Torah in recent generations, used to say that “one cannot attain Torah knowledge without a war. One must first fight against laziness, the various available distractions, and other things that stand between ourselves and learning Torah. Only when we have overcome all of these can we claim the Torah wisdom as the spoils of war.” Even the Chazon Ish, who is certainly one of the paradigms to whom we always point for hasmadah in Torah, commented that “all of my life, I have fought against the yeitzer hara to waste time from Torah” (Leshichno Sidreshu 1:18). The Medrash (Tanna Devei Eliyahu 14) actually revealed the same thought thousands of years ago: “The Torah is not absorbed by a person before he has at first become tired by its words.”
Of course, we must remember that there is no magic formula for overcoming what seem to be the universal obstacles to using our time valuably. The problems were always there; only their venue and power have changed. Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz (Shlucha Derabbonon, page 304) once noticed a group of boys wasting time when they should have been learning. He approached them with tears in his eyes. “What can I expect from you?” he wept, “when I am your menahel? It is I who will be punished for your bittul Torah. My rabbeim were the giants of Unsdorf and Chust. I should have been a better example.” He left weeping, but the bochurim never bateled again.
After many of us were watched by our children wasting time on events like the Super Bowl, we must ask ourselves as well whether we are the role models we should be regarding how carefully we spend our time. The world has no understanding of such thinking, but surely we do and can influence our children by what we do and, even more importantly, by what we don’t do. Rav Yechezkel Abramsky’s grandson once returned late from attending a wedding. He later offered his ainikel and his friends the following mussar: “How can you waste three hours at a wedding? When I was your age, I only attended two weddings, that of my sister and my own. How can you expect to grow in Torah?”
I remember attending weddings in Cleveland, when one of the lions of Telz, Rav Yankel Cohen, would throw out a Torah shailah at the table while we were waiting for the dancing to begin. It was a thought question that anyone could consider without “holding in the sugya.” Soon, there was a Torah war raging, while the fish got cold, because the Torah was so hot. We should all try to correct this massive hole in our schedules during these chasunah seasons. We, bnei Torah, too, need to carefully weigh the sanctity of every moment we are wasting.
Of course, the internet and social media are dangerous to our spiritual health, but the world may finally be waking up to that. But we should be the first to think about whether or not we are counting the precious moments we have and using them efficiently and properly. When weddings have become concerts and are robbing us of our learning time, it is no longer the internet that is the culprit, but our own giving in to what even the greatest gedolim lamented as the dangers of bittul Torah.
Of course, we are living in a different age, but Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach (Michtavim Umaamarim 5:5) told the story about how his uncle, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, became a gadol. He had entered the Volozhiner Yeshiva when he was thirteen years old, being accepted so young because he had already learned and knew the three Bavas. Nevertheless, his father heard that he was not learning according to the expectations for him. His father walked from Mir to Volozhin, gave him a gentle slap, and cried, “It is not for this that I sent you to yeshiva.” He turned and walked back to Mir. With fathers like that, children knew where the priorities should be.
We can’t and perhaps shouldn’t do what Rav Isser Zalman’s father did, but we must demonstrate, through actions, not words, what we want our children to hold dear and precious. Then, maybe the internet and social media will have no hold on us because we have that which is much better, holier, and purer: the Torah and its precious speed bumps.
