Rabbi Zvi Gefen Presents… Unplugged

Last week there were three computer outages at major companies: United Airlines, The New York Stock Exchange and The Wall Street Journal. The US government is assuring us that these were three unrelated incidents and that no malicious activity was involved. Yet even if there was no malicious activity, yesterday’s events certainly highlight the potential dangers we face from hackers.

Hackers also have the ability to indirectly endanger lives, which is why we should expect governments to prosecute hackers heavily. However, for regular citizens, there is another lesson to be learned from yesterday’s outages.

These three outages highlight our dependence on technology. All three companies were very strong companies well before computers (United Airlines has been flying since the 1920’s, NYSE has been around since 1817, and The Wall Street Journal was first published in 1889). Yet they all created a dependence on technology such that a computer outage set them back decades.

The Torah says that Shabbat commemorates us once being slaves in Egypt. Our life was 24/7. Work. Slavery.

Nowadays we are slaves in a different way;

“I can be reached anywhere anytime. We are wired”

You could be bathing the kids, climbing a mountain, sharing a moment with a loved one and the phone rings. All of sudden we stop whatever it may be and make a dash. “THE PHONE”! Nothing can be more important

You get into a plane you put the kid in the overhead compartment, or throw them an iPad. And then you put your laptop on your lap.

I have a friend that was speaking to a rabbi and the phone rang and it kept ringing. And my friend said you know the phone is ringing. And the rabbi answered – I know but you were first.

There is a firm in LA, time management consultants. You pay 300$ an hour. You tell him your schedule and they give you advice how to de-stress. This person sits down with a family and he advises them how to maintain a calmer lifestyle. He sits down with the family and says chose one day of week, Sunday or Saturday and on that day don’t answer phone, don’t watch television or listen to radio and have at least two meals with the whole family together and don’t go anywhere you would need to drive to (because driving causes stress) and you will see your life will be transformed. And these people did it and felt their life transformed.

When I heard this I thought to myself. Unbelievable. If a rabbi would come in and say to try the above they would say “are you a medieval fanatic?!”

We don’t need to live a 1995 lifestyle and certainly not a 1920’s lifestyle, but we should reflect on how we can wean ourselves from some of our technology dependencies.

Good Shabbos, Zvi.