Emuna: Reading, or Screening?

by Rav Haggai Londin, Rosh Yeshivat Holon yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.

Rabbi Londin explains how our preoccupation with screens developed from ancient Greece, and how to counter the trend.

Frontal learning is today's primary development tool for our individual progress and growth. Children receive an average of twelve years of schooling as a start, and many then go on to attain additional years of higher education. In general, the more years of education and academic degrees one has, the more his social and economic status increases.

It is widely believed that the purpose of learning is simply to add knowledge. Our world is quantitative and material, and therefore in order to maximize my functionality, I need information. In other words, if my goal is to "enjoy life," I need money, for which I need work, for which in turn I need professional skills that are acquired through study and information. As such, education has no value on its own; it is only a means, not an end.

This approach leads, inevitably, to the quest to make learning easier and quicker. The more accessible we render the learning, and the faster it becomes, and the more colorful and attractive the study is – the better for all of us.

In our postmodern culture, there is a constant push to make things easier, and especially in the field of learning. Videos, stories and pictures are the focal points of pedagogy today. The status of the teacher is also changing: Too often, he or she is no longer an educator who is supposed to impart values, but is rather a supplier of facts. Some even dream of (or fear…) making teachers obsolete and effecting the learning via online systems, with no human contact.

The Jewish approach is very different. It posits that the real world is that which is spiritual, while the material aspects thereof are only its wrapping. The purpose of education is not only to impart facts, but to imbue us with morals, values, and the like, and to thus render us better people. As such, knowledge that is acquired without effort and with no challenge will not produce the desired result. It will fill our heads with information, but will bring about no personality change. 

Back in 1963, the Italian educational system ran an experiment to see if children could be educated via hypnosis. The children were put into a trance, and the texts were recited to them via earphones – and when they woke up, behold, they knew the material by heart! However, the experiment was quickly dropped, for two reasons: They remembered the material only for a short time, and were unable to use the information they were fed to deduce or reason. For instance, when they were asked, "Based on what you learned in case X, what would be the answer for case Y?" – they could not answer. 

When the learner gathers information passively, he does not qualitatively change his way of thinking or his personality. Our Sages refer to the ability to analyze situations and infer from case to case as Binah. We seek Binah when we are not content with the visible image of reality, and rather strive for a deeper look at the inner logic behind things. Our study of Mishnah and Gemara is a perfect example of the development of this ability, which is not only a learning technique, but a complete approach to life itself.

The quantitative approach has taken over much of our modern thinking. That which can be measured is more prevalent in our discourse than what can be felt and sensed. This is an offshoot of ancient Greek thinking (that the message of Chanukah negates), which sought the ultimate building block of existence; it found it in the form of what it called the "atom," which literally means indivisible. We now know that atoms can be divided, but the approach is the same: There is a finite framework, both maximal and minimal, to existence, and what is significant is only the quantitative-material dimension, of which intellectual learning is also a part. Values and spiritual-divine dimensions do not exist for them; everything is formulas and tables. Even the emotional dimension is quantified as a measure of emotional intelligence (EQ).

As opposed to the Greek-western approach, Judaism maintains that the qualitative dimension is that which forms the basis of the quantitative. There is therefore truly no limit to the world of the material, which is based on infinite energy. Every single hair has within it the energy of an atom bomb. The infinite is found at the basis of everything that is finite. Accordingly, the goal of education is not to maximize what we can extract from the natural world – but to touch the essence of life! 

This is why one must have the virtues of honesty and integrity in order to acquire real knowledge: "Only if your rabbi is like an angel of the Lord of Hosts, seek Torah from him," our Sages teach. Torah scholarship essentially tells us: Note the inner world that stands at the foundation of everything, and never suffice with just the outer wrapping. Again, in the words of the Sages: "Do not look at the jug, but rather at what it contains."

Today, in the 21st century, these struggles between quality and quantity, between passivity and proactivity, are manifest in the competition between reading books and staring at screens. The reason why our parents used to (hopefully many still do) yell at us, "Get away from that boob tube and go read a book!" is because when we read, our brains have to work actively to translate words and sentences into pictures and thoughts, with the help of our critical senses. The use of screens, on the other hand, means we skip the thought process, and thrusts the unfiltered picture directly into our brains, devoid of critical analysis. 

As is well-known, George Orwell's 1948 book entitled "1984" described an imaginary future world in which the "Big Brother" government had total control over its citizens' lives. One of its primary means was the placement of screens in every corner brainwashing them with absurd statements such as "White is Black" and "War is Peace." Although Orwell was referring to some type of Communist government, he was not far from today's actual reality. People have now chosen to subjugate themselves to incessantly brainwashing screens.  

Of course, there's no use thinking that our protests, or anything else, will magically cause the phenomenon of screens to disappear from our lives; the contrary is much more likely as the world gallops towards an even more digital future. Still, supervision and control over our habits is possible even in the 21st century. As has been said before, measures include setting a set time framework for computer and phone use, filtering mechanisms, purchasing analytical tools regarding what we see and spend time on, and more. Most fortunately, we also have the Sabbath – 25 consecutive weekly hours when we turn inwards and disengage from our daily routines. What a gift we have been given!

Let us also constantly encourage the development of reading and study skills, with an emphasis on comprehension and investigation. Comics don't fill the bill; novels have value mostly on the emotional plane; and best of all is the study of Torah.

Rabbi Londin is the author of "12 Faith Challenges for the 21st Century."