Week 3

Perhaps it was because I realized how irrational I was getting that I actually started keeping to the commitment with some level of seriousness. Full workdays went by and the world of Vladmir Putin, Ben Shapiro, and Moshe Gafni melted into an irrelevant background. I think the one exception was when, during the initial morning check, there truly was a developing story in the making. When that happened, I was somech on one of my heterim developed during Week Two. Hey, it was b’shaas hadchak.

Week 4

The final week revealed something to me that I’d never taken note of before. At this point, I had grown used to the routine of avoiding the constant refreshing, instead checking the news once at 9 a.m. and once at 5 p.m. And what I noticed was that the news articles actually became a lot more interesting. Instead of rapidly clicking in and out, I was, for the first time, focusing on what I was reading, appreciating the content in a way I never had before. The tragic stories genuinely seemed tragic, and I was able to pause for a moment and feel the pain. The anti-Semitic occurrences taking place with increasing frequency were worrying, and I was able to stop and contemplate that. The news had become real stories about real people, not just flashes of information to keep my mind occupied (and duly distracted from what I was supposed to be doing).

In Hindsight

Will I go back to my bad old ways? Knowing me, probably. But maybe not. There’s a chance I may be able to find a healthy medium where I don’t keep myself in hours-long suspense (things are heating up with North Korea after all) but, at the same time, give up on the obsessive-like news refreshing. I’ll make you a deal. How about you keep hitting refresh and, when there’s a breaking story, just shoot me an email. That’s mutar l’chol ha’deios

The Daven ’N Dash Guy

At a Glance

I come from a family where everything is about mesorah. It was never about mutar or assur, just, “What’s our mesorah?” This had its perks, like when our mesorah allowed us to do— well, okay, I won’t tell you about that one.

And it had its non-perks. Plenty of them. Oh, the amounts of sweetened carrots and raw onions I’ve been forced to consume, all in the name of mesorah. But one great upside to this mehalech was Motzaei Shabbos. My friends, for the most part, waited until 72 minutes after shkiah before making Havdalah. But we, luckily, had a mesorah. Fifty minutes, not a second more. Well, we did kinda keep 72. That’s the 72-inch TV screen we had, which was up and roaring precisely 50 minutes after shkiah. Hey, mesorah. But as I grew older and started learning through the sugyos myself, I began to recognize that there was ample support for the position to wait for the 72-minute zeman. I was already waiting 50 minutes, I reasoned; why not wait another 22? I decided to try it, just for a month. And hopefully, somewhere up in Heaven they said, “Give us 22 minutes and we’ll give you the World.”

My Goal

One thing my goal certainly is not is to become a “72-guy.” Nothing against them, but it’s just not me. I guess my goal here is to prove to myself that my sense of desperation to end Shabbos as soon as possible is unfounded, that nothing will happen if I spend just a few more moments taking in the sanctity of Shabbos haMalkah.

Week 1

I just don’t get the human brain, including my own. I knew I wanted to wait until 72. I live in a neighborhood that has, baruch Hashem, no shortage of minyanim, at all different zemanim. The logical thing would have been to daven at the latest minyan, thus making the dead time as short as possible. But no. My brain decided that I couldn’t, simply couldn’t, daven more than 40 minutes after shkiah. So I did that, headed home, and walked straight to my phone, knowing full well that I had to wait another 20 or so minutes before turning it on. But I had to be there. Just be there. By my phone. Waiting. For eternity. Or 20 minutes. Whatever.

I just don’t get the human brain.

Week 2 

My brain functioned a little better this time. I still davened at the 40-minute minyan but then, I made the brilliant move of walking home really, really slowly. But not slow enough. There were still ten minutes to kill when I got home. But guess what I did? I turned to my wife and kids and spoke to them! For real! Can you believe it? Real human communication on a Motzaei Shabbos. Well, ten minutes of it anyway.

Week 3

Have you ever walked into shul and gotten the feeling that everyone is staring at you? So you check your hat to make sure it’s not backward, and you break your neck trying to check the back of your jacket to see if it’s, like, smeared with avocado or something? Anyway, that’s how I felt when I showed up at the 50-minute Maariv on Motzaei Shabbos. I couldn’t believe how many people were there. Am I the only guy desperate to re-enter the sheishes yemei melachah? Maybe I am. And that’s not a good thing. Hey, did I just think that? My brain seems to be working a little better.

Week 4

I did the craziest thing this last Shabbos. I went to a shtibel, like the type that serves Shalosh Seudos, except it doesn’t really, ’cuz you have to share lechem mishneh with three other people and it’s not really lechem mishneh ’cuz some guy took a couple bites out of it already. But the food wasn’t the point. It was the singing. Such beautiful singing. Deep into the night. Many songs I’ve never heard before, but somehow felt as if I’d known forever. They finally bentshed and began davening Maariv. I was totally oblivious to the time until I incidentally caught sight of the clock. It was 90, that’s right, 90 minutes past shkiah. And I had just begun davening Maariv.

In Hindsight

Moving forward, I can’t say that, in practice, I have changed forever. In the end, I’m sure I’ll still find myself rushing to the early Motzaei Shabbos Maariv. But I think that in terms of perspective, I may very well be changed forever. It will be a long time before I forget that singing, those hauntingly beautiful tunes that seem to reflect a tangible sadness as they bid farewell to Shabbos.

The Weight Watcher

At a Glance

I guess you could say I was always a weight watcher, but for the most part, I just sat back and enjoyed the show. I remember those good old bar mitzvah days. We used to have “kishke contests.” Those are exactly what they sound like. I remember winning a decisive victory, gulping down nine pieces in rapid succession, finally collapsing in a red-faced, bloated heap of triumph.

That I ultimately came to start watching my weight on a more serious level was more of a shalom bayis thing than actual weight consciousness. My wife was going through some health complications, and, as part of the treatment, had to keep to a specific and rigorous diet. This didn’t come up in chassan classes, but through pure intuition, I sensed that digging into a triple-decker deli sandwich with fries on the side while my wife nibbled on a carrot stick wasn’t a smart move. So I decided to join the fun and start dieting as well. Before doing so, I stepped on a scale, first time since, like, before the kishke contest days. Guess what, fellas? It was time to start weight watching.

My Goal

Well, obviously my real goal was to keep my wife happy as we suffered through piles of brussels sprouts in blissful marital harmony. But I guess, deep down, I knew this was the right thing to do. Being healthy is, like, a mitzvah, though I believe it’s often pikuach nefesh. Wait, does that make sense? Probably not. Anyway, the diet I decided to keep was called Weight Watchers (or WW). The way it works is that you submit a whole bunch of personal information onto the WW website. They want to know your age, gender, weight, details on how much you ate at your friends’ bar mitzvahs (kidding). Once that info is in, you are assigned a certain number of points that serves as your daily limit. Then, each food is assigned a point number, and the name of the game is not to go over the number of points you’re allotted per day. Basically, it’s like an Olympic sport, except for the fun part.

Week 1

Was tougher than predicted. I don’t get how, but I felt a whole lot hungrier than I do on a fast day. And angrier. That’s what really bothered me. Here, I was doing all this solely to be a good husband but, as a result, was turning into a terror. Small everyday annoyances, like losing my car keys (which legit happens every day), were escalating into all-out wars, with lots of yelling and angry finger pointing — usually in one direction (away from me). There was also this weird thing where, even though I didn’t really care much about this diet, I still got super upset when I messed up. That probably comes from the competitive side of me. I have a competitive side, by the way. Hence the nine pieces of kishke. To make a week-long story short, Week One was, as the 45th president of the United States might say, a complete disaster.

Week 2

I spent some time rethinking Week One and trying to figure out what it was I was doing wrong. Turns out that I was making a bunch of mistakes, primarily because I wasn’t tracking the point system properly. So I did some thinking and some calculating (hard when you’re hungry) and came up with a list of foods that seemed to fit with the requirements. The problem I kept running into was that I was eating way too much of it. Like, one of the foods that worked for me was Greek yogurt. I was downing my fourth when I realized that something was wrong. Hey, at least it’s not kishke.

Week 3

There’s a chumrah I developed over these past few weeks: one should refrain from counting Weight Watchers points on Shabbos. I don’t know if it’s d’Oraisa, d’Rabbanan, both, or neither, but I observed it religiously. Oh, how I loved Shabbos. To be fair, I didn’t do anything crazy, at least not while my wife was watching. Remember, she was actually dieting for her health, and even with my newfound chumrah, she still had to be careful on Shabbos. Aside from Shabbos, it was a pretty good week, and I think I pretty much kept to the diet as prescribed. One frustration, though, was I kept looking down at my stomach, expecting to see it magically disappear. And that wasn’t happening.

It’s like when you get a text from a guy you really don’t like, saying, “Hi, wanna learn b’chavrusa this zeman?”

And you stare at that text and you scream at it, “Go away, just go away right now!”

But it doesn’t, of course it doesn’t, it just stays there, staring at you, letting you sweat it out. Anyway, that was the kind of antagonistic relationship I was getting into with my very own stomach. Sounds weird, I know. It’s the diet. It’s messing me up, I tell you.

Week 4

My wife is a genius. She said, “Instead of checking your stomach, why don’t you weigh yourself?”

I stared at the woman. “Thanks, Einstein,” I said slowly, and hopped aboard our local scale.

And… yippee! I had lost weight! Not tons, but some. If I recall correctly, it was about three pounds. But that’s something. In fact, I’ll bet that’s about half the nine pieces of kishke, still haunting me from the good ol’ days. Anyway, it was time to celebrate. Where’s the potato chips? Oh. Right. Never mind…

In Hindsight

So, did anything productive come out of this? We can debate that. I’m not heading toward becoming Mr. String Bean anytime soon, nor do I have any desire to do so. But I think I did learn a thing or two about self-control, and eating healthier does feel, oh, I don’t know, virtuous? But I have a different problem now. My shirts are too big. Now, that’s unacceptable. I have to remedy that right now. “Hello, is this Meal Mart?”

The Disconnector

At a Glance

This is a story about my wife a lot more than it’s a story about me. Without giving away too much about myself, I’m an elementary school rebbi and a full-time parent in the spare time I don’t have. I am well aware of the conveniences of the Internet, but I never felt any compelling reason to have it in my home. While in school, I have access to email, and I have a younger brother who will always update me on any relevant news. Baruch Hashem, I was blessed with a great sense of direction; I’ve actually succeeded in outsmarting Google Maps several times. For us, life without the Internet was just fine — until Covid hit. With Covid, the Internet became an unavoidable necessity. My school expected me to teach my talmidim on Zoom, and my children were expected to join their classes on Zoom. I could’ve put up a fuss about it, but I’m not that type — I preferred installing Internet in my home, along with some of the strongest filters available.

Time went by, and the worst of Covid was over. The great day finally arrived. School was reopening. And now came the question. Do we say goodbye to the Internet, or do we shrug and say, “Once it’s here, let it stay?” Again, this really wasn’t about me. I seldom had a need for the Internet, but my wife had grown accustomed to many of the amenities of electronic life. Shopping, booking doctor appointments, finding menus for local eateries, had become a way of life, and parting with it would be hard. But we decided to try it. It would be an adventure, and we were in it together.

The Goal

It was really a two-stage goal. First came the experimental stage. We had to see if this was reasonable. We couldn’t make an all-out commitment before testing the waters and making sure this was something we were really holding by. If we got through that, we would move on to stage two. And that would be the ultimate commitment to removing Internet from our home for the foreseeable future.

Week 1

Week one of this commitment ended up being more of an introductory week, but I think it was equally constructive. You see, we weren’t in town at the time, so whether we had Internet at home or not wasn’t really relevant. It turned out to be healthier this way, because it was during this week that we were able to think objectively about the pros and cons of our undertaking without being overwhelmed by its immediate impact. We thought about it, discussed it, and arrived at our decision: Covid was over, and so was our Internet. For the time being, we were going to disconnect.

Week 2

What can I say — it was hard. So many things, minor, but still significant, had to be sacrificed. The ability to just check tomorrow’s weather was something we had come to enjoy without even noticing it, and now, it was gone. One thing we hadn’t anticipated was how much our children were affected by it. They love music and having Internet access meant a limitless stream of all types and genres of Jewish music. But now, we were back to CDs, which were always either scratched, cracked, or missing entirely. There’s no way around it, Week Two was hard.

Week 3

Week Three was significantly easier. Not because anything changed in a practical sense — it didn’t. We still had to turn on the radio to find out the weather, and a scratch in our Joey Newcomb CD reduced “Thank You Hashem” to an endless round of “Thank Thank Thank Thank” until someone had mercy and shut the thing off. But what did change was our attitude. It was no longer, “We’re trying to live without the Internet.” It was, “The Internet’s over. Let’s move on.” Once that change in perspective happened, everything else seemed to follow along. And the best part was, our children seemed to recognize this as well. Young as they are, children are incredibly perceptive, and when they sense sincerity, the response is incredible. No one is as sincere as young children, and I think this kabbalah will help cultivate and retain that middah in our children. I really think it will.

Week 4

You won’t believe what I’m about to tell you. You really won’t. But I’ll say it anyway, because it’s true. We got Covid. That’s right, one of us tested positive for COVID-19. And we were all stuck in quarantine. I am confident this was a test from Shamayim to see if we would remain committed or not. At this point, we’re only one week into the quarantine, so I can’t tell you what the future holds. For now, we’re still standing strong. Baruch Hashem, it’s a vacation week, so Zoom and school isn’t a problem. Still, being stuck at home with no Internet — it’s not fun. But it’s so special. That’s something we all agree on. Something about this is so, so special.

In Hindsight

There was definitely something sacred about these past few weeks. Hard, but sacred. We knew we were sacrificing, but we knew we were sacrificing for the right thing. It also strengthened our sense of commitment to daas Torah. Moving forward, I don’t know for certain that we’ll never have Internet in our home, or if we’ll have it in some limited capacity. But what I do know is that our decision will be guided by daas Torah, and we will be perfectly comfortable with that.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 876)