{"id":382,"date":"2012-05-22T17:34:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T17:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/05\/praying-away-the-internet.html"},"modified":"2012-05-22T17:34:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T17:34:00","slug":"praying-away-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/05\/praying-away-the-internet.html","title":{"rendered":"Praying Away The Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Sunday night 40,000 Haredi men (just men) gathered at New York\u2019s CitiField.\u00a0 They did not go to see the Mets, but to figure out how to fight the internet<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As bewildered-looking stadium staff looked on, oceans of men in black hats filled nearly every seat in the Queens, N.Y., baseball stadium to hear a series of polemics against the use of the web.<\/p>\n

Rabbis cast the Internet as a threat to children and to ultra-Orthodoxy as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The people Israel] has arisen like a lioness protecting her cubs,\u201d said Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman, a well-known Orthodox lecturer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ironically, many arrived with their smartphones:<\/p>\n

Despite the rabbis\u2019 inveighing against technology, many of those in attendance carried Blackberrys, iPhones and digital cameras. At the Carroll Street subway stop in Brooklyn\u2026a dozen men in black hats gathered discussed the directions they had found on the online map site HopStop.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two things are absolutely true.\u00a0 The internet is here to stay and it absolutely poses a danger to the continuity of Haredi Judaism.\u00a0 Wachsman summed it up:<\/p>\n

The Internet, Wachsman said, is \u201cchanging who we are\u2026You can see it in the ebbing eyes of the younger generation, of the jittery inattentiveness of our children, in the flippant and callous language and attitude, the cynicism \u2026 the unbelievable breaches of [modesty],\u201d in Orthodox communities.<\/p>\n

All I can say is that I hope their younger generation\u2019s eyes keep \u201cebbing\u201d as they are faced with more and more contact with the modern world.\u00a0 I cheer on their jittery inattentiveness to superstition and their rising cynicism of the authority of their credulous elders.<\/p>\n

I recently spoke to a young woman in the Orthodox community who told me how upset her family members and teachers are that she has been learning about science and reality.\u00a0 They\u2019d love to keep that knowledge from her.\u00a0 But even tens of hours a week of indoctrination and religious practice are no match for the information that can come from one decent science site or a few good YouTube videos.<\/p>\n

The Haredim SHOULD be worried.\u00a0 Very worried.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday night 40,000 Haredi men (just men) gathered at New York\u2019s CitiField.\u00a0 They did not go to see the Mets, but to figure out how to fight the internet: As bewildered-looking stadium staff looked on, oceans of men in black hats filled nearly every seat in the Queens, N.Y., baseball stadium to hear a series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13,31,38],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-haredim","tag-orthodox-judaism","tag-science-and-reason"],"yoast_head":"\nPraying Away The Internet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sunday night 40,000 Haredi men (just men) gathered at New York\u2019s CitiField.\u00a0 They did not go to see the Mets, but to figure out how to fight the internet:\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/05\/praying-away-the-internet.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Praying Away The Internet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sunday night 40,000 Haredi men (just men) gathered at New York\u2019s CitiField.\u00a0 They did not go to see the Mets, but to figure out how to fight the internet:\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/05\/praying-away-the-internet.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-22T17:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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