Take It Away

H
ow is the Torah-observant community doing vis-à-vis the never-ending, ever-multiplying challenges that technology poses? It can be hard for the average frum Jew to accurately gauge whether the battle is being won or lost.

Most people can only judge the success of communal pushback against the tyranny of tech based on the very limited experience of their circle of family and friends, and some of those might, in fact, be losing their individual battles with this addiction. On the other side of the ledger, people read about this speech and that initiative to raise awareness of the dangers, but there’s very little reported about the implementation of actual strategies and whether there are actual victories occurring out there.

But, in fact, there are successes, many of them, involving many people and important institutions in frum life. Here are two recent ones, from different points on the communal spectrum:

Rabbi Larry Rothwachs, the longtime rabbi of a prominent shul in Teaneck, New Jersey, is also the camp rabbi of Camp Morasha, a well-known Modern Orthodox sleepaway camp. He wrote recently about the experience of implementing a new technology policy eliminating all use of screened devices by staff and campers.