“No Cell Phones”, No More
October 12, 2011 
8 Comments
by Seth Kroll
Temple Shalom, Newton, MA
Youth are the best adopters of technology. They generally seem to have a natural ability to conceptualize how technology works, implement it into everyday life, and then create new social norms for its use. Last month the Youth Department at Temple Shalom (Newton, MA) threw away the “no cell phone” in class or service policy and in fact embraced the use of cell phones as an important tool and resources in learning and ritual efforts.
The schedule of our High School program has been redesigned this year. Students meet for class by grade three Tuesdays a month, and as a whole unit one Sunday a month. The Sunday classes are experiential offsite programs. For our first Sunday kickoff class we took our 9th-12th graders into downtown Boston for an Amazing Race program. We utilized a custom “trek” using the smart phone application SCVNGR, where students used their phones to navigate between sites and complete specific “challenges” to gain various amounts of points. One of the nicest features of SCVNGR is that the treks really are custom. Knowing our program time constraints and the pieces of information we felt were important to convey, we were able to select our specific sites and decide exactly what the challenges would be. Each group was also able to keep track of the status of the others, and when groups crossed paths they were able to earn extra points for being “social”. The students not only had a great time, but we were able to use phone technology to convey our learning points in a new and innovative way.
Shortly after our High School kickoff, Rosh Hashanah was upon us. For the past several years SHAFTY, the synagogue’s senior youth group,organizes an Erev Rosh Hashanah teen service. As youth professionals orclergy we tend to think that a teen service is exciting for teensbecause it includes creative readings and an engaging songleader. However, even this kind of service can get stale and formulaic. For5772 my teens and I decided to do something new and innovative. Thisyear during Avinu Malkeinu piece of the service students wereencouraged to respond via text message to “Avinu Malkeinu…(what doyou hope for in the new year?)”. Their responses were immediately (andautomatically) compiled on a custom poll on www.polleverywhere.com,which was then projected on a screen in the front of our chapel. As aform of communication, middle and high school students are fluent intexting. Using this norm for them in the setting of a service createdan opportunity for the community to share their thoughts simultaneouslyto create a collective prayer.
The use of mobile phones in a learning or service setting could bewritten off as a gimmick. However, this is the world that our teenslive in. According to research conducted by Harris Interactive, nearlyfour out of five teens (roughly 17 million) carry a mobile phone. This technology is an important and integral tool for how our teensinteract with each other and the world around them. This is where theyare, and this is where we need to be.
Seth Kroll serves as the Youth Educator at Temple Shalon (Newton,MA) and taught the 2011 Kutz Camp Digital Media Major. Seth is alsoan independent filmmaker, and has also written and spoken on theimportance of the continual emergence and openness of digital mediatechnology.
Seth, this is interesting.
I agree with it as a learning toll but am not sure about its use as an agent of prayer.
What about the separation between the holy and the mundane?
I agree with dcc’s sentiments. Furthermore, if you would do this on Rosh Hashana, would you also do it on Shabbat? Reform Jews are increasingly concerning themselves with following commandments and restrictions such as Kashrut and Shabbat/Yom Tov regulations. Yet, texting and “connectedness” during worship services is ok? What happened to “unplugging”? Next thing you know, people will be texting in their “al cheit” confessions as well!
I cannot believe the hypocrisy of those who would do all sorts of non-rational things for tradition’s sake, and then encourage a breach of tradition so profound that even the Classical Reformers would have forbidden it!
As probably the senior among commenters on this blog, I applaud Seth Kroll and Temple Shalom for these creative approaches to reaching the TYG contingent where they are, and I alert my junior colleagues dcc and Jordan to the danger of becoming young fuddy-duddies.
Donnie asks about the separation between the holy and the mundane. I would suggest that one of our tasks as Reform Jews is to find the holy in the mundane, and to find ways to make the mundane holy. (Thanks to my teacher Rabbi Karyn Kedar for leading me to this insight.)
Jordan continues to seek the ideological purity he attributes to Classical Reform, and in the process classifies as “hypocrisy” what the more liberal among us might consider as eclectic, the more critical as inconsistent. His assumption that CR would have forbidden the adaptation of technology to worship is belied by the facts — the push-button “magic” Ark door at Temple Sholom of Chicago was an early adoption of technology in Classic Reform worship! Although Classical Reform today has overtones of Miniver Cheevey syndrome, the Classical Reformers themselves might today be considered as early adopters.
DCC, I hear what you are saying regarding the separation between holy and mundane. However, during our service we used the phones as an addition to the traditional Avinu Malkeinu. The mundane would be to run through the service as we have for the past several years. It was holy for our students to build a communal prayer.
Jordan, absolutely I would do something like this on Shabbat. As you say Reform Jews are increasingly concerning themselves with following commandments and restrictions. However, at the same time the CCAR and many Reform congregations have embraced “Visual T’filah”, where prayers and service pieces are projected from a computer in an artful way to a screen in the front of a sanctuary or service space. Maybe this is just an indication that in the world we live in today it is possible to have various opinions on how to run a prayer experience, and the luxury of freedom to experiment.
And yes, I do think it would be exceptionally interesting for a community to anonymously text their “al cheit” confessions. My suspicion is the large majority of folks showing up at our congregations will be brutally honest, and maybe actually find personal meaning in that prayer experience.
Interesting … I would be concerned, though, about the possibility of one or two teens NOT having a cell phone for either financial or health reasons (see the Reform Jewish Magazine for the health concerns). But perhaps every Reform Jewish teen has one?
Seth,
Thanks for sharing! You are indeed a talented and creative educator, and others should look to you in their creativity in programming. I am sure your kids really enjoy having you as their youth director.
G
Larry said:
“[Jordan's] assumption that CR would have forbidden the adaptation of technology to worship is belied by the facts — the push-button “magic” Ark door at Temple Sholom of Chicago was an early adoption of technology in Classic Reform worship! Although Classical Reform today has overtones of Miniver Cheevey syndrome, the Classical Reformers themselves might today be considered as early adopters.”
The Classical Reformers were (thank God) early adopters. They adopted electric lights, electric heating and air conditioning, electric voice amplification, electric organ blowers, and God knows what else. That’s fine–doesn’t pose a problem for me. I think the electric Ark doors are pushing it a bit, just because they’re a bit over-dramatic, but I’m sure I could get used to that. What I could never abide is a projection screen in the Sanctuary, or people using their cell phones. The worship space is the last frontier of a level of common courtesy that used to be everywhere. I would not seek to limit cell phone use in public spaces–there’s just no turning back from that, and I think that’s a good thing. However, when I worship of Shabbat or other holidays, I want to unplug. As much of a tech geek as I am, I don’t want to see the glow of little screens, or hear beeps or buzzes, or see words or images projected from a computer onto a screen. I want to see carpet, wood paneling, marble, granite, or some other “natural” type of surroundings. I don’t want glass and chrome and plastic, or any other reminders of the cold, fast-paced world I have to return to when worship is over. This is a highly personal opinion, of course, but I know I’m not alone in it.
Now, there is something I must address. When I wrote my previous comment, it somehow had not registered in my brain that this innovative, cell phone-friendly Service was an alternative Service for teens, and not the main Sanctuary service. I am less opposed to doing “radical” or “innovative” things conceived specifically as alternative activities–as long as they never creep their way into the Sanctuary. Historically, though, that tends to happen. When a sub-group of worshippers, such as youth, are exposed to something new and meaningful to them, they seek to elevate its status from alternative to normative, and that’s already happened with Reform Judaism’s worship style. Folk/traditional music and guitars are a wonderful atmospheric addition to a youth group singing around a campfire at a Jewish summer camp. That’s the kind of thing that brings youth in, and makes Judaism accessible and meaningful to them. However, when those Reform camps were new, their campers returned home to their Temples and sought to re-create the camp experience in the Sanctuary. That is not appropriate–there is a time and a place for informal, “fun” worship, which is NOT just for kids of course, and there is a time and a place for serious, adult worship and study. That doesn’t mean stodgy, restrained, boring worship–but in my opinion it does mean that cell phones are stowed away and silenced. It also means no PowerPoint projectors. So, in summary, I am fine with alternative expressions that give Judaic meaning to people’s lives, as long as there continues to exist something resembling what I find meaningful, since the most radical innovations are a barrier to my own spiritual experience. As Mr. Kroll has said, “it is possible to have various opinions on how to run a prayer experience, and the luxury of freedom to experiment.” Experimenting is good, as long as our Sanctuaries are not taken over by high-tech innovations. I love my gadgets, but they are not part of my Judaism, except when I look up Torah verses on them.
“one of our tasks as Reform Jews is to find the holy in the mundane, and to find ways to make the mundane holy.”
Amen! Do we really need cell phones and projectors to do that?
Thinking outside the box is what’s going to help keep our youth connected to and excited about Judaism. We need to differentiate what we’re doing from the typical school day and find ways to meet our youth where they are if we want to get them hooked. While I understand the concern with overusing technology and wanting to create technology-free sacred space, one of the best parts of my NFTY experience was the creative and open-minded approach with which we explored Judaism, especially in prayer. I would be concerned if Temple Shalom and SHAFTY were abandoning all former practices in a move to a technology-only zone, but it sounds like Seth is really listening to his teens and using innovative programming to further their Jewish education. I’d be interested in learning about other synagogues that are taking similar risks.