{"id":13814,"date":"2011-07-06T18:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T18:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/is_half_shabbos_a_new_way_of_life\/"},"modified":"2016-12-01T04:15:23","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T09:15:23","slug":"is_half_shabbos_a_new_way_of_life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/parenting\/is_half_shabbos_a_new_way_of_life\/","title":{"rendered":"Is “Half Shabbos” a New Way of Life?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article first appeared in The Jewish Week<\/a> (June 22, 2011) and has been reprinted with permission. Steve Lipman is a staff writer for The Jewish Week.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

At a recent campgrounds Shabbaton sponsored by a local Modern Orthodox high school, the teenage participants broke into small groups after the meals, as is usual, to talk with their friends.<\/p>\n

On their cell phones.<\/p>\n

Of the 17 students who attended the weekend program, said 17-year-old Julia, a junior at the day school, most sent text messages on Shabbat \u2013 a violation of the halachic ban on using electricity in non-emergency situations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly three [of the 17 students] didn\u2019t text on Shabbos,\u201d Julia says. Most did it \u201cout in the open,\u201d sitting at picnic tables. \u201cThey weren\u2019t hiding it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students at the Shabbaton were not the exception for their age group. According to interviews with several students and administrators at Modern Orthodox day schools, the practice of texting on Shabbat is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially, but not exclusively, among Modern Orthodox teens.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a literally hot-button issue that teachers and principals at yeshiva day schools, whose academic year ends this week, acknowledge and deal with it in both tacit and oblique ways. For the most part, they extol the virtues of keeping Shabbat rather than chastising those who violate it.<\/p>\n

The practice has become so widespread \u2013 some say half of Modern Orthodox teens text on Shabbat \u2013 that it has developed its own nomenclature \u2013 keeping \u201chalf Shabbos,\u201d for those who observe all the Shabbat regulations except for texting; \u201cgd Shbs,\u201d is the shorthand text greeting that means good Shabbos.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, because of texting\u2019s high-tech nature, it is the frequent subject of bloggers and discussion groups on the Internet.<\/p>\n

Schools are still looking for ways to deal with the issue, how to recognize the extent of the problem without issuing directives that are likely to be ignored.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: The teens who text probably won\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big problem,\u201d says Rabbi Steven Burg, international director of the Orthodox Union\u2019s NCSY youth group. Teens who text on Shabbat are an open secret in their schools and social circles, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdults don\u2019t know how common it is,\u201d one student at a local yeshiva day school says. \u201cEveryone is doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Someone who identified himself as PJS wrote last year on the kavvanah.wordpress.com Website of an encounter with Shabbat texters: \u201cOn the first night of Rosh Hashanah I was walking home after dinner at friends. Passing through a neighborhood park, I passed a group of clearly frum kids \u2013 boys and girls \u2013 whose faces were illuminated by the lights from their cell-phones, iPhones etc as they texted away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Shabbat texters, according to anecdotal evidence, include kids who grew up in less-observant homes as well as students from chasidic or so-called black hat backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have been whispering about it for around a year or so \u2026 and only recently have begun about to speak about it out loud,\u201d Rabbi Jay Goldmintz, headmaster at the Ramaz Upper School on the Upper East Side, wrote in a recent column to Ramaz parents.<\/p>\n

They Can\u2019t Stop<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Open rejection of an Orthodox lifestyle, addiction or susceptibility to peer group conformity?<\/p>\n

Orthodox teens\u2019 texting on Shabbat is a little of each, students and administrators tell The Jewish Week. Some teens say they see their parents making their own compromises with the letter or spirit of Jewish law, and don\u2019t think a text message on Shabbat is any different.<\/p>\n

Mostly, they can\u2019t stop texting, they say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost a problem of addiction,\u201d says Rabbi Burg. American teens, according to surveys and anecdotal evidence, communicate with their friends during the week primarily by sending text messages on their cell phones. It\u2019s hard to stop for 25 hours, the rabbi says, if they feel everyone else is doing it. \u201cIn high school, the world revolves around their friends. Everything is about your friends and your social group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t think [texting on Shabbat] is that bad,\u201d Rabbi Burg says.<\/p>\n

In an email message, Rabbi Boruch Perton, educational director of the Hebrew Academy of Montreal, added: \u201cThe thing about texting is that it can be done anywhere. The bathroom or the bedroom are private places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rabbi Perton said his day school recently tried to enforce a ban on using cell phones during school hours, \u201cWhen we did take away a phone,\u201d he said, \u201cthe amount of pain the student was in was literally unbearable. The parents would beg and scream because they were getting it at home from their kid and just wanted to end their own misery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the students and their parents lose their equilibrium when a phone is taken away for a week, can such a child stop on Shabbos?\u201d the rabbi asks. \u201cI hope so, but do not know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miriam Shaviv, a columnist for the London Jewish Chronicle, wrote recently that Orthodox teens \u201copenly discuss whether they keep \u2018half-Shabbos\u2019 or \u2018full Shabbos.\u2019 There is apparently no shame attached to this violation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texting on Shabbat has become a frequent subject of on-line discussions: \u201cThey are the failures of Modern Orthodoxy or they are the failures of Orthodoxy-lite.\u201d (kavvanah.wordpress.com); \u201cChildren will text each other in stealth. Their divine service is external; if no human being sees them, it is as if it hasn\u2019t happened\u201d (Rabbi Steven Pruzansky\u2019s rabbipruzansky.com).<\/p>\n

The frumsatire.net Website carried a fictional report that Modern Orthodox rabbis \u201chave begun to consider texting during shul on Shabbos to curb talking,\u201d in order to keep synagogues quiet during religious services.<\/p>\n

Teens who text on Shabbat rarely discuss its halachic propriety, said Leah, who identifies herself as Conservadox and attended a Modern Orthodox day school for several years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s breaking Shabbos,\u201d Leah said. \u201cI don\u2019t feel guilty.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother knows \u2013 I text her,\u201d to let her mother know her whereabouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a stage\u201d that many teens pass through without necessarily leaving the Orthodox world, said Rachel, a recent graduate of a local yeshiva high school. \u201cIt\u2019s not a defiant thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey still believe in God\u201d and consider themselves Orthodox,\u201d Julia said of her friends who text on Shabbat.<\/p>\n

The Orthodox teens who agreed to speak about this subject asked that their full names not be used, lest their parents or teachers or more-observant friends find out.<\/p>\n

The Challenge Of Technology<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Chani said she is typical. A student at a New York area yeshiva high school, she started texting on Shabbat when she discovered that many of her Orthodox friends were already doing it. \u201cI was just so bored\u201d on Shabbat, she said. \u201cI had nothing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though she was going through a crisis of faith, texting on Shabbat was her only lapse from religious observance. \u201cI was not driving\u201d on Shabbat. \u201cI was not eating non-kosher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why did she text, when she wouldn\u2019t do other prohibited acts?<\/p>\n

\u201cI had people to text,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Most of the teens who text on Shabbat do not weigh the halachic and spiritual implications, Chani said \u2013 they know it\u2019s wrong, but do it anyway.<\/p>\n

Chani stopped texting on Shabbat after three years, when her religious faith deepened. She said she knows many other teens who gave up Shabbat-texting after returning from a post-high school year in Israeli yeshivas.<\/p>\n

For many Orthodox teens, keeping \u201chalf Shabbos\u201d has apparently achieved the status of Orthodox men who do not wear a kipah on the job or Orthodox women who wear pants or do not cover their hair once married, both considered violations of outright halacha or established Jewish practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf in previous generations the biggest challenge to Sabbath observance was making a living, today it is technology,\u201d Rabbi Goldmintz wrote in his column to Ramaz parents. \u201cThese are kids from otherwise shomer Shabbat homes who nevertheless sneak into their rooms or down the street and use their phones or computers to text or tweet with friends. These are not (yet) necessarily kids who are so called \u2018off the derech (i.e., who have wandered off the religious path) for they otherwise may not turn on lights or televisions, but they just can\u2019t break the social habit. They keep Shabbat, but not all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t say that the kids who text on Shabbat are \u2018off the derech,\u2019\u201d said Dr. Michelle Friedman, a psychiatrist who works extensively in the Orthodox community. Texting on Shabbat does not necessarily lead to other violations, she said. \u201cThis is a separate category.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lower Voltage?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

While some teens reportedly rationalize their practice by claiming that texting uses a low level of electricity, thereby reducing the severity of the prohibition, texting is as forbidden on Shabbat as any other use of electricity, Jewish experts in technology say. \u201cPressing electrical buttons on Shabbat is prohibited. The only justification to permit this is in various security needs or medical conditions,\u201d a spokesman for the Israeli-based Zomet Institute, which deals in matters of halacha and technology, told The Jewish Week in an email message.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is universally accepted in the halacha-respecting community that electronics are off-limits on the Sabbath,\u201d said Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America.<\/p>\n

Some observers describe teens as experimenting with the limits of sanctioned and non-sanctioned actions in a Jewish version of the Rumspringa practice in which Amish 16-year-olds are free to engage in banned behavior before formally affiliating with the church and abiding by their community\u2019s norms of behavior.<\/p>\n

Texting on Shabbat \u201cis probably more prominent [in the Modern Orthodox community], but it is by no means exclusively there,\u201d Rabbi Goldmintz wrote. \u201cSomeone once suggested that it all got started when observant kids signed on after Shabbat and realized how much their non-observant friends had been communicating over Shabbat and they didn\u2019t want to be left out ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students from local Orthodox high schools say teachers and administrators usually handle this topic in a subtle way, talking about the beauty of Shabbat rather than ordering an outright ban on Shabbat texting. (Besides Rabbi Goldmintz, none of the rabbis or principals from several local day schools contacted for comment by The Jewish Week returned the newspaper\u2019s messages.)<\/p>\n

Preaching to teens would be ineffective, said Julia, who attended the Shabbaton where most of the students texted. \u201cIt\u2019s a waste of energy to argue with the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article first appeared in The Jewish Week (June 22, 2011) and has been reprinted with permission. Steve Lipman is a staff writer for The Jewish Week. At a recent campgrounds Shabbaton sponsored by a local Modern Orthodox high school, the teenage participants broke into small groups after the meals, as is usual, to talk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":436,"featured_media":51523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\nIs "Half Shabbos" a New Way of Life?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is texting on Shabbos an open rejection of an Orthodox lifestyle, addiction, or susceptibility to peer group conformity? 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