Social media rules for Jews on High Holidays

Social media rules for Jews on High Holidays As the High Holidays approach I start feeling anxiety about whether Ill work during the holidays. Will I do two days or one? Will I write emails and send them? Or not hit send until sundown, or just not write emails at all? Its part of being Jewish to have a workaround for everything. For example, this is a picture of my sons participating in a not-real bat mitzvah for their cousin so we can take pictures because you cant take pictures during the real bat mitzvah. Ive read that people who have willpower dont actually have willpower. Rather  they make decisions for themselves that have clear parameters and then they dont reconsider them, so those people dont need any willpower. Im pretty sure that my everything-is-negotiable approach to Jewish holidays requires an insane amount of willpower that Ill never even come close to having. But I in that vein, I propose a few guidelines for those of you who are like me and trying to figure out what to do with social media on High Holidays. 1.  Twitter You can live tweet during services if youre in a synagogue that allows that. Ive personally never seen a synagogue that allows that, but Ive seen a lot of people furtively check their phone. Maybe live-tweeting Rosh Hashanah is like sharing the services with everyone. Of course, it could be argued that live-tweeting Rosh Hashanah is sacrilegious, but you can let people know that its not sacrilegious to you by using #reform to denote your personal preference. 2.  Email If you go to synagogue and show up for everything youre supposed to be doing, then you could just answer emails in the bathroom and take calls when youre away from the synagogue, and no one will really know. I think this would fall in the category of keeping up with the goyim. The truth is theres a long history of Jews bending the rules of Torah in order to keep up with the goyim. If were feeling good about this, we call it assimilation. If were feeling bad, we call it a  shanda. 3. Facebook If youre fasting during Yom Kippur youre already so tortured that perhaps God will forgive you for distracting yourself with social media. After all, think of all the distractions people had during Yom Kippur when they lived in those tight little communities in eastern Europe. Maybe you can consider Facebook your own High Holiday shtetl. If youre not fasting on Yom Kippur you can still participate by having a social media fast. This has not been officially ruled by the rabbis, but I think its reasonable. Think about it: There are a  disproportionate number of Jews who have Aspergers, and people who have Aspergers have a proclivity toward eating disorders, and Jews have disproportionate numbers of obsessive readers, which means, on a whole, it would be more difficult for more Jews to have a social media fast than a food fast. 4.  Foursquare In a big city youve got to find out where the cool people are going to synagogue, especially if you didnt buy tickets. Then youre a free agent the day of. So a good way to find where your Jewish friends are that day is to use Foursquare. Foursquare, of course, is not anything near appropriate for an observant Jew because its a double shanda you cant travel and you cant use electronics to figure out how to travel. So Im not saying Foursquare is going to pass the most rigorous test, but I am saying that you could have your own test: Is good for the Jews? My parents used to tell us this was the test for voting for president, is it good for the Jews. So if its a good enough rule to use when voting for the president, then its probably good enough for Jews searching for their tribe on Yom Kippur. So I say if your Foursquare intentions are good for the Jews, go ahead and use it. 5. Online dating sites There is going to be a preponderance of Jews who are not at work and not at synagogue. Its those in-between people who were raised in a way that would make them ashamed to go to work on the High Holidays, but not so ashamed that they have to splurge for tickets to go to a synagogue. These people are looking for something to do thats low profile enough that they wont have to reveal to their friends and family that they werent quite living up to their own Jewish standards on the High Holidays. This is where online dating comes in. JDate is full of possibilities of finding these people. OkCupid is too, by the way. Did you know that if you want to hook up with someone, OkCupid is the place to go? So I think the ruling on this one will be if your intentions are to find a long-term relationship with a Jewish person, then its good for the Jews. So go ahead and do it on the High Holidays, which means JDate is okay and OkCupid is not. Still, if youre allowing yourself to read on the High Holidays, Im recommending the OkCupid blog. How can you resists post with titles like Ten Charts about Sex?