The Facebook Churban

3:08 pm in Arts, Inspiration, Jewish Home, Parenting, Woman of the Week by admin

Thanks to Social Media, Margelit Hoffman has gained 1,000 new friends and a profitable business. Now she asks some soul-searching questions about the impact of Facebook on her life as a Jewish women. Are you ready for her answers?

facebook churban

I joined Facebook right around the time my oldest son was born.  I had been getting invitations for a while, and had been successfully ignoring them.  But one of my closest friends, who lived long-distance, convinced me to join because it was “the easiest way to connect” and “all our old high school friends are on it.”

Since then I’ve used it to

  • keep me occupied while I was nursing
  • kill time during pregnancies when I couldn’t sleep at night
  • stay connected to now almost 1,000 new and old friends
  • learn the news that’s relevant to me
  • ask a random smattering of friends where to find kosher restaurants in a given city, or how to potty train a two-year-old
  • share random musings without having to direct them at anyone in particular
  • build a profitable business for myself, and market my husband’s video production company

My excuse for using it now is that I work on Facebook, since I manage social media campaigns and teach social media marketing.

But my husband and I will be disabling our internet connection at home in the next few days, and all because we can’t get enough of the screen.  We’ve found the internet to be a compelling way to turn away from each other, and to get our kids addicted to shows on Netflix (“Mommy, Bob the Builder doesn’t wear a kippah so I don’t have to either,” said my oldest, a four-year-old).

This will have big ramifications for us business-wise, since we work online, and I work from home.  But I’ll just have to hang out at Starbucks while the kids are at gan to get my work done instead, and I won’t stay up all night googling while my husband is away on filming trips – I’ll either be reading books of Torah, painting, or sleeping.

The Woman on the Street

Rabbi Harizy, my husband’s shalom bayis teacher, teaches from the sefer Ohel Rachel.  He gives over the concept of “the woman on the street,” which is a woman who has to go out and sell herself or sell anything or just be out there in order to make a living.  Using this example helps drive the point home to men that they are to provide financially for their wives, and that this is an obligation of the Torah, and one he signs into via the ketubah.

We are reminded of the story of Yaakov Avinu’s daughter Dina, aka Shulamit, who was called Shulamit because she said hello to everyone.  And that was what did her in.

Facebook can be used in a very private way, and the privacy settings are quite customizable.  We can choose to friend or not befriend, who sees what, and what we post.  When we use Facebook as a way to connect with dear friends worldwide, friends whom we otherwise may not get to communicate with, and for the greater good – think of all the reports the Third Intifadah page garnered, leading to Facebook shutting it down and Naqba Day turning out uneventful – we are using it to bring light and achdus into this world.

In defense of women throughout the frum world who work for a living, it is a chessed to our husbands that we put ourselves out there, as long as it is appropriate, and as long as it is actually lucrative.  With social media marketing, this takes time to come to fruit, but Hashem rewards us for our intentions.

A Silent Churban

Part of keeping the Torah is building a fence around it.  Facebook can be a tool for good. I love Social Media as much as anyone else, maybe more than most people, since it’s given me and my husband the opportunity to earn our Parnasa doing work that we love. But make no mistake – it is a distraction.  Shmuel recently worked for Big Productions on a film for a Jewish organization called DaytoDisconnect, and he was shocked at how much people are controlled by their tech.  Computers and smartphones are addictions that are silently destroying home life everywhere, and this is why an organization like DaytoDisconnect had to come about in the first place.  And it’s the reason Shmuel and I are on the verge of banning the internet from our home, even though it may have great ramifications for our business.

On the other hand, if you follow the 4-Hour Workweek, which we are slowly attempting to do, this is a step in the right direction.

Where does someone like me, who uses Facebook and other social sites to promote my husband’s business and the work of Jewish nonprofits, draw the line?  When does what I do remain chessed, and when does what I do go too far out the door, past the yard, onto the sidewalk, and dangerously close to the street?

When I’m feeling the rush of cars whizzing past, I go to naaleh.com and reconnect with the Torah.  Rebbetzin Heller reminds me to get off the computer and clean the house before my husband comes home.  After all, this is about chessed and building a bait neeman b’Yisrael.  There is a time and a place for each kind of chessed.

(image by djtransformer)

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With her husband, Shmuel, Margelit Hoffman is the founder of Hoffman Productions, a video production and online marketing company where she focuses primarily on social media marketing. Besides managing the social media campaigns of businesses and nonprofits in a variety of fields, Margelit teaches social media and online marketing classes. Margelit is mom to three adorable children.

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PS: This article has sparked a lively debate of Margelit’s move to ban the internet on various Jewish mommy blogs. Check out these great posts:

  1. Ima2Seven
  2. JewishMOM
  3. Life in the Married Lane
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