Is Facebook Chametz?

Today our rabbi Esther asked us to consider whether Facebook is “chametz” and as such should be given a break over Passover, just as observant Jews abstain from all leavened foods.  The question is whether we should apply the feather duster to our minds as well as our kitchen cabinets, where we are supposed to get rid of any last bit of flour.

Apparently two rabbis in NYC started a group called “Facebook is Chametz” and over 200 people subscribed.  Their thought was that for many people there is a lot of ego tied up in Facebook.  The Chassidic tradition extends the definition of chametz to include self, egotism, and narcissism.   So while we are eating matzo for 8 days, they are suggesting sort of a spiritual fast as well by staying away from things that inflate people.  Check this out for more details.

We had a typical Temple Micah discussion of this idea.  To start it off about half the congregation raised their hands as Facebook users.  I could hear some of the older ones making snide comments under their breath.  My husband raised the point that not all Facebook usage has the effect of ego promotion.  Several other people said they didn’t think it was necessary to give up anything beyond leavened food since Passover is not the same as the Christian Lent. 

But part of me thought about perhaps giving up Blogging next year and focusing more on introspective thoughts during the 8-day period.  Sometimes I think we lose sight of how much of our lives is invested in social networking these days.

On another note, the choir Torah reading was today.  Seven of us came up to chant verses from Ki Tisa, this week’s Torah portion.   It’s always a shock to hear your own voice and to look at those Hebrew letters without their vowels or trope marks.  But we all did fine and I’m hopeful this will become an annual event.

As a way of introduction to this week’s service, Esther offered another one of Mary Oliver’s beautiful poems:

Morning in a New Land

In trees still dripping night some nameless birds
Woke, shook out their arrowy wings, and sang,
Slowly, like finches sifting through a dream.
The pink sun fell, like glass, into the fields.
Two chestnuts, and a dapple gray,
Their shoulders wet with light, their dark hair streaming,
Climbed the hill. The last mist fell away.

And under the trees, beyond time's brittle drift,
I stood like Adam in his lonely garden
On that first morning, shaken out of sleep,
Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,
Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift.