Screen Time vs. Torah Time: Overcoming Digital Distractions to Embrace Spiritual Fulfillment

Is your screen time overshadowing your spiritual time? Discover why this imbalance might be holding you back from true fulfillment as we unpack the teachings of the Ramchal in our latest episode. We promise not only to challenge your daily habits but to inspire you towards a more meaningful existence, both here and in the world to come. Our conversation delves into three significant obstacles identified by the Ramchal: the frivolous disregard for life's seriousness, the influence of misguided associations, and the obsession with worldly distractions. With insights from revered figures like Rav Chaim Brisk and the K'sois HaChoishen, we explore how these impediments can divert us from our spiritual path.

Join us as we draw parallels between the ancient tactics of Pharaoh and today's modern distractions, encouraging a recalibration towards what truly matters—Torah study and prayer. Through reflective anecdotes and practical advice, we urge you to reclaim your time from the clutches of endless digital distractions and redirect it towards spiritual growth. This episode is a call to action for anyone yearning to prioritize their spiritual journey and find purpose amidst the chaos of everyday life. Shake yourself awake and make room for peace, quiet, and a contemplation of your values.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

You will encounter three. Count them three one, two, three impediments. If you wish to secure your position inside the circle of the righteous in the world of perfection, if you would like to sit with a crown upon your head, basking in the light of the divine and heavenly presence in the next world light of the divine and heavenly presence in the next world if you'd like to join the circle of Rav Chaim Brisk or the K'sois HaChoishen, rav Nosson, stein and Avraham of Vinu, if you want to be in part of the circle of the righteous in the land of the living, you will need to leap over these three impediments, says Ramchal. The first one is becoming a total jokester. If you are schok and kalos, roshing throughout your life, failing to take life seriously, well then you have basically put a great deal of oil upon your shield to knock away all rebukes, anything that will teach you to be better in life. You have just become like a Captain America that never accepts any sort of rebuke, and henceforth you will struggle and not become righteous. Struggle and not become righteous. Secondly, if you never disassociate yourself from people that are hevra-rah, more interested in the vacation, the steak even more than the tefillin and the tzitzit. And last but not least, and the one that we are to focus on in this conversation, that we are to focus on in this conversation, the one most common impediment that man or female will encounter on their way to securing their position in the world of the living is over-obsessing about matters that are worldly, failing to give proper focus to the matters that you know in your heart are truly productive and eternal.

Speaker 1: 2:16

The Ramchal explains to us that ask a person do you care about Torah and mitzvot? Yes, do you care about family and life and prayer? Yes, yes, yes. So why is it that our study halls may be so brutally empty in the evenings? Why is it that our prayers may be less than adequately filled when the barachos from the Chazan are recited at the beginning of Davening? Is it that it's not important? No, no, it's very important to ask people, but, says Ramchal, because there is preoccupation and obsession of so many different things of the world that a person needs to go to the dance recital of their kid. Important, yes, but then afterwards they have to go to the doctor. Important, yes, but then afterwards they have to go to the doctor. Important, yes, but then they have to go to work important, yes, then they have to take a vacation because they're overworked important, yes, but then after that they have internet trouble and then they need to go to see the plumber, and after that then they need to have a meeting with them and oh, it's date night with the wife, and then things, and there's never a time to ever cut out some peace and quiet and focus on what am I doing, what's life about, what's important to me? Folks, if your screen time is longer than your torah and tefillah time, then you have a problem. Then all of us have a problem. The y all of us have a problem.

Speaker 1: 3:48

The Yetzirah is he does what Pharaoh did so long ago to this day that he don't want the people to rebel and start thinking about wait. Judaism is really important. So you just keep pouring on the distractions, the preoccupations, you keep throwing narris Cut at them, don't you think that's so dripping with Yates Zahara is the creation of the phone, the technology. I mean, you can never finish YouTube. It's the ultimate preoccupation that somebody could literally, through video games and scrolling through TikTok and Instagram, literally never have time for anything that he knows is important to him because he is too lost in the distractions of the world.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Hev lech hazman. Ladies and gentlemen, shake yourselves awake, make sure your screen time is less than your Torah and Tfilah time, and grab a hold of yourself and focus on what you know is important. Don't fall into the trap that the Yetzirah sets and that which Paro did to the Jews right in our Parshios of Tikhbar HaLovah Sa'avodah, becoming so over-obsessed in matters that are important, worldly matters, but not nearly as important as the matters of the soul, matters that are eternal. Thank you.