#39: Behind the Bima - Special Guest: Dr. Eli Shapiro, Director of www.thedigitalcitizenship.com

from boca raton florida rabbi's ephraim goldberg philip moskowitz and josh brody are taking you behind the bema the brs rabbi's schmooze about contemporary issues and talk to special guests who give a behind-the-scenes look at how they got to where they are and what keeps them going welcome to behind the bema evening ladies and gentlemen it's wednesday night nine p.m i'm your host raven gober joined by my dear colleagues and friends rabbi philip moskowitz and rabbi joshua brody and welcome to another behind the bema behind the we begin this night with a sober sober sense and attitude we joined the rest of our uh our sacred country in praying for the welfare of our country what happened today in our capital though we are an apolitical show this is not a political issue this is simply uh not only good american but a good person decent people everywhere should be deeply deeply disturbed defended scared concerned by the vicious attack on our democracy in our capital this was not only a symbolic attack on a democracy and its process this was an actual attack life was lost and others could have been i know that the daughter-in-law of one of our members who works on capitol hill was in an office when this attack occurred and had to hide under a desk was escorted out by security very scary for for her in-laws in our community um i was in touch with our congressman is a dear friend of all of ours and of our shul a member of our shul and obviously very concerning very rattling day so today's attack was not just a symbolic attack on an idea or a process though that would be deeply concerning enough but it was a really vicious attack the cost of life and potentially others so we begin with a somber note of of prayer and of hope that peace will be restored and those who do this will be accountable and a process will be returned to it is in fact maybe we're losing some of our our live listeners but that's okay who are following what a statement it is to come back to that chamber and to be able to resume where they were and that count and our hearts our thoughts are not only with the members of congress and the capitol police but really the american people and uh please god we can bounce back from that let it be a lesson and hopefully many we will learn from it of how far we have sunk how deep we have gone and hopefully it is a bottom that we can bounce from in order to be able to unite and decent people can rule instead of extremists i mean and i know i'm sure many of you sweet and when we say the prayer for the welfare of the united states of america will obviously add on new meaning as we dive in for the government and the members of the government to be able to represent us in a democratic way and in a safe and secure way yeah absolutely that is uh that is a theme you know we've been davening for the welfare of the government and our rabbis in pirkei of us in several places ezra in the book of ezra we need to the jews are uh he instructs them pray for the king and his family and the book of jeremiah when they are on their way to um when they're on their way to uh to bavel near meo when they're going into exile he says when you are on the diaspora when you're dispersed among the nations pray for the government because we know as ravichanin taught if the government is not strong then chaos ensues and the way that the big fish swallow up the small fish so it is with people and uh this is a harsh reminder of that and uh we're all diving for that it's really um it's a sacred chamber it's a place of democracy that was uh unprecedented and and and while of course we love israel and identify and it's where we all belong one day we have a lot of love for america and the country it has been and the patriotism we have for it and as i said this is nothing to do with jewish non-jewish or anything else decent people everywhere should be deeply disturbed by what happened today and calling for a return to some sense of normalcy is there a feeling that this is going to spread all over the country like you know the rights all over the summer and you know what started as one began a whole movement essentially i wonder if this is going to continue yeah it's hard to know it's hard to know i mean i hope and again this is all still so raw and so fresh but like i said before i hope it represents a rock bottom that even those who've equivocated or been on the fence or defended certain things or associated in certain ways and you've seen that you've seen you've seen people who have called what this is out and it's extremist this is not mainstream anything or anybody but disturbing deeply and i don't even want to discuss this more because as i said we're in a political show i want to focus on the part of this that's not political but not anything beyond that just in calling it out condemning it and even to transition to another topic we're going to bring on um our friend dr shapira ali shapiro shortly is going to talk about what it means to have a responsible online presence but you know i've been thinking a lot because um for a lot of reasons but you know what's interesting is our colleagues very often something like this happens and there's a race and a rush to put a line out online social media to make a statement to weigh in and and i'm always somewhat hesitant reluctant not because i don't agree or we don't agree with what is the obvious statement or conclusion right but sometimes it's like why do you need to state the obvious so and then i or we will get criticized over that right well you say this but you were silent so you must be okay with an attack on the capital or you must be okay with racism or you must be okay within israel when such and such happens and sometimes it's that you know what there are things so egregious so extraordinary sometimes first of all you have to catch your breath you have to process you have to try to capture how you want to communicate it there's no rush there's no race there's no competition to be the first to weigh in um sometimes other times you just feel like something is so obvious that you don't need to say and if you're saying it why exactly are you saying it so i'm not being critical of anybody who's weighed in already i'm just sharing part of my own thought process of you know do the three of us need to go online tonight and on social media say we share and this was terrible and all the things we just said here and decent people everywhere and democracy and so on and so forth just so that we can avoid someone later sending that critical email or online calling us out where were you when and that's an unfortunate byproduct of uh this online world we we live in i've been thinking about that all day since this has happened not only with this particular incident but more broadly i was going to say but then you'll be writing statements almost every day there's always something to and then i was thinking you actually do for the most part write statements every day on something very important so you realize you realize how dangerous what you just said is because there are people listening who will say no no this is not an everyday occurrence and they're right what happened today is not every day in some way it's unprecedented or it's unprecedented in modern times so they're right the problem is others will say that other things are unprecedented and that's where it gets really really complicated i just do the easy thing whatever you put out i just share and then i'm yo say i don't know how to write my own statement there so whatever you guys say a lot of pressure exactly but i do think it's important i do think it's important especially in a world where the lines between right and wrong become so blurred i do think it's important that people come out and make statements even if they're obvious statements but they reaffirm certain values that we have and i think that's there's a there's a real importance in that certainly in our day and age when there's so much um misinformation out there right right well i mean what listen i i i'm i'm on a lot of conversations among leadership on on certain other national rabbinic other organizations and the same debate happens at that national level what do you put out statements about and then this side will be upset you didn't put a statement out about the other thing or the statement wasn't strong enough and you know by muscus and i are in a chat that even he commented on a not not as a criticism it was a fair observation you had but a certain jewish organization put out a statement already tonight quickly but they didn't call out anyone by name let's just say they talked about the behavior the activity and the and the people who speak irresponsibly and insight towards that conclusion so is that good enough were they trying to walk this fine line are they trying to be heard by everyone on all sides should they have called out a name so you know it's interesting we're going to call we're going to bring dr shapiro momentarily who will talk about responsible use of our online footprint our digital digital citizenship in terms of filters and what we're exposed to um in terms of what we post and share but you could have a similar conversation in the other direction absolutely and one of the things that i struggled with today and i wonder if you guys had something similar um i had i had difficulty explaining to my kids you know how do you describe to your children that the capital really is such a symbol of american democracy something that to be supposed to be so secure and sacred and i had to figure out a way to describe what was going on to them it was really hard um and somewhat painful right but important i think it's important to talk to our children they should know they should be informed they're going to hear about it and so instead of at recess or lunch and obviously kids of different ages are different but you know this is part of educating them of how do we see how do we interpret what do we tolerate how do we feel about it how do we speak right absolutely and that's one of the things we spoke about is you know something that we spoke about online all the time which is civil discourse how do you disagree with someone agreeably in a way that you don't um resort to violence that you're able to use your words in a constructive fashion it's very hard to do that when you when you see what happened in in washington today i'll tell you this it did not take 2021 long to go downhill everyone's attitude we're going to turn the calendar clock new secular gregorian year fresh start only blessing great things new beginning january 6 took us six days six days to do the newest unprecedented that's a word that we use a lot lately i don't even know if we use it accurately we use it a lot that reflects our shock at what's happening pandemics are not unprecedented unfortunately they've been going on i think once a century and this is not unprecedented in american history sadly and tragically it's just unprecedented in modern times but we are we are describing things as unprecedented at too quick a rate no but it is unprecedented because you know we've come to believe that with modern technology and security you'd be able to secure a capital you'd be able to have enough in your arsenal to be able to protect the country from things like this and i think it's that false sense of security which makes today so jarring for so many of us right right yeah scary very scary it is scary can i um can i flex for a moment just to not you can flex away because i was gonna go there anyways no no we're not going there i wasn't gonna flex about that and and brody if you could move your camera a little bit to your left would be great um i i was gonna actually flex about something else which is one of the highlights of my professional life but even my life was i had a great privilege and there's there's a funny story that goes with this so that we can transition into a little bit lighter because people tune into behind the bema you know it's an important issue the day couldn't be ignored but you know people come here to get away but you both probably remember because it was your best practical joke of your lives but i i had the great honor and privilege um i mentioned our congressman is a good friend that's not a flex that's before he ever was a congressman he was a good friend working in the leadership of our local jewish federation um anyway he invited me to give the prayer in the house of representatives from that very what is now going to be a i don't know what the can you sort iconic picture in a negative sense what what would be a terrible picture in in perpetuity of right that that person who crashed the chamber and stood at the speaker's uh podium and and raised his fist today and that will go down in infamy as a picture so i had the privilege of delivering a um a prayer a short prayer a very edited and censored prayer but a prayer nonetheless um from that place and that was one of the great honors and you know i took my kids i flew to washington and spent the day my parents flew in you know that's how hallowed that chamber is that's how sacred a moment that's what a privilege that that was to be able to stand there and so um i'm not sharing that to flex so much as to to say that to see it so desecrated so desecrated is really you know of course within have them in code we know what's holy shul torah i don't not violating i don't want to be too too exaggerating in in the description of it as a holy place but as patriotic americans and its significance in history it is a hallowed place and it was desecrated today and that is significant all right do you want to tell do you want to tell our viewership why that was the greatest practical joke of all time first of all i'm not sure that that was the greatest it's definitely in the top two there was another one at the shul dinner about 15 years ago yes we'll go back we'll hold that we'll come back to that but let's go to this roll the tape please well why don't you what you you were the one who pulled the practical i didn't do nothing i didn't do it go ahead what happened well robert goldberg was scheduled to speak on the floor of congress he was very excited about it some might say a little bit nervous about it which i understand it's as he said it's a hollowed space and then roy brody he got a phone call right before he was going to travel to washington what did the phone call say i'll be honest i don't remember the phone call what happened we called we called linda who did we get involved in this we had to get a whole lot of people involved and we said that they were picking up the punchline right the guy phone you i don't know whether you paid some service to fake voices or you put on a fake voice but i answered my phone and it's a woman's voice saying please hold and i hold and it's holding the president basically and it was like some secretarial voice calling and saying that um i'm so so i was flying the next morning with my kids my parents like i said i like wordsmith i had to fit it in with this time i wanted to say sort of thing 43 exactly squeeze it in and and and and i got this call that said um actually i think it said the president this was this was under president obama right it said the president it said the president is actually going to be in congress in the house of representatives tomorrow and so he chooses his clergy member to give the prayer so we have to cancel and i was like cancel i'm like geared up excited people have plane tickets but i didn't want to sound like hutzbad like right no no do you know who i am i i hadn't i hadn't yet been on the cover of anything so i couldn't say do you know who i am so instead i was just like okay but are you sure and and can't we and are we rescheduling and what will be and this went on and on right and i was balancing like disappointment frustration anger until finally brody as he often does cracked and started giggling and i realized and figured out what was happening and and that was that was um it was a very very special moment all right ladies and gentlemen let's join let us welcome our special guest for the evening dr ellie shapiro thank you so much for being with us dr shapiro good evening i don't know what was distracting me more the picture of ruby goldberg or the van halen thing going on yeah yeah but somewhere that is very fair our family just made these pictures i'm not you you figure out which one i made it's like it's like a rush act test back there psychological analysis dr ali shapiro a licensed clinical social worker a doctor in education and expertise in mental health educational issues and for those who don't know a noted writer thinker speaker he's been to our community several times i've done training for parents and for educators and i think i don't want to say what's most significant in your life that's for you to say but i think maybe we best know you as the creator of the digital citizenship project which is a website everybody should check out businesses schools parents for children but really a a very moderate and measured and well thought out and compelling approach to how to use the internet in a responsible way and to be a responsible citizen of the universe called the internet and our digital lives if that was true before a year ago this past year where we essentially moved to the whole world online it's all the more true now your work is even more important so ellie thank you so much for joining us this evening thank you so um tell us about how you got into this work what was it that interested you in it and how did you get into it who were you was your mentor that trained you and what what attracted you to it so uh it's a great question i don't get asked that often so this is exciting for me um so the story all begins in eighth grade now um i i uh always was focused on social emotional literacy in schools and how kids function the affective domain of education as opposed to the cognitive and the academic piece and i was working on bully prevention programming uh and i was fortunate to meet dr rona novik who was uh in long island jewish hospital at the time who developed a bully prevention program i was trained by her this goes back into maybe 2002 and i was really focused on that and uh when i was looking to pursue a doctorate yeshua university at the time uh dr novak had shifted over there dr david pelkovitz was over there and so i was very attracted to uh you know these mental health giants that were also focused in education as well um and so when it came time to write my dissertation i sort of expanded on the uh traditional school-based bullying piece to look at cyber bullying specifically it was uh 2007 2008 and you know we were starting to hear about cyber bullying being an issue in online aggression it was relatively uh new concept uh very little research on it at the time and i i was wondering if the numbers would look similar in jewish day schools and yeshiva is that it did in the public school population so in looking at that i started to discover a lot of research on how technology was promoting this uh aggressive behavior online and it related to social functioning and psychological functioning and behavioral functioning in day-to-day and areas of impulsivity and disinhibition and compulsivity and all these terms that i had never heard anywhere else being applied to technology and as far as i was hearing about technology there was one focus it was the content and the answer was filters and that was the beginning and the end of the conversation and here i was doing all this research and finding it was a much more complex issue than just that and so from that i was getting asked at the time to do speeches on internet safety and i just said it's not about internet safety it's about this crazy term digital citizenship and everyone said that's a that's a terrible term whoever heard of that and um and i was really focused on on that piece of it and so i started writing about it i started speaking about it and uh you know the message i think rang true for a lot of people that this wasn't just about the content certainly content's an issue and filters are certainly a piece of it but it's such a more complex um issue and and and really that's where um you know i started uh developing the digital citizenship project and that and that's a great contribution because um so many have no nuance in this and whether it was an asifa that has come back to bite in some sense because this year if you reject old technology you had no way for people to have talmud torah you couldn't learn you couldn't have a rebbe you couldn't have a sheer so technology it's not it's here to stay and the question is how to use it responsibly not how to reject it outright and and all together and that nuanced approach obviously is is very compelling i have so many questions i'm sure others do and obviously i want to give give time to the others but ellie tell us are our is the firm community do you think that the jewish community is out front on this are we way behind christian and catholic in terms of their promoting digital citizenship and how young people can take the best of technology in the internet without the worst do you collaborate with those in other religions but who share that value or are you able to collaborate even within the jewish community are there enough people working the way you are um that's all i ask a lot of good questions um so i i um have limited uh contact with the uh with the non-jewish community it's just not my backyard i have presented at a number of conferences um i have looked into you know speaking at the catholic schools uh conference it happens to be it's uh pesach every year so i've never had the opportunity to speak there but in speaking to other groupings i find them as receptive non-jewish groups as well as receptive to the issues um i think that in general both in the uh in the uh non-religious world and in the non-jewish religious world the approach um has been very surface oriented uh you know probably the greatest website for digital citizenship is a website called common sense media and i recommend people to go there and look at it but it's very uh do this don't do this post this don't post that it's very behavioral uh oriented and it lacks the nuance and the insight you know people ask me let's talk about tick tock let's talk about which filter is best and it's important to identify these but the underlying issues is so much more important because we can inculcate a self-awareness into kids that they can utilize terms and it's amazing when you hear an eighth or ninth grader talking about impulsivity or compulsivity when it comes to technology and and be able to identify that behavior if we give language to behaviors then we can manage it then we can talk about it then we can make adjustment but if there's no language and i just give you know straight rules you know don't post personal information online but i don't understand what this inhibition is i don't understand that i'm more likely to post private personal information or or uh images or songs uh you know like musically or tick-tock if i don't understand how i'm more like i would never walk in the street and and sing and dance suggestively uh you know it wouldn't do that uh and but if it's online there's this innovation so if i if i can understand this inhibition then that will inform my behavior across the board not not limited to a specific platform or medium let me ask you one of the questions then i'm going to hand it off to my co-host one more question i want to go behind the bema for a moment with you dr shapiro how hard is it for you to practice what you preach when no one's around are you like obsessed with your phone meaning is all this technology is all this technology i'm asking a personal question not because i really want you to answer the personal part but what i mean is i want to go behind you sometimes sometimes it's easy to it's easy to intellectually or conceptually and then it's hard to put it into practice right so you know i sat through your presentation uh that you gave in our community and like i said it's so compelling but then when you're sitting there with that phone and those whether it's the videos or whether it's the status updates or whether it's the ability to just live through other people's lives to be distracted and and to to to be able to vicariously experience because we want to escape our own lives it's addictive there's a reason it's addictive so how does one overcome that addiction and and how do your children feel about what you do are you like the grinch who stole their technology lives are their friends all like we could be on our devices all the time but your father gave a seminar in our school and now we lost our devices don't your kids don't watch the show you're good i'm i'm writing this down just because i want to get to the kids one and then the first one was do i practice better pages so all right i'm writing a note me and then the kids all right um so so when it comes to me um and i'm a dick no um the the reality is we all have days where technology serves as an intrusion in our lives and we have days where it's an enhancement in our lives and just taking those two terms you know we talk about language uh being so powerful and giving us the power to make adjustments we should be able to ask ourselves on any given day did technology serve as an intrusion or even during the day is it intruding or is it enhancing and our goal as individuals myself included is to find more time of the day and more days where technology serves as enhanced enhancement rather than an intrusion and so like everybody else uh i have days when i have spent too much time in front of a screen or on on my phone uh and i have days when i have done better and and i think we all go through that and the idea is to each day be a little better one of the strategies that we can utilize uh to to do that is to set rules and guidelines and boundaries for ourselves and with our family and certainly as it relates to our kids to be able to model that so um for example when i when i'm in shul and i dive in chakras and i'm wearing collison's villain i don't have my phone with me it's it it's in my locker and it's not not about not from guy it's not that's what it is it's just uh it seems like two it doesn't go together having your phone and um the good news is that my chakras is down to six and a half minutes so that's that's the positive uh part of it but the reality is is that i don't have my phone with me and um and it just it's a different quality dominating you it it feels different even when it's in your pocket like the comparison you can everyone can experiment have it on the table while you're dabbing then next they have in your pocket and the next day leave it in your car and see how that experience is different and we know from research we know that the mere presence of a device reduces our cognitive functioning it reduces our focus uh kids who've taken standardized tests when they have the phone on their desk even if they don't touch it perform poorly adults who are engaged in work when their phone is there and it's on the desk they are not performing to maximum capacity so we have to engage in specific behaviors rules and guidelines that work for us in my own home we do something called going dark for dinner there's no technology at the table for the 15 or 20 minutes that everyone's around the table for dinner time and qualitatively it makes such a difference it makes a tremendous difference so you know i i'm nothing special like anybody else i i love technology it's amazing in so many ways it enhances my life and allows me to connect what we're doing right now you mentioned covid and uh how could we have functioned without technology uh rivaron labyonsky uh mentioned uh uh kovid and zoom classes he quoted the positive molly caller that it this is how asham is spreading uh knowledge and and that opportunity is tremendous i asked him if he got pushed back on that statement and um he said it's ms why why would i get pushback on it uh so you know that idea so that's that's the first thing you know all of us it's a challenge like anything else and we want to utilize what technology has to make things awesome to make things amazing to be able to connect with family friends and and be more efficient and be more knowledgeable but if we assess that it's intruding in our lives and it's taking us out of the experience and and uh it's becoming a distraction then we have to adjust our behaviors so that's me my kids um is interesting uh my son is in eighth grade and uh last year the seventh grade rugby had asked me to come in and speak to the boys about technology uh and first he asked my son first you know usually the the child would object to their parent coming in i don't know maybe your kids like when you come to school or not so uh my son didn't object i came in i i spoke for about an hour to to a group of seventh graders and they asked great questions they really they asked great questions they were engaged et cetera it happens to be this past travis my son's uh friends were over and uh one of them they had seen i was speaking uh for an organization that was in the local newspaper and uh it was just like oh we saw you in the paper and and uh can you come back this year to our eighth grade class and give the you know give your speech again and so either either they really like my speech or they don't like their review so one or the other but i i think they have a great rebbe so um you know and then he asked me the question you know i said is there any question you want me to address during this roundtable discussion that we're doing so this is again this is an eighth grade 13 year old boy who said how much is too much screen time which i thought was like a fascinating question to come i hear that from adults but you know about their kids not about themselves but uh to hear from an eighth grader and he was genuinely curious what is the right amount of screen time like most kids he likes watching videos he likes playing video games um you know he likes playing sports he likes doing all of those things so he wanted to know what what the right amount was so in asking my kids i i i think that um my oldest daughter actually said said it really well um it was annoying at the time but looking back she appreciates the limits and the the guidelines and the communication around technology so so let me just jump in on the children piece because when you spoke to the community it was really really well received and i know a lot of parents it really caused them food for thought and i know for for my wife and i it was like a real game changer we were just coming to that point of children in technology and um and your presentation really opened up our eyes the feedback i got though subsequent to that was that a lot of it sounds really good in theory but in practice my children just wear me down that's what i kept on hearing from parents which is that yeah we made the rules and we set the boundaries but like every night was just a fight every night was a fight over timing and access and this website and that website and they needed it for school and they wanted a little bit more of it and so most parents just told me they said at the end of the day you give up you have limited capacity you don't want to spend your entire life fighting with your child and so my children wore me down what advice what do you have to parents out there who are going through this who are struggling with the balance both for themselves and really for their children between setting the boundaries but also not allowing it to take over the entire house and to create this pervasive almost toxicity in the house because you're always fighting over access to technology so the fir the first thing is um i want to validate the parental experience as a parent myself it's exhausting being a parent today it just it is it's it's qualitatively much more challenging than it was in the past our kids have access to things that they never had in the past and that very access uh requires more oversight on on the part of us the parents there it's counter-intuitive you know you think when you give your child the device you give them technology it it relieves you of some responsibility because they're occupied but in reality it gives you more responsibility and more uh work uh and i think a lot of it you know people tend to think about content as the piece but uh the point that you're making about the amount of time uh they're spending on technology and also kids are not equipped to self-regulate in the way that adults theoretically most adults can self-regulate better and so therefore as the parents we need to self-regulate so when we give our kids technology we're really putting the onus on us to manage it with that said um it is a challenge uh and i do think that we can do better than we think we can do you know i i think at times you know in behavior modification the behavior always gets worse before it gets better but it always gets better at some point unless there's other uh unrelated issues and that that happens too but um the reality is is that it's it has to be something that's constant it has to be something that uh you have rules and guidelines within the house and and keep to them uh it's not to say that during covid we don't make adjustments we made a lot of adjustments uh including more screen time both uh recreationally and academically uh the the norms demanded it but we also we weren't in shul as well doesn't mean that we're not gonna go back to fuel because we got used to a certain uh you know behavior same thing just because we uh utilize technology more frequently and in greater uh uh numbers than we may have in the past doesn't mean that we can't uh you know pull back on it and and restructure but it does require a commitment it does require an ongoing conversation and consistency uh is really the key um and that doesn't mean that your kids aren't going to have days where they're on their devices too much doesn't mean you give up it means you keep at it and remind them and it's a conversation and also i have found that uh in retrofitting it's very difficult to just make it about the kids if you're doing in a preventative way uh you know introducing them to technology it's much easier to set rules and guidelines limitations if we've already sort of uh thrown our hats over the fence and we're stuck with it there now then it has to be a family approach so as a family we say okay as a family we're not going to utilize technology for the first hour that we're home no one in the family you know when you come home from school you can go play outside you can do your homework and do it but there's no screen time for the first hour that everyone's home from school work et cetera um and thinking about it in those terms it has to become more of a family activity than just an individual activity and so um you know in an authoritarian approach uh to technology you know do as i say not as i do is is generally not going to be effective and that's not to say that parents that are struggling with this are authoritarian in nature but they people can do better uh and i i also think that uh you know rabbi frand said at the uh i think he was quoting voltaire uh don't let the enemy uh don't let perfect be the enemy of good uh we have to try to do our best and be good enough we're not going to be perfect and sometimes when we don't hit that mark of perfection we feel down on ourselves and we say i just can't do this the goal is not perfection the goal is to be good and consistent i remember when we uh were first introduced to the internet back at boca raton synagogue we had a dial-up mode and we wanted to run a program one modem for all of us that we all used to share so we wanted to do a program for parents i guess similar to what you were doing but this was back in the early days and show them how easy it was for their children to access things that were probably inappropriate there were no videos there was pre-videos there was no google but whatever the search engine was and you know let's just say i would i think yeah i think we were all pretty surprised how easy it was to find certain things and i think you know some of that i see some of the people that are watching right now are probably there sal and some of the other uh listeners but but but today right that was the beginning is there something that parents that we right i'm a little older than rabbi moskowitz he's a little bit more more more forward uh thinking and and he gets us obviously a lot quicker than i do but are there things that we as parents are completely not aware of that we should be aware of right now is there a program i'm still using facebook i don't know instagram i don't know tik tok so where should we be can we learn it or not i learn new things every day i literally learned something new last night as a new issue i don't want to scare anybody but i learned a new issue in technology last night i was uh doing a roundtable discussion with rabbi moshe taub tab from queens and he brought up this idea that it's not an idea it's something that he's been dealing with where kids will go onto youtube and hear atheist speakers give compelling arguments uh anti-religion atheists and he's been getting phone calls from teenagers saying i just don't believe you know if you look at the uh you know richard dawkins and other you know thinkers in this field they can give compelling arguments to 13 or 14 or 15 year old minds and this is something that i never thought of i never heard about it it doesn't really get to uh um you know my office but i guess in the rabbinic sense you hear about that so i'm learning new things every day as well um one of the themes that i talk about a lot with technology and parenting is being thoughtful and deliberative and i like those two terms because it really applies to everything and every time no matter what the new trend is uh any time that a new trend comes in uh you know i uh when i speak i have a big beh on the screen and everyone thinks it's hashem uh but it actually stands for but everyone has and i think that's one of the biggest challenges for parents is that you know they hear from their phone but everyone has a tic toc but everyone has an iphone but everyone has the latest xbox um and in most cases uh everyone does not have uh some kids have uh but at at some point everyone does have and it really creates a challenge for parents to make those decisions but this is not something that's unique to technology this is across the board being a parent you know everyone well you don't have coats in in florida but here at montclair coats they have montclair it's a fancy brand in the five towns man um very expensive like at 800. down here yet yeah um but uh you know the everyone has now am i going to you know my child feels like they're being left out and and they uh you know i feel like everyone else has the thing that they don't and it does it can have a impact on their emotional well-being and but that's something to address but as a parent we have to look at the consequences of action versus the consequences of inaction and i think that thoughtful and deliberative approach applies to everything to whether what age we're giving our children devices uh what access we're giving them what apps we're giving them and if it doesn't feel right you know it probably isn't right and there are a few uh pragmatic ways of determining whether you want to give your children access to something so let's just say apps let's just say tick-tock for example but we're not talking about tick-tock we're talking about you know all uh all things that your children will come home and say but everyone has so the first thing is when you go to the app store there will be a age recommendation uh 12 plus 17 plus whatever the age recommendation is so that's your first indication of you know where things might be um if you have a 10 year old and they're saying i want instagram but instagram says 12 plus or snapchat is 12 plus so off the bat if if the social media company is not recommending it for your child's age you can be sure it's not appropriate for your child but then next to that it'll give you reasons why they have rated something 12 plus and that will include uh you know crude and suggestive humor um you know occasional nudity you know things along those lines and then you say wait a minute do i even though instagram or snapchat thinks that 12 plus is the right age for this exposure do i feel that way as a parent and again it's that thoughtful deliberative process that will help you as a parent make more informed decisions um and you know i think that's the strategy so it's not about any specific app or or device it's it's a it's a strategy of doing research and and again i mentioned the website i'll mention it again common sense media they will look at videos and and movies and websites and apps and and they'll tell you you know uh they'll educate you about it and i think that's important for parents to do the research i want to change gears and and i debated it it might be a little bit controversial what i want to bring up so i debated actually letting you go before we discuss it so you don't have to weigh in dr shapiro but but we'll leave you there and if you want to slide out you can um so i you know i i'll just get this off my chest and and maybe regret it later but maybe not you talk about cyber bullying online bullying and when we think about the word bullying we usually think about children first of all i want to clarify would you agree that calling a good friend and pulling a prank on them that breaks their heart is a form of bullying yeah i i was kind of surprised that such thoughtful people would do such a horrible thing wait till you tell you about what happened at the synagogue dinner okay listen so i want to just throw out there and i know this would be controversial for the people who who live on that platform and i engage social media i think the three of us um in terms of the the rabbis here do and we use it in the best possible sense to promote torah ideas connection to enhance not to interrupt and so on but i feel and i'm going to say about twitter in particular i think that there is a lot of adult bullying in the form of snork and i'm talking about jewish twitter i find it frustrating that jewish twitter so much of the conversation of jewish twitter is not contributing to ideas and advancing thought and inspiring but is like who's got the snarkiest the most cynical who's got the observation the comment who can cut who can be cynical who can undermine you could disappear any moment you want dr shapiro you could leave that so you just lost a lot of friends on twitter you know i did but i don't care i'm going all in on it um because i find that um you know what do they call it microaggression is that what it's called microaggression isn't that the expression term yeah yes i think like on from twitter there's a lot of micro bullying where someone puts up a thought and idea or let's just say an article someone else puts up what they think is a hilariously snarky comment about it that they think is adorable and cute and then others like it and post and it starts of strings of comments and it's just you know like you said that you know you wouldn't dress provocatively and dance in the street i don't think if you were in a room you would react and say these things in front of the person because you'd be more sensitive and yet somehow it's not even the anonymity of the internet because people do it with their name but the the culture even on from twitter is like it's a competition of cynicism sarcasm snarkiness and just going for the the cheap shot the humor the laugh sometimes at other people's expense sometimes the expense of taking things seriously i'm not talking about anyone particular i don't want anyone to read into it i'm not talking about that no yes somebody just commented i'm not talking about my cousin who i love my cousin who i love wrote an adorably cute comment after this uh um article went up but others were less adorable and less cute let's just say but it could be twitter facebook could be elsewhere so i wonder if you have a comment about how even those who are total personalities even those who are committed to a certain set of values of middles of interpersonal behavior somehow the keyboard and the internet connection somehow the physical distance somehow that feeling like i'm just commenting on like i know and again thank you for this thank you for this therapy session and giving me this this moment but right so rabbi brodie this magazine whatever i i posted an article that i actually thought was thoughtful and i want to really inspire a conversation around it and unfortunately this picture and the cover and the title that went with it is a distraction from the conversation and i wish that people would read the article and and really ignore the picture and the and the title headline but for the record i wasn't putting it up because of that i was putting it no no i understand there's no other modern orthodox rabbit that's ever been on the cover i got it i got it i appreciate that but but it's interesting because while there were friends of mine who posted it let's say online and i made the mistake of reading some comments on their page so you know there's an interesting phenomenon i'll end my little rant with this which is people think that if you're not posting a comment on the page or on the profile of the person directly but if somebody who quoted them or referenced it or linked to it then it's okay like all holds barred you can do whatever you want but they're real people and real feelings and real personality and and again that doesn't mean there can't be an exchange of ideas and there can't be critical feedback and critical thinking but like a rule of thumb if you wouldn't say it in front of the person you want to say it in a crowded room to the person then don't say it online is that is that fair so yeah you know it's interesting the first thing is uh i'll provide some free therapy here reggie jackson uh said they don't boo nobodies so you should feel good if they're booing you it means you've accomplished something um it's a way of thinking about it um but uh you know you may you made a point that even when their name appears on their comments um you know like if you if you're looking like the yeshiva world news uh coffee room you know a lot of the names are made up like you know i'm pretty sure he's not the gutter whoever's working on it yeah um you know it's important to have aspirations so um but you know there there is something called relative anonymity and and really the psychologist john sullar identified something called the online disinhibition effect and it basically says that when we're in front of a screen when we're communicating communicating through a digital medium we are more likely to do and say things that we would not normally do and say in a face-to-face conversation right if you're anonymous uh like the godzilla then uh you know you would expect that people would make snarky aggressive uh hurtful comments but what's amazing is that from a psychological standpoint even if i'm emailing you for my email ellie ellie shapiro.com where i'm posting you know dr ali shapiro it's clear who is saying it i'm still more likely to do or say something in that online realm there's a sense of distance of uh of anonymity um that uh that you just there's something specific about the internet and digital communications that does that and that's part of where the education has to come from because you know if you ask yourself would i say this to the person's face and the answer is no then why am i why am i doing it online in in in an environment where it's more public and more permanent i'm right you know it should be the opposite maybe maybe the guy's face when no one's around they'll you know be aggressive no one could if i said anything but here you know i'm willing to post it so that's it's a psychological function related to the internet related to digital communication called the online disinhibition effect and that really if we are aware of that again if we have the language it informs our behavior and we should say well is this really uh you know what i want to say the other piece is is impulsivity there's something about uh digital communication that makes us more impulsive uh you know when i was a kid if i was angry at someone i was told you know you you write them a letter you put it in an envelope put it on your desk you wait a week and then by the time you're ready to send it usually the issues resolved itself and that you know that what i was taught anyway i was just like an angry kid so they would help me write letters um but today what do you do when you're upset when you're angry you you write tweet you blog you comment you you know you fair you know it's instant because of the power that we have with our devices uh you know we it just promotes this impulsivity and 22 percent of adults report posting things and sending things that they regret every week wow every twenty percent of those so like that's it's a fascinating finding and then kids when you're dealing with kids who you give them this powerful tool that promotes impulsivity and it promotes disinhibition and uh kids tend to be a little more impulsive anyway so it's a very dangerous tool that that they have if they're not being educated properly and it's a dangerous tool for adults how many professional athletes do we hear about that like three years ago they you know tweeted something that was offensive uh in 2017 there were 10 students that were accepted to harvard harvard university so you got to be somewhat disciplined and smart to get in there and they they had their acceptances rescinded because of offensive comments they made in a private facebook group it wasn't even twitter it wasn't even public it was a private facebook group but the idea that when you're disinhibited you're gonna say things and uh and communicate in a way that you know look maybe it is reflective of your personality uh but maybe it's not maybe it you know we carry ourselves in real life with a certain level of inhibition uh you know a healthy inhibition that that allows us to be regulated and self-control and self-aware um and that goes out the window sometimes when it comes to technology so just just to clarify i i'm a big boy and i put a lot of stuff out there i write i share opinions and thoughts and when there are criticisms to the substance of what i'm saying i'm a big boy you know i don't always like it or want it but i can take it and that's what i invite and i welcome that by putting myself out there there was a comment on on facebook today in response to my article and it was a great point about a contrast at the end of the article between introverts and people who share and i really appreciated the person's thoughtful response i learned from it i was wrong and if i could tweak or put it out again i would incorporate that change but but that's what i find is shocking is that it's not legitimate criticism on the substance like i say in certain circles in particular there's just this atmospheric competition of who can be the most witty even when it's not elevating the conversation so do you have a rule of thumb when someone's going to post something what's what are the questions one should ask themselves if they're a ben torah abbas this is a aspirational religiously spiritual aspirational person what is the rule of thumb what should someone ask themselves before they post anything online so i i can tell you what i do just because i'm like everybody else i use technology i have twitter uh i see things that i want to i you know i think to myself oh i have a snarky comment that i i think would get a laugh you know and and what what you i don't i don't think you'll find anything online i think i scrubbed everything but now the idea is that that that you know like everyone else you have these impulses right you have an impulse to share that that's that that line that that hop that you know you know if you would scroll up you'd see like 18 other people already said it um but like i i always ask myself how does this help me right am i advancing an idea am i promoting something and will this reflect well on me those are two questions that i asked do i really need to share this what is the upside for me sharing this comment right what is the upside and is it something that will stand the test of time um and that's that's what i ask myself so um i end up usually if i wait five minutes the impulse to share it usually dissipates and i feel like i made the right decision um and uh you know i would recommend that people do that as well there are some people that live for that that you know it's not a question of this is this becomes part of who they are um for a variety of reasons uh you know the online medium is empowering and gives them the opportunity uh to you know share their uh wit and wisdom uh you know and and that's not gonna change no amount of reflection is gonna help them with that um because they're committed to that's their online night because it becomes their online identity uh but for most of us you know is how important is it that i really share this um and does this really reflect well on me and this idea of does this really reflect well on me is so important um because our digital footprints uh you know is really so powerful in of the opportunities that are presented to us and i try to tell kids this when they're younger because you can formulate a digital footprint at a young age that is problematic uh that can you know prevent you from getting into certain yeshivas or colleges or college scholarships or jobs down the road or even when it comes to sugar yeah where do people go for sure enough and you you go online you look at the facebook page what kind of comments and now you know without getting political uh because there is a very strong inter-uh related nature between politics and social media and technology but let's just say um you know pick any any president uh let's not do something current but let's say calvin coolidge i love calvin cool he's amazing right i tweet about him all day calvin who is amazing or i dislike calvin coolidge was the worst either right so i'm basically creating a digital footprint of my positions on an issue now i may go for a job interview where the person hiring me may not share my political beliefs uh and and it can cost me a job because he can say you know not only do i like his political beliefs i think that he's volatile and he presents a liability for the company because here's a guy who just puts everything out there without really being concerned now that's not to say that we don't have freedom of speech and people should feel comfortable sharing what it is that they want to share uh in general unless you're a rabbi i avoid politics religion you know these are hot button issues uh to be posting on social media and again there is very little nuance uh that you can have in you know however many characters they allow you today um but you know you have to think is this really going to be helpful to me um now it's okay if you want to share those things but just be aware that there are consequences as a result and you may be willing to accept the consequences when you post an article when you post a position that might be controversial you think about and you say you know i'm willing to whatever the consequences of my position on this are i feel strongly about this and i'm willing to accept that but you need to recognize there are going to be consequences so just to jump in for a second you know i thought you were going a different direction when you when you said i'm not going to be political but obviously it impacts politics which is that i think in many ways this conversation is connected to our original conversation that we had tonight which is that i think part of the casualty of moving so much conversation online to twitter and to facebook is you lose the relationships and as roy gobert you just said something you would never say to someone's face even if they disagreed with you vehemently in politics but because you had that relationship and you're in the same room together i would never say to you on twitter on facebook it becomes that much more permissible and i'm less aware of the consequences to the relationship as a result of me of me posting it and i'll even give you as an example and you know i'll apologize publicly but rabbi gobert when i first saw the the cover so you know you and i are pretty good friends and we sometimes play around a little bit and i was sending some text and then i realized that i'm not just like sending it to a machine but like you have feelings and you're a real person and i'm sure it's like hurtful to you and i backed off very quickly and i recognize that even though our banter is fun often times sometimes it's also not appropriate and um but even that's an example of of you're my nearest i mean you're one of my closest friend you're a brother to me and so quickly on whatsapp it was easy to descend into that like snarky let's joke around let's have banter with each other not fully recognizing the impact that's going to happen another person i had a similar experience i had once posted something i had spoken and i was like wow so exciting to have 400 people come out and speak and and someone a good friend of mine commented on it just jokingly like nah there were only 200 people there and to me the problem wasn't i know he didn't mean anything by it but for me my numbers accuracy is so important to my identity right that if someone starts questioning the numbers that i present that really becomes you know problematic for me you know i uh i include a lot of data and statistics in my my presentations uh some people say that it's too much data and statistics uh actually about 72 percent of people say it's too much data but to me the numbers are so important and and when someone questioned that in a public way that was very hurtful to me and i know he didn't think so but he's just joking right now it wasn't 400 200 okay but first was it robin um i'm sensing a theme here um but yeah but i i think a great example and we should look up to the relationship between ruth bader ginsburg and antonin scalia i mean these are two people who had completely different opinions on everything but they were the best of friends and they respected each other but if their entire relationship was through twitter uh you know it would it would be problematic and and the truth is no one has ever convinced someone else to change political opinions in a twitter conversation it's just never happened right uh and you know to even bother trying they have to be a good friend of mine who's been posting a lot he lives in israel but has very strong opinions on on the current election or the election that we just had um i know that's a political distinction as well i didn't mean to make that but uh he's been making comments on on the election and like you know i i i found to be so radical and so far now i know him and i find it hard to believe that he's aligned himself with certain opinions and then publicly sharing them from six thousand miles away it was amazing to me but um you know if i didn't know him and was close with him and you know i would probably have you know take issue with you know many of the things he says amazing really a lot of food for thought dr elie shapiro thank you so much for being with us this evening and sharing your expertise and insights and coming behind the bema people can definitely check it out find out more at thedigitalcitizenship.com thedigitalcitizenship.com there's a lot of really uh important um important help and resources there so definitely check it out and thank you and we look forward to bringing you back to our community to continue these conversations so thank you so much for being with us tonight thank you thank you wow yeah lots of not to think about a lot to think about um lot to talk about yes the truth is it's funny robin moscow's i could tell that you did that and i appreciate you having backed off you didn't need to and that's part of this also is that you're a brother to me so it's all in good fun you weren't saying anything that i didn't feel myself i knew that you were genuinely happy for the part that i'm happy about and you can laugh but no no it didn't bother me in the least it's the the part is that like the people that you don't have a relationship with you don't know that's what they have to be honest i was shocked when i i mean i know the post that you're referring to a friend of ours israel made a very nice about and i was shocked by some of the comments um and uh it's disappointing and i agree with you wholeheartedly that there's this culture out there on facebook and twitter where people think they could say things and they think just because you're a public figure look at we have as you said we have thick skin we can handle it we can debate we can put issues out there and have people disagree with us but um you know there has to be a concept of basic decency in the way that we communicate with other people recognizing that there's a human being on the other end right right and that seems to be messing with did michigan reach out to you did they see all this and say listen we're sorry oh no no oh you know it's interesting it's interesting in our last few minutes over here so um behind the beam no the whole process is actually fascinating so i read this article i i i'll tell you what precipitated the whole thing and i don't know if there's anyone still listening or if anyone's listening later whether they make it to the end of this podcast to hear this which is probably the perfect place to put this conversation so um it's like schwa tonight you say everything controversial you want to say right the four in the four a.m slot yeah i speak about that it's that's your slot exactly now you know now you know why we give it to you so yeah exactly you know what happened was i um i um i received one too many reference calls that was really frustrating me because the questions have gotten outrageous the questions are just absurd some of them oh now everybody's sympathy telling me that this thank you thank you everybody for listening i appreciate that so um the questions are are really outrageous and i'm not gonna now tell you all the the level of outrage i'll say the most outrageous thing that really bothers me and i don't say this about everybody although i love everybody but there are some exceptional young people or people of any age when i get a call about them as a reference and i'll say they're this they're that the amazing i'll start the first couple questions i'll answer and then i'll say listen stop so and so if i had a daughter that age i'd want her to marry him so and so if i had a son that age i'd want him to marry her and they're like that's so nice rabbi but anyway coming back to the question so i said i don't think you heard me i'm not entertaining any more questions i just told you everything that you need to know from me which is that i would want my child to minimally date them but maybe marry them i'm done i'm out so the question that was on the script that's on the script now so many of this and and there are scripts i actually stopped someone and asked them are you reading off someone is this going around because i get the same questions was about you know what medications are are he or she on so i posted something on facebook about you know when that gets asked that's going to be a conversation stopper for me i want to help i want to be part of the solution i love helping the process advance and people find their happiness but i'm just not and there was a whole conversation on facebook about about that and so i said i'm going to write an article about it where i can further develop my thoughts because social media is not the place for developed sophisticated thoughts so um so i wrote an article and i put it up on on my website and i sent it to our editor of our weekly put in something i was going to put it in and that was the whole thing got off my chest wrote the article and i sent it to one of the main journalists and editors at mishpacha who i'm very friendly with and i like a lot and admire his writings and i said i think you'll enjoy this piece just you know sometimes exchange things and he said take it down we want to use it it'll be a great way to start a conversation about something that's really important so i took it down and i ended up knowing it was going in that much bigger platform and we know the readership because we had on the owner michebach a few weeks ago and of course i had to get the snarky comment from someone today i guess this was in exchange for the fact that you had on the owner of mishpochah you got to go on the cover even though the owner probably doesn't even know who's going on the next cover if you knew ali pali that that week but whatever god bless everybody these are your closest friends anyway so um so uh so then they said to me you know what we've never done this but we want to put it on the cover because that will draw attention we want to really get the conversation started about this i was like okay so they took some pictures and never no one ran buying me the pictures or the headline and and even edited the final article which was fine with me again what's frustrating is it's the subs you want to take issue with the substance of the article i'm all ears i have a lot to learn maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm not analyzing it correctly maybe i missed a comma an apostrophe i'm all ears on the substance of the article but like the amount of comments i didn't choose the headline i woke up to so many gifs and memes of monsters this morning [Laughter] it's hilarious i want you to say i'm actually laughing about that it's hilarious and i can care less so anyway in my ammunition this morning this is not bearing all in this episode it's been a long week in the ammunition this morning i always give examples of you know when this happens the other thing happens and you don't know why and hashem always has a plan and don't be frustrated by it recognize it's part of the master plan and i was giving examples you missed the flight you got stuck at the red light somebody sent an email about you they called you the monster on the cover of a magazine i mentioned that so so that editor who i originally had the exchange with sends me the clip from my munishia this morning and writes you're hilarious so i wrote like uh oh am i in trouble i that's like my therapy the immediate it's my therapy so he wrote no you're not in trouble in fact we feel bad i said don't feel bad it's all good and here's my last line i'll say on this i i do feel from the bottom of my heart whatever the picture you know my comments i got you're holding the smartphone they're going to should do them for your children hey loser wear airpods today nobody holds up a phone until they're here like all the major substance of my article right so i love all the comments and i love all the people who sent them but anyway so i said i said to the editor and this is from the bottom of my heart genuine and that's why i didn't care when you made your your comment early this morning is this is hashem's way of making sure that even though i'm on the cover of a magazine it does not go to my head hashem made sure that it absolutely did not go to my head anyway if you're listening read the article it's substance that's what i care about i hope it'll start again we're proud of you and you deserved it i was just wondering if people could get married who are you on the phone with so long are you talking it was a long phone call right so those are the shitty phone calls that was that's what that's the look that's the look they were going for that's the phone calls yeah the phone calls they should have phone calls so yeah thank god thank god hold on one second [Music] we started tonight with an enormous shame on you what happened at the capitol today and there are other shames on you i'm not going to go to them is that the proper plural shames on you shame on use shame on you is too huge but here is a here is a hats off to you for tonight newly elected congresswoman kat kamek if i'm pronouncing her name correctly from florida strong supporter of israel she put an israeli flag alongside the american flag outside her office and picture that here's the best part you know who her office is next to in the halls of congress congresswoman rashford she's right next to rashid so whenever she but anyway hats off to you so that's a that's a good thing anything else a gentleman as we wrap up as we wrap up uh season two episode 15. it's really when do we switch to season three after you achieve a break maybe yeah it's kind of arbitrary do we have something that we switched to i don't know we switched arbitrarily from one to two so at some point we'll have to switch from two to three are we gonna be broadcasting live from somewhere i'm just shivering back we're we're back no i'm not even talking about that uh are we taking off for that week it's a good question i don't know what we're doing it's a good question to wait and see ladies and gentlemen please be in touch with us if the topics you'd like to hear us speak about we get a lot of feedback that you know our guests are wonderful tonight's guess no exception really informative a lot a lot of food for thought but people like our conversations are banter they get a different side of us they get a very exhausted late at night a little bit less filtered side of us so if there are topics you want to talk about or you want to know what we think about things be in touch send us emails comments we'd love to hear from you i just see phil landau's uh question you get a lot of calls about me being on medication is there is that like a once a week phone call get calls suggesting that you'd be on the it should be on medication the medicine that's not not a joking matter it's not a joke i'm not joking i'm just joking a little bit that's what i was going to say the medication is a sensitive question but it needs to be dealt with appropriately and the whole thing is so out of control it's not even normal really really why does it surprise you that go ahead no yeah but i mean every every part of our life is a consumer mentality right so i walk into starbucks and i don't want to conform to any one coffee i want to have it the exact way that i like it and if i go into even when i go to yeshivas right if i live in the tri-state area so i'm picking yeshiva based on very specific external criteria manhattan no jacket no whatever world you live in right that's that's what i'm judging it based on um isn't the the the criteria of shidduchim just a natural extension of that it is yeah but that's not a that's not an excusable or tolerable or an acceptable thing in other words we're living in a world we always give this example actually our our good buddy rabbi yanki haruts was a past guest on behind the bimba i remember when he spoke here years ago already gave this example and he said moscow's you're way too young to appreciate this brought by brody will really appreciate this you know you remember when when when your favorite jewish or non-jewish musician came out with a new album right i'm not talking records let's go right to tapes okay so or tape uh the tape had i don't know what how many songs are on the average tape 12 that sounds right you have to fast forward in in real world so so 12 songs 10 songs average tape and they're like three great songs on the tape you had to listen to the whole tape both sides of it you had to make your way through all the mediocre and bad songs i remember it's worth it for the good songs right i remember my first tape like i got like the first tape deck it was able to stop automatically it just knew when the end of the song was really you know it was great high-tech like high-tech right before cds people don't know the mysterious netflix and the selflessness of a mixtape they're really old they had the two tape yeah the two tapes next to each other and you'd press play and play and record and you have to stop and a mix and you're basically trying to accord you could be up the entire night and if there was someone you really liked you would make a mixtape it was like a great gesture of commitment of loyalty of maybe maybe some would say even affection to put the work in to make a mixtape anyway so his point was today and this is like back to the ipod the early ipod days it's like today you make a playlist i only listen to what i want to listen to i don't have to listen to anything else so people want to have a playlist among their spouse right like stop talking i only want to hear you say this let's skip the next thing you're going to say we're going to skip the next track where you criticize me or you say the things that i feel like listening to and that's bad so you're right moscow it's a disposable society and we're living in a society where you upgrade to version 2.0 and 3.0 you upgrade your phone you upgrade your car you upgrade your everything people want to filter and know in advance and they want to find perfection and they try to project and pretend they offer perfection but it's all a fake world let people be on a journey to discover each other let them find each other i had a isharkhan a very active who texted me today after reading the article and uh let's see hold on let me find this text and said to me really agreeing and and really giving positive feedback a lot of the article disagreeing with parts of the article and disagreeing about the medicine question but then also sharing that one of the shidduchim they had made one of the parties disclosed to the other a few dates in that they take medicine from mild anxiety had for years but they're fine and and they you know the other party heard that was you know wanted to process it a little bit and understand it but stayed with it and they're very very happily married and so i said back to that shotgun let me ask you a question if before they went out a reference who was asked would have said oh you know she's got mild anxiety he's got mild anxiety they take some medicine but they've got it together it doesn't really show itself would they have next to and the answer was yeah they probably would especially the boys who are in the in the powerful position where they have resumes spread out on the desk and they've got the choice so if you've got 25 girls not with anxiety non-medicine and this one girl with it why would you go out with her so they're happily married right now and they never would have been aptly married and they had the journey of discovering and sharing and trusting and processing and that doesn't mean they would follow through maybe he couldn't have gotten comfortable or she couldn't have gotten comfortable maybe they wouldn't have stayed together but we're trying to weed things out and it's not working it's not like we have a much higher success now of marriages or of engagements so it's not working and that's some of what we talk about in the article right now i obviously agree with you i'm i'm simply saying i think it's representative of a of a greater um issue in in america and really our society i i'll tell you another story i know someone who when they were applying for yeshivas in israel one of the questions the yeshiva asked them was this exact question are you on any medication so the person confided that they take something to help with a little bit of anxiety nothing major um certainly many high school students do there's nothing wrong with that and they were rejected by the yeshiva and they ended up going to a different yeshiva and all of this person's friends ended up switching to the other yeshiva also because they were so turned off by this story they they wanted to show respect they wanted to show allegiance to their friend they all switched to this other yeshiva to show that we're not going to allow ourselves to be judged based on an issue like that so i'm simply saying i think it's it's an issue in greater society of exactly that consumer mindset that you were referring to i'm going to tell you this right now here's another bold controversial statement maybe we should have hung up two minutes ago but if especially with large families and many children if anybody tells you that that medicine cabinet is bare that nobody in the family needs growth hormone add anxiety mild anxiety or anything else they're lying we're living in a world just check the statistics and the numbers they're just lying so i'm not saying it's a badge of honor or somebody should take it if they don't need it but i am saying that it's not a badge of shame and that you can have somebody who's taking those medications and they are the most amazing spouses and parents and have the most they have their lives together and you have people who there's such stigma for that and therefore their parents or they don't get the help they need so that they could say they're not in any medication and they are narcissistic selfish horrible parents or spouses and so it's not working if i had to summarize the whole article it wouldn't be about a monster it would be it's not working it's not working it's not working i mean today we should discuss that in another episode though because i think that's a really important conversation to have we have some prominent who are going to come on we got a great list of uh upcoming guests should we float some of the upcoming guests who are committed to come on we're working out the schedules should we tease it out or leave it here i will say this in closing okay but i will say this in closing i will say this in closing there is a guest that we had been pursuing to bring on and had shown some interest and everyone would be really excited by but then we found out the price tag and it was five thousand dollars for half an hour and we couldn't justify five thousand dollars half an hour as important as the show is to the world we could not so i want to make this very clear to our audience and end with this behind the bema has never and will never pay for a guest our guests come on because they want to reach you and they want you to hear them and we want you to be able to have that exchange of ideas so this is our commitment to you hold on one second [Music] breaking news this is our commitment to you that we have never not been taken hostage and we'll never we will never pay for a guest we want the guests who want to be with us and the guests who want to be with you so on that note thank you to rabbi moscow it's rabbi brodie thanks for letting me get all that off my chest and speak a lot tonight and every wednesday night thank you ellie shapiro if you'd like to sponsor an upcoming episode know that your sponsorship reaches thousands and thousands we'll share our statistics at some point but there are thousand thousand tens of thousands who listen and um that's a sponsorship gets very far so you can contact lee lee at brs online uh to be able to sponsor next week is taken we have a few sponsors lined up but we've got some other opportunities so be in touch with lee ibs online until next time stay happy stay healthy stay holy