We used to be moved by a story about a man who, thanks to his charity, was saved and healed. Today, nothing can capture our excitement less than a story about a cobra that turned into a man.
The excessive excitement on social media causes us to lack excitement and enjoyment in simple things.
We have long since stopped being impressed and excited by an exciting reunion of brothers who met after 60 years.
It's been a long time since we've been able to glance at a newspaper and experience excitement over elected officials who managed to achieve another impressive feat.
It seems so old-fashioned to stare at a website that features photos of visitors to wonderful places abroad and squeal with admiration.
Our lives, with all the networks, colorful articles, videos, and excessive colorfulness, cause us to sink into black bile.
Yes, you can't see the forest for the trees.
When the excitement over brothers who haven't seen each other for years barely lasts a second, because we immediately turn to the next piece of news, the mind is not able to contain and enjoy what it has seen.
When elected officials jump to the top of the newscast with every tiny achievement based on their popularity, we lose the point of reading about others and being impressed by their achievements.
When abroad is so close, bringing colors and flavors right into our mouths, what is left to boast about? What haven't we seen and will see?
When the world is so extroverted and colorful and chaotic and fast-paced, it's hard to find excitement in our hearts; it's hard to feel curious about anything at all.
When the world breaks boundaries and photographs a person in his anger, in his fall, in his prayer at the Western Wall - what else is left to see?
When police officers beat up human beings and the incident is filmed to the point of pain; when thieves enter a house and commit a robbery and we all see how those created in their image are even capable of stealing; when a poor woman lies covered in rags on a city street and is photographed in all her glory, how can one still feel anything towards someone in the world? How?
Sometimes not hearing, not seeing, not knowing, and not experiencing is not primitiveness at its best, but genius at its best.
Sometimes you need to close your eyes, plug your ears, let go and say: "Enough, enough, I don't want to see, I don't want to hear, my head is in the Gemara, or: my role in the classroom, or: my work at home, and everything beyond that is not in my sphere of responsibility.".
It looks artificial.
But if naturally everything has turned into nothingness, into ashes and disgrace, then yes - the closed door is the salvation of myself and the entire nation.
Only when we close the door, so that no evil spirits can enter from outside, will I be able to smell the words of the Gemara, feel the taste of the soup that was prepared in the kitchen (without it storming onto social media as if it were the world's), enjoy the kiss of the little boy who kisses my cheek (and he does it no less cutely than any other child that a curious person on the street has seen) - and will I be able to once again be moved, impressed, enjoy, cry, laugh and pray.
Do you believe you can do it well, even if you are not given a platform for your success?
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