Sunday, June 11, 2017

Intellect Or Entertainment?



There is a website called academia where scholars upload their articles in their areas of interest and research. Here is a letter they received:


I uploaded a recent article. Normally this article would have been read by 5-6 people in 2 years. I got 20 views within a few minutes, and 100 views within the next month. Academia.edu is the best thing that has ever happened to my research.

Professor of History
Princeton University 

A professor from Pinceton uploads an article and in the past only 5-6 people would read it in two years while now in a month 120 people will read it.

Pretty pathetic. 

What about a mindless music video on the intenet? There are millions upon millions. Yet, many of then will get hundreds of thousands and even millions of views.

What does this mean?

It means that we live in a world where people would much rather not use their brain than use their brain. Where people would rather be entertained than educated.

And this reality carries over into our world. It is so hard to get people to learn more Torah. Many people don't learn at all. Others have their set daf yomi or whatnot and that is IT. 45-minutes to an hour a day and no more. Their free time will be spent reading what Trump said and not what Abaye, Rava, the Rambam or Rebbi Akiva Eiger said. Or watching Lipa Shmeltzer gyrating to his latest funky tune.

ועל זה דוה לבנו!