Sunday 3 April 2011

Turn off the cell phones

A friend sent me a WMV file of a lecture that I was unable to attend. As I sat down to listen, the first thing I heard was the incessant ringing of a cell phone, disrupting the lecturer from proceeding.
A rebbetzin spoke in the neighborhood a while ago. The person who introduced her stressed that the rebbetzin wouold be highly disturbed if cell phones went off during her lecture.
"Please turn off your cell phone," she requested.
The rebbetzin started speaking. After a while, a cell phone went off.
Her look of displeasure would have rattled anyone.
She requested that cell phones should be turned off. A few minutes later she was, once again, disrupted by the ring tones of a cell phone.
This week, Mishpacha published a letter signed by leading American rabbis about how if the phone rings, it shows contempt for kavod shamayim.
Therefore is it obligatory for each and every person to completely close their phone before entering the Shul.
They wrote that it was a bizayon for a person to spend the little time he engages in speaking to Hashem and asking for his needs without cutting himself off completely from outside wordly influences.
A study on multitasking found the following.
Even if your soccer skills rival Ronaldo, though, hang up your cell phone before navigating busy city streets. Everyone had lower crossing success rates when talking on the phone. “It seems that pedestrians are able to tune out music on an iPod, but that preparing to speak or speaking causes impairments,...”
http://blogs.menshealth.com/health-headlines/athletes-think-faster-than-you/2011/03/30

So, turn off the cell phone. Be considerate and show the proper respect to G-d when in shul.

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