Published January 2025
THE WISDOM ACCORDING TO YOGI…
As many of you know, Yogi Berra is my favorite philosopher. In his unique way he often taught profound truths to which we ought to pay attention. One of the most relevant to the world in which we live is his declaration : “You can observe a lot just by watching”. Observing our surroundings is not something many people still do because their eyes are fixated on their cellphones. God forbid, we should be tardy in catching every electronic transmission.
Much has been written about the perils of modern electronic devices, real or feared. They’re rewiring brains. They’re shortening attention spans. They’re killing dinner conversation. They’re disrupting sleep patterns. They’re addictive. What concerns me, however, is more elemental and fundamental. If we are constantly looking at our phones we miss the magnificent sights that are all around us. I am an inveterate walker. My usual route is through Riverside or Central Park. But on each outing whether I am in a park or the city street, I never fail to see something I never noticed before.
Not to see the greatest show on earth is especially distressing in a great walking city like New York. How sad to pass up the multitudinous sights from the Chrysler building to the Brooklyn Bridge, from Grand Central Terminal to the Staten Island Ferry, from Times Square to Coney Island. As awesome as man’s achievements, are the beauties of nature.
The ancient Rabbis understood this very well. The Talmud teaches that whoever sees a beautiful tree and fails to express his admirations of it will be accountable before God for this oversight. In other words, this is a magnificent world that God made, and that part of our duty as human beings, is to appreciate what has been made available to us. The sights that encompass us which are the result of human effort should likewise elicit our gratitude. But whether made by God or man, you’ll miss all this if you keep looking down at the phone.
Another Rabbinic dictum warns us that whoever acquires a slave actually acquires a lord. That is, a slave is suppose to make life simpler and easier for us; but the responsibilities of ownership often make us a slave to what we own. This is certainly true of the cellphone and iPad. They are designed to be a tool that will ease many of the erstwhile tasks of our life. They do, indeed, accomplish that. But too often we become enslaved to them as well, unable to release their hold on our attention and our lives.
Rabbi Alvin Kass
Chief Chaplain of the NYPD