Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/900775
14 November 16 • 2017 jn jews d in the and didn't know what they were talk- ing about in a Facebook comment. Certainly, the incessant posting of our own political ideology into the echo chamber of Facebook isn't a healthy thing either. I'm terribly afraid that the time of intelligent debate and the exchange of well-thought ideas in a respectable forum is over. "I unfriended many people. Politics was the main reason and, once I start- ed unfriending people, I just started to question what friendship means at all," said David Calton of Southfield. "I never vote and disliked the politics on both sides. I unfriended people on the right who used racist language, and I unfriended everyone calling on people to support one candidate over the other as a Jewish value. I figured if we were really friends we could resume our friendship after the elec- tions." THINK BEFORE POSTING So, is Facebook a great tool or is it the worst thing to happen to us in the Digital Age? I think Facebook is a wonderful medium, but it must also be understood to be a mega- phone. When we're on the social network, our voice is amplified. What we post goes out to many more people than just the folks sit- ting around our dinner table in a prior generation. We've all heard the admonition to not talk politics at the dinner table, and Facebook is the world's larg- est dinner table. With social media, instead of sharing our political view- point with our small group of dinner guests or our friends waiting in line at the supermarket or a couple guys on the golf course, we are now broadcast- ing our opinion to the world — and it might not be a well-thought opinion. It might be offensive to some. It might be misinterpreted by others. We must guard our tongue even more in the age of social media. Ken Bertin of West Bloomfield recently quit using Facebook after he became frustrated by the political war of words. "I've really lost only two people on Facebook and one was because of poli- tics and the other was because of other things we disagreed about. I really liked Facebook, but it is a good place to demonstrate people's stupidity. People use bad behavior to try to justify other people's bad behav- ior." In a Rosh Hashanah sermon at Adat Shalom Synagogue, Rabbi Aaron Bergman urged his congregants to ask themselves four questions before commenting on someone's Facebook post or criticizing another's opinion: "Does it have to be said? Does it have to be said by me? Does it have to be said by me now? Does it have to be said by me in this way?" Several congregants have taken a hiatus from the social network since hearing Bergman's sermon. He also has sworn off Facebook. Social media has become a part of our culture and Facebook, with about 1.7 billion users worldwide, isn't going away. It's one of the new ways we humans communicate and engage with one another. And, in doing so, our political viewpoints are undoubt- edly going to become part of the con- versation. However, when we find our- selves engaging with people who have left civility behind, we must make the mature decision to remove ourselves from that toxicity. It's unhealthy to stay involved. Rather than unfriending our friends on Facebook or, worse, allowing our friendships to be severed because of political clashes, there are alternative solutions. Facebook allows you to simply unfollow someone's posts and, more recently, has offered a feature to "snooze" someone for 30 days, provid- ing some temporary relief from seeing their posts if they're bothersome or inflammatory. We should take proactive steps to guard our speech in our online discus- sions, thinking twice before comment- ing. We can also make the effort to not get sucked into explosive, insult-filled and vitriolic debate. Finally, we can aim to not allow the echo chamber of our own Facebook communities to deafen us to other opinions and hope that others will make similar efforts. The way we communicate with everyone — from close friends to the stranger commenting on our friend's Facebook post — says so much about our own character. Let's all seek to make these conversations holier, both on Facebook and in person. • Rabbi Jason Miller is a local educator and entrepreneur. He is president of Access Technology in West Bloomfield and visiting rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in Sylvania, Ohio. Follow him at facebook.com/RabbiJasonMiller. 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