I hate texting, and I am glad that Rabbi and I are in the same camp.

For a while...most of my lifetime, I’ve thought about loneliness: what binds us and what pulls us apart? I think I first encountered loneliness through the death of my brother, Peter. His sudden death shaped me inarticulately and since I couldn’t articulate it for years later, I felt like a stranger, much of the time. Oh, I had friends. There were even times when I was quite popular. And I have many friends today and family, too. A lot of love. Still I think about loneliness. The sociology of America is about loneliness. Since the fifties, sociologists have been writing about loneliness in America. What connects us? What binds us? Today’s pet peeve is texting. I hate it. Why? It eliminates a contact that could build or further a relationship. This past week, I’ve encountered texts about loss, death a funeral, getting into graduate school and my brother needing a ride. Each time, I know, on some level, that, in texting, we are losing a relationship, not furthering it. That it’s almost like we’re avoiding a relationship. Same thought when there’s a private funeral, when someone eats fast food, when a family doesn’t travel together for a period of weeks, a year, when we enter our deepest thoughts on Facebook, instead of sharing with them with a friend (a real one). We are losing the experiences that bind us. You want to be part of a village? You want to be less lonely? Invite people in. Talk with them. Feed them. Sing with them. Share gratitude and angst. Deeply. When you have something that’s really burdensome, don’t go silent, share it. And, please, in the future, don’t text me. It’s like shaking hands instead of hugging. There will come a time, when I just won’t respond. I stopped shaking hands because I realized that infections are more likely to spread through handshanks than hugs. Now, I realize that texting has a prohibitive disposition to spread an infection: it can further loneliness; it can diminish that which truly binds us. - Rabbi Gary S.