After much thought and contemplating we finally did it. We did not buy any of the frum weeklies , newspapers or magazines etc. It was a shabbos with no Yated Ne"eman or Hamodia. No Mishpacha, Bina or Ami magazine. Not even the new issue of Zman or the occasional other Jewish newspaper. It's not about the money - the $25 saved. Rather it was just spending shabbos like it used to be when there was only one paper.
Instead of reading forced or filler articles, having the kids hit the couch after the gefilte fish to read up on their favorite features, we had a nice shabbos meal with more participation than usual. It was actually not easy, giving up our addiction to the frum papers, but after the Friday night meal I had time to be Maavir sedrah, with some more insight on the parsha. My daughter dusted off an artscroll book we had on the shelf and read a nice biography of a Jewish family. We sat around the couch and spoke to one another, instead of all of us sitting there, each one engrossed in their favorite paper or waiting for next on a particular magazine.
Our dependence on newspapers and other magazines has started taking over our life and became a staple and a must, that we just can not do without. Unfortunately, it has become that forgetting to buy the paper is equivalent to forgetting to buy Challah.
While this was a one time experience, yes I'm not looking to deprive myself of oneg shabbos, I'm actually going to buy the papers on Sunday. However its refreshing to know that we can appreciate a shabbos together with more quality time. We also didn't miss out much; by not knowing what was written in a paper that was almost a weeks old news anyway.
Kol HaKavod to you.
ReplyDeleteNow you need to divest yourself from the World Wide Web. :-)
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You've called it for what it is, an addiction. People run out to buy all the chazerei that have frum names on the cover. They think that all the articles are reviewed for inappropriate hashkafos, unfortunately not all of them have frum standards. Not everything printed is fit to be read by a frum Mishpacha.
ReplyDeleteIt is all propaganda. They print want they want you to read and believe. Lets see who got the kavod at which dinner last week. All the stuff that needs to be addressed and well known is swept under the carpet so that we can all pretend that we live in a utopian cocoon.
ReplyDeleteTne NY Times is the best jewish paper. I try to pick it up on Friday insted of the other jibberish.
ReplyDeleteSome Poskim are of the opinion that it is forbidden to read the ads in the newspapers on shabbos. Others forbid reading the actual paper.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. the rabbaonim over the years such as rav Chaim ozer grodzinsky were very instrumental in having torah hashkafa newspapers. We cant deprive ourselves from not reading them. should we look at the Ny post instead ?
ReplyDeleteVery impressive we did the same in our family & the difference is phenomemal. possibly the best result is it takes away the stumbling block of leshon hara & one can focus on the positive on shabbat
ReplyDeleteAnonymous @ 11:00 PM:
ReplyDeleteRav Chaim Ozer wouldn't condone articles encouraging the break up of frum homes for no reason nor articles encouraging 'family planning'. The hashkafos being printed in at least one of the abovementioned magazines are Anti Torah. Unfortnately, no one has influence over the editor of the magazine.
$25 per week? Wow.
ReplyDeleteI guess the good thing about luxury indulgences is that when you snip them out you save a bundle.
I've long ago discarded these papers and saved mty family in the process. No longer do my young impressionable daughters need to be fed the mis-impression that all women suffer from post-partum depression, hate their mothers-in-law, Iran is about to blow us all up because George Bush is funding them via parakeets, parents wish their struggling kids would die, every time something goes wrong in life one should give money to Kupat HaIr and will be granted an instant salvation, and all sorts of other nonsense that have no place in a frum home.
ReplyDeleteSay goodby to the papers and mags. It'll take you a week or two to get past the addiction, but I promise you that once you say no, you'll never look back again. Even when I'm a guest for Shabbos and see what appears to be an interesting topic, I leave the mag on the table for some other deserving/unsuspecting nebach.
Shabbos has never been a great Taanug!
People only read this junk as a substitute for the secular reading they believe is assur on Shabbos.
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