Disconnected

Even before I got properly 'religious', I always hated modern technology. It was a strange duality, because a few years' back, I was one of the first people I knew with a permanent internet connection, or a wireless laptop, or an internet-based phone service.
 
I did computers and internet, because I felt I had to, for work. But mobile phones? I always hated the idea of them. I always hated the idea that you could never get away from 'people', and that 'people' – whoever they were – could call you up day and night and expect you to answer.
 
The whole time I lived in London, I never had one. But then, we moved to Israel, and people told me it could take months to get a phone line in the house, so my husband and I decided to get a mobile.
 
That was six and a half years ago, in 2005. In 2005, there wasn't internet on phones. There wasn't TV and movies on phones. There wasn't email on phones. It was just a phone, with the ability to text.
 
Even when I got the mobile, I still hated using it. I used to read articles about all the radio waves these things send out in to the heads of the people using them, and as a majorly risk-adverse person, it just seemed dumb to be microwaving my brain with my mobile.
 
But time marches on, and even though I was never a heavy user, it got to the point a couple of years' ago when I started to feel a bit lost if I went out without my phone. What if my car broke down and I needed to call someone? What if the girls were ill and the school needed to tell me to come home? What if my husband needed to ask me an urgent question?
 
I forgot that somehow, people had managed before mobile phones were invented, and that somehow, if I got stuck without one, it would still be OK. After all, G-d does run the world…
 
Then my original, simple mobile stopped working, and we went back to the shop for a replacement. We got a phone free from the nice people at Orange that had TV, internet access, radio, email and a built-in camera – the works. Thank G-d, I'm technically challenged, so I never worked out any of the features, other than the phone itself and the camera.
 
But I was still the proud owner of something that could really only be called 'electronic evil incarnate'.
 
I felt a bit uncomfortable. I knew about 'kosher' phones, but I'd just got rid of the internet from the house, and the thought of also giving texting the heave-ho was a bit too extreme.
 
And besides, it was a great, cheap, way of staying in touch with friends and family abroad. And what's more, my husband texted me every night to let me know what time to expect him home.
 
Or to put it another way, I was hooked on texting, and I wasn't ready to let it go.
 
But then, about a year ago, my kids discovered my phone. My technically-savvy, electronically plugged-in daughters were slowly working out how to override the password, how to find the games and….
 
Before we got to the 'and', I asked my husband to get me a new phone. The most boring phone he could find, that still had text. He got one for me, and he got one for him.
 
He paid a fortune for them, because in today's world, it's much harder to do the right thing than the wrong one. My conscience went back to sleep.
 
Until about two months ago, when I suddenly started to have the uncomfortable thought that I still wasn't really doing what the rabbis said. You know, the rabbis who told everyone to get a kosher phone, and who made a big fuss about it all a few years' back (at least in Israel).
 
At the same time, I heard a shiur (torah class) by Rav Arush, where he was saying it was completely inappropriate to bring a internet-enabled phone into a synagogue – something akin to smuggling an idol into the grounds of the Temple.
 
Hmmm. But all my phone had on it was text.
 
I ummed, I ahhed. Then we got a massive, whopping phone bill, and I decided the time had come to switch over to the much cheaper 'kosher phone' tariff. My husband bought two kosher phones. We got a great deal – 1000 minutes free a month. I sent a text to everyone telling them I was about to turn off the old phone.
 
And then it all stalled. The kosher phones had horrendous reception, and even when you could actually get through to someone (rare), you couldn't actually hear what they were saying.
 
I ummed, I ahhed. I carried on with my 'unkosher' phone, and left the kosher ones on the side.
 
Until this week. This week, quite a few things happened to show me and my husband that an attachment to things that aren't 'kosher' – even a very small attachment – can open the door to some very unkosher things.
 
This Sunday, I started to get a lot of calls from an Arab called 'Mansoor'. I don't know who he is, or what he wanted. All I know, is that he kept calling me, and asking me where I lived. I hung up. He phoned back six times. I ignored the calls – but I started to wonder if the time had come to 'disconnect' from all the unkosher stuff, even the apparently 'harmless' texting.
 
Mansoor took a day off on Monday, so I figured he'd gone away. I was wrong. He was back with a vengeance on Tuesday – he called more than 15 times, and even started sending me text messages in Arabic.
 
When I got the text messages, I put the white flag up.
 
Ok, G-d, I get the message! No texting! No 'nearly kosher' unkosher phone!
 
I came home, and shoved the Sim card in the bin. I've had that old number for six and a half years, since I made aliya. That number is a connection to so many 'old' places, so many 'old' people, so many 'old' situations.
 
G-d has clearly decided it's time for a complete overhaul, and the phone is just a tiny part of it.
 
So today, I have no phone. I'm officially back in the Stone Age. I have no internet, no TV, no movies, no radio and now, no texting and also no mobile – until I have the time and money to find a 'kosher' one that works.
 
I'm about as thoroughly disconnected as a person can be in 2012… (I was going to write 'if they don't live in a cave', but these days, even cave-dwellers have cable.)
 
Disconnected from what, though?
 
That is the million-dollar question.