Parashat Vayakhel: Fitting into the Frame

 

Please raise your hand if you know who Nathan Hope is.

Let me give you a clue as to his importance in 21^st century popular culture.

Known as ‘Hopey’, he posted the above photograph of his bruised lip accompanied by the following description on an Australian Science forum in 2002.  The topic revolved around dissolvable stitches.

‘Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer [sic] and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps.  I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip.  And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie.'

Hopey, non-plussed by the subsequent notoriety that was heaped upon him, was thereafter (incorrectly, as it turned out) credited as the originator of the ubiquitous term that he himself disavowed in a later interview:

‘It was not a word I coined.  It’s something that was just common slang at the time, used to describe a picture of yourself.  Fairly simple.’

Once it had entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013, it became ‘official’ (and was even named the ‘word of the year’) and now, everyone from royalty to politicians to Hollywood ‘A Listers’ are unable to avoid the attraction and necessary addition of the ‘selfie’ to their social media profiles.

We are also in on the act too – after all, who amongst us has not joined in the obligatory ‘selfie’ pose?  I am as guilty as the next Rabbi!

So, poor Nathan Hope has a lot to answer for.  Irrespective of whether he was responsible for popularising the term and by extension the concept of taking ‘selfies’, he will always be credited for releasing this photographic genie from its bottle.

I have many wonderful memories of my mother.  When I think about her, the image (if you’ll excuse the pun) that comes to mind is of her always taking photographs.  Wherever we went and with whomever we met, she asked us to pose for a photo.  She didn’t confine her interests solely to the still image and I have reels and reels of films that she shot over the years recording her life from childhood to old age.

I suspect that my grandfather might have been responsible for her interest as he too loved taking photos and films, many of which I still have.

Before the ‘age of the selfie’, we enjoyed getting together and asking someone else to take the shot.  It brought us, as a small family unit, close in proximity with all the awkwardness that revolves around people bunching up to fit inside a camera frame.  But it was part of the ritual.  That we didn’t know how the picture would turn out before we developed it added to the mystery and excitement of the moment.

In short, taking photographs seemed to be more of a family event.  Something that quite literally brought us together without needing to worry about how to angle the shot to avoid ruining it with the presence of the forearm taking the picture.

Rabbi Sacks ztl in one of his final books (‘Judaism’s Life Changing Ideas’, 2020, p113) quotes an article from The Telegraph (15^th December 2017) which describes a new medical condition called ‘selfitis’.  He writes that the ‘term was coined as a joke in 2014 to describe people who feel compelled to keep taking selfies and posting them on social media.  Three years later, researchers in Nottingham and India had produced evidence the condition really exists.  “Typical ‘selfitis sufferers’,” they say, “are ‘attention seekers’, often lacking in self-confidence and hoping to boost their social standing.”

How many of us (and Rabbi Sacks explores this idea) opt for ‘self-help’ books or consult similar websites to deal with our inner demons?  How many of us avoid talking to others because we think we can sort our problems out ‘by ourselves’?  How many feel that we need to boost our ‘social standing’ by posting selfies on Facebook instead of meeting up with our friends and spending quality time together?  If we take a photo during the evening, all the better but it is not reason why we decided to convene in the first place.  If we think about it, how much time do we spend by ourselves at the expense of spending it with others?  Our images whizz around the world at the touch of a mouse click whilst we interact with family and friends whose presence fits to the dimensions of a smart phone or if we are at home, a 21” screen.

Parashat Vayakhel is a case in point.  Moshe was spending a great deal of time up there on the mountain with Hashem, leaving a psychologically fragmented nation at its foot revelling in the worship of a golden calf.  Without recourse to seeking his sage advice, they opted for the ‘self-help guide’ to making a god, and we know how disastrous the results were!

Although there were no camera phones in the desert, I guarantee that had there been, our ancestors would have posted millions of selfies to populate their FaceBible or Instadesert profiles!  It took Moshe to come down with all the ensuing events to bring them to their senses.

Gd saw that the best way to bring them back together as a nation and a Kehilla/Community was to initiate a building project which encompassed the magnitude of constructing the Mishkan/Tabernacle.  Moshe, the set designer, director of photography and producer, set about arranging this and, as a result, the Children of Israel stepped up to the Biblical plate.

In tandem, Moshe told them to down their tools and spend twenty-five hours in a state of being ‘unplugged’ as it were.  Celebrating Shabbat, not as singular individuals but as a Kahal/community.  Something that we have continued to do week in and week out for over three thousand, three hundred years.

There are certain prayers that we are allowed to recite on our own which I’ll refer to as ‘Our Selfie’ Tefillot and each of these is valid as way of communicating with The Almighty.  However, it is the tefillot/prayers that we say together (such as Barachu and the Kedusha) as a community that bring us squarely into His divine camera frame.  Where we metaphorically squeeze into Gd’s picture and wait for him to take the photograph and beam with pride at the result.

In the very first Parasha, Gd tells Adam that it is not good for man to be alone which he remedies by creating a partner to accompany him.  Although our kehillot are made up of individuals, it is our strength as a community which defines us.  The motto ‘e pluribus unum’ – ‘out of the many, one’ applies to our nation.  We, the Jewish people, are one global community made up of many different individuals.

The image that Hopey shared all those years ago may have launched a billion non-descript selfies but the photos that will last forever are those we hold in our hearts, of the times we stood uncomfortably trying to fit into the frame, surrounded by our loved ones.

These non-selfies really matter, aren’t they?

Shavuah Tov