6 Reasons to Write Torah Commentary on Twitter
I've recently started writing short (133 character) Torah commentaries using the Twitter platform. It's been fun. Yesterday I blogged about it at the JPS Interactive (aka Yavnet) site:#Torah: Using Twitter to Comment on Torah.
In trying to convince my Reconstructionist colleagues to jump on board and write their own Torah Tweets, one asked why on earth one would want to limit oneself to 140 words when writing about Torah. She had actually misread my explanation that one is limited to 140 characters. She asks a great question,
Aren't there more meaningful ways of using email/computers, etc. to engage in divrei Torah with people who have intelligent things to say on a topic we all care about?
My first response is that the idea of writing microblog posts using the Twitter platform and then categorizing them with #Torah is in no way meant to discredit any other form of writing about Torah.
Here are six answers I came up with. If you have more answers, do comment, or also any reasons why you think it is a bad idea.
- Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds. People are flocking to it. Don't we want to go where people are?
- It is a form, nothing more or less. Haiku is a form. A sonnet is a form. The fact that the form is being imposed externally by forces that have nothing to do with the content itself, in this case Torah study, is irrelevant in my opinion. Forms always come by way of external factors.
- Even though it is actually quite hard to compose in 140 characters, I find it less overwhelming to start. And starting is my main stumbling block in writing.
- Yes, we live in a distracted culture of multitasking, we can rail against it... blah blah... but we deny these facts at our peril. People are more likely to read 140 characters than 1400 words. Let's meet people where they are.
- In my experience, writing about seven of these Torah tweets so far, the form causes the writing to become more opaque than it might otherwise be. That opacity might make the writing less clear, but it seems to me it also invites more questions, more thought. So in reading a Torah "tweet," one may not learn anything, but maybe it will lead the person to think about something, form their own question or thought. it reminds me of how the Torah itself is opaque and invites questions [L'havdil -> I don't mean to compare my words to words of Torah]
- There is a good opportunity for clal yisrael (creating opportunities for a Jews of different stripes to feel connected in positive ways). I say "opportunity" -- no guarantee. I think the form itself might limit vitriol. Another aspect: The aggregating power of this material (via http://search.twitter.com and then typing in #Torah) is not owned by anyone. It is indeed an experiment in anarchy. We'll see what this leads to. One thing it cannot lead to is ownership and authority. Unlike a web domain name that you purchase, no one can own #torah. The advantage to this re: clal yisrael, is that it can give people cover to participate. People hate to participate (and are sometimes forced NOT to participate) when some other group owns something. So they might feel tainted by others ideas simply by participating. This form might be a way around that.
Comments
7 comments postedI am trying this out. It is too early to tell if it has any use....
So far:
On the one hand, it is limiting and restrictive of the flow of information, so it is not conducive to in-depth exchanges and interactions about the text. I am too mindful of the character limit, and feel I have to leave out a great deal to make any points at all.
On the other hand, it is more likely that folks will type 140 characters than that they will sit and compose a long message.... so perhaps it will draw in some who would not otherwise participate. And broadening the number of those involved can only be good.
Rabbi Joe B
Hi Joe, thanks for taking the plunge and jumping in.
You can follow Joe on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/rabbijoeb
The form really makes you have to ask, "What do I want to say, now.?"
Lovin' the Twitter Torah Craze! Check out my full post on the topic;
http://frumhacks.blogspot.com/2009/04/following-lead-of-hillel-elder.html#links
Shalom All,
Hillel may have been one of the original Twitterers. His "on one foot" style in the following two instances
demonstrates handily that verbal parsimony is a virtue.
1. If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself only, what am I? If not now, when?
2. What is hateful to you, don't do to another; the rest is commentary; now go study.
Mo'adim L'simha,
Biv'racha,
Jordan
I am finding that this is quite limited, as noted. What it forces me to do is to post serially, weaving a larger text out of small bits, tying them together by a few key words.... I am not too sure this is actually a workable approach over a long term. It seems to be very likely that it will become fractured to the point of broken, with all connections lost and the larger message invalidated.
Rabbijoeb
Joe,
I laud you willingness to experiment with a different form.
What's "workable" over the long term depends on what your goals are.
I'll take this moment to share an idea I have that I'll write another post about should I move forward with it. The idea is that during the 24 leading up to Shavuot that we spread the word for the masses to Twitter Torah. One practical goal is to get "#Torah" into the top 10 for trends for as much of the day as possible. Watching the tweets come in at a site like Twitterfall would be a cool way to feel connected to other Jews (non-Jews) who are going into the Chag (holiday) by taking some moments to tweet Torah and thereby connect to a global, visible, putting out of Torah.
Writing commentary? Not even necessary... just type a verse as your tweet. Although I would argue that even that is a commentary, because the person is choosing what verse to write.
So Joe, as someone who has actually tried it... I hope you'll stay tuned to some special use-cases, even if you don't find it a compelling method of Torah expression.
Shabbat shalom,
Shai
Over a year after the start of this idea. I stopped posting back a while because I felt I was not finding that the tool was suited to the task (at least, the task I wanted to accomplish).
When I looked today, what I found in the twitterverse with the hash tag #Torah was not very much Torah, but lots of polemics, nasty trash, and people pushing their agenda and trying to shout down others, rather than trying to share, teach and learn, which is the essence of what we should be doing with/for Torah.
Sad to see that a whole bunch of people have taken this idea over and made it so negative, to the point of worthless. Even those few posts with something positive to say were submerged and drowned out by the junk.
Technology is a tool, and as such can be used for good or for ill. Here it seems to me it has been hijacked and is used for ill.
My take on it now is that this experiment has concluded, and the result is that for the purpose of sharing Torah it is not a successful tool.
I am not too surprised - I have come to believe that Torah cannot be shared in a vacuum; there is almost always a personal relationship that is the vehicle for the connection over which the actual sharing takes place. Whether one to one, or one to many, I see the sharing as soul to soul, mutually sharing, and both/all growing and learning from that sharing.
The best sharing of Torah is thus face to face, with both/all parties participating and listening. This also means that writing about Torah is less desirable than talking about it, but in writing (extended, not limited to tweets) there is a possibility of explaining so that some of the sharing can take place, at least in one direction.
A worthwhile experiment to try to take Torah where people are going, but ultimately not something I think is worth pursuing. (Though I am sure others opinion's may differ.)
Rabbi Joe Blair