Overheard:*
"Is there any difference between iPod Touch First Generation and iPod Touch Third Generation, aside for the mike?"
"It's not only the mike; it's also the voice recognition."
"So, if you could buy any, would you get the Google Nexus 1, the Palm Pre or the iPhone?"
"The Nexus has cooler features, the Palm Pre has multi-tasking, but I'd still get the iPhone because of its better operating system."
"Did you ever try to get Skype on a cell phone with 3G internet?"
And on and on the conversation went…
No, I wasn't eavesdropping on some high tech geeks. I was sitting at my kitchen table, listening to the questions posed to my oldest son by his eleven-year-old brother.
Being technologically challenged, the terms flew over my head. But for my eleven-year-old, this was as ordinary and mundane as today's weather forecast.
For me, WIFI, 3G, nano, gigabytes and Skype are a foreign language. For him, it is a common reality.
Incredulously, I wonder how he knows about this stuff. He wonders, just as incredulously, how I don't.
When the Jewish people left Egypt and miraculously witnessed the splitting of the Sea, "even the simplest person experienced visions more profound than did the greatest Prophets of old" (Rashi to Ex.15:2).
It was an astonishing expression of G‑d's power revealed to every individual—even unborn babies in their mother's wombs—who all shared the same level of perception. The most spiritually inept Israelite was able to point with his finger and declare, "This is my G‑d!"
G‑dliness was not something that one needed to learn about in a classroom, but was a part of their language, perception, feelings and very existence. It was palpable all around them.
A similar description is given about the time of our redemption. Then, too, G‑dliness will be so transparent, it will overflow like "waters that cover the sea bed."
Sounds impossible?
Not really.
If children today can casually discuss technology that even the brainiest computer scientist was only aware of in the theoretical realm a mere forty years ago, it makes you wonder. What might we all be discussing very soon as part of our own regular existence?
The sky's the limit.
It's kind of like 3G—the reception is accessible to all; it's just waiting to be picked up.
*Since my little head couldn't possibly remember all these unfamiliar terms, I sat my eleven-year-old down with a paper and pen in hand so he could slowly repeat the conversation. After painstakingly explaining many of these terms, he asked to be excused. (Maybe his Gmail was beckoning. )
