Start a Substack!
Part 2 - An Introduction to Kosher Media
Picking up where we left off in Start a Substack: A 'channeled' message for readers seeking shelter in the wilderness of the kleptocratic attention economy.
Kosher Media
In this post, BS”D doesn’t need to provide a Jewish framing for the fight against kleptocracy. The first essay in this series already placed this inquiry on a Jewish foundation by channeling Hillel the Elder. So, instead of setting or resetting the Jewish frame, I channel Beit Shammai.
A gentile said to Shammai: with regard to the Written Torah, I believe you, but with regard to the Oral Torah, I do not believe you. Convert me on condition that you will teach me only the Written Torah. Shammai scolded the interlocutor and cast him out with reprimand.
– The Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a
I think Shammai understood that, in some interactions, the gift of language is wasted; and we must not waste language. Every wasted word weakens us.
If we can't communicate fruitfully, it's best for us not to communicate. It's best to actively avoid wasteful interactions. With this goal in mind, we must also avoid polluted environments that increase the risk of wasteful interactions.
The risk of wasteful interactions increases in environments flooded with advertising and other perverse influences. These pollutants are defining characteristics of non-kosher (treyf) media. My aversion to these environments continues to deepen, and so does my determination to build my kosher media empire on Substack and Otter.ai. I have a five-year plan for the development of my Substacks. They serve as tabernacles in the wilderness of the attention economy.
The distinction between kosher and non-kosher media can be as tricky as the distinction between kosher and non-kosher food. At the same time, the distinction is unmistakable. The difference is vast. You know it when you feel it.
Sure, we can describe the difference in rigorous language, but it's important not to lapse into obsessional talmudic legalism. There are ways to sense the kashrut of media, but there's no way to measure this reality. Once we reduce the reality to scales and check-the-box questionnaires, we no longer sense the reality.
Perhaps my colleagues at
can elaborate on this from the standpoint of Marshall McLuhan's distinctions between concepts and percepts.Back to Beit Shammai. I believe he also understood quite deeply what I learned from a client around the turn of the century: some people are immune to language.
My client was an elderly Orthodox Jew with businesses in NJ and Israel. Serving as a wise old teacher at the beginning of a young man’s journey, he used an imagined dialogue to introduce me to a character type immune to language. He said this dialogue was very popular in Israel at the time. The full dialogue unfolds in three lines:
“Your sister is a whore.”
“But I don't have a sister.”
“That's OK. Your sister is a whore.”
It's a poetically beautiful depiction of immunity to language. I believe that Shammai understood the dangers of this condition. Days before 9/11, my client warned me about this condition. And now this condition is eating the world.
Kosher media is a defense against this plague.
Housekeeping
As of this writing, BS"D has two subscribers who are not me. I send you both hugs.