Steve Jobs, the founder and CEO of Apple, passed away yesterday. News of his death raced through my Twitter feed (which I was reading on my iPod Touch), but one tweet in particular caught my eye. Rabbi Efrem Goldberg wrote, “How much Torah has been listened to on iPods, iPhones, and iTouches thanks to Steve Jobs, what a merit.”
I hadn’t previously thought of Steve Jobs’ legacy being directly related to the Jewish community in that way. It makes a lot of sense, though. What a gift.
The portability of the Torah—the ability to move Jewish learning and worship out of the The Temple in Jerusalem and into synagogues and chavurot all over the world has been crucial to the survival of the Jewish people. The iPhone takes this mobility to a whole new level. We now have access to the whole of the internet (including Kveller and My Jewish Learning!), as well as apps for our most holy writings, candle-lighting times, Jewish calendars and music, and Hebrew dictionaries, wherever we go.
As we remember Steve Jobs today, we here at Kveller would love to know, how has your iPhone or iPad impacted your Jewish life or Jewish parenting? What’s your favorite Jewish app? What apps would you like to see?
