It so happens that this week, (especially HT to a tweet by digital artist Ilan Block on Twitter) this Mishna in Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) came to life in most vivid ways:
“Contemplate three things, and you will not come to the hands of transgression: Know what is above from you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds being inscribed in a book.” (Avot 2:1)
As Ilan Block so well paraphrased in a meme on Twitter: “Know what there is above you: a jumbotron that sees, a microphone that hears, and all your deeds are posted on social media.” (Avot 2:1)
Ilan was referring to the now infamous Coldplay piece that went viral all over the internet this week, exposing an affair of a prominent CEO and spawning an enormous output of memes.
Generally, I’d cringe at the viralization of someone’s personal (& family) downfall & shame, & the gleeful merriment society seems to find in it, but can appreciate how it drives home this Avot lesson as Ilan Block aptly paraphrases, & also a vivid lesson about marriage fidelity, lust & temptation. And it vividly illustrates “the eye that sees” in this Avot Mishna.
But for me it wasn’t just the Coldplay incident this week.
I happen to serving 8 Fridays of Grand Jury duty this summer. I’m not allowed to share specifics, but for purposes of this message, suffice it to say that several of the cases we heard in the Grad Jury this particular Friday had a lot to do with an “eye that sees”. This eye in court might be a city-cameras, store-cameras, data collected, testimony stitched together. Most people might not realize how much is being seen and recorded!
I share this not to frighten or alarm people, but as Ilan showed me how this Mishna comes alive all the more vividly in our highly connected technological world. And how it shows the thinner the line intersecting our public and private worlds is becoming. It’s blurring more and more… for better and for worse.