Tech Experts Enjoy Shabbat

By Mordechai Lightstone – Lubavitch.com

After 10 days and seemingly hundreds of films, the 2012 South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas came to a close this weekend. The festival, which incorporates film, music and interactive components, has become an epicenter of creativity and innovation in the arts and the future of digital communications.

The interactive part of the festival alone, which centers around emerging technology and social-networking communications, attracted over 20,000 people. In past years, the interactive festival (SXSWi) has seen the launch of such services as Twitter, the popular micro-blog, and Foursquare, a location-based social network that allows users to ‘check-in’ to venues and share tips with their friends.

In recent years niche communities have found SXSW the ideal forum to bring a voice to their causes and message against the global backdrop of the festival.

This year a myriad of Jewish and Israeli acts performed during the music festival and a series of programs coordinated by the Israeli Consulate brought exposure to 25 Israeli tech companies.

This year, Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, who runs Lubavitch.com’s social media initiative, took part in SXSWi for his third consecutive year. Together with his wife Chana and their two children, they hosted an open Shabbat meal for guests of the SXSWi. The following is his report on the experience:

I’m not sure when I first heard about SXSW – but by the time Foursquare was launched in 2009 – I knew I wanted to take part in the festival. After all, what could be more exciting than spending a weekend with innovators, social-media mavens, bloggers and geeks of all types? Here, after all, in this incubator of innovation, people from around the world mingle and network – this is where the next big thing could be born.

What didn’t occur to me was the deep Jewish nature that runs down the heart of the festival.

When one thinks about it though, what could be more Jewish than a weekend spent thinking about the future, schmoozing with “machers” and eating plenty of good food?

In any event, the following year when I was invited to speak on a SXSWi panel, aptly named Judaism 2.0, I jumped at the chance. The panel was fascinating, the people unique, and the experience presenting my own work, bringing the news and content of lubavitch.com to the digital spheres, was an important lesson. That being said, beyond the panel, I discovered something more important – the chance to convene with other Jews at SXSW.

Shortly before leaving, I tweeted about making a kosher barbecue. The idea went viral, as they say, and some two dozen people joined us.

The next year, inspired by the experience, my wife and I decided to return to SXSW, and working with local Chabad emissaries, Rabbis Yosef Levertov and Zev Johnson, we hosted a Shabbat meal.

Seemingly, the idea of hosting a traditional Shabbat meal at a technology and digital communications festival seems almost contradictory. When a speaker assesses the engagement of his audience – not by how many people are looking up at him – but rather by the extent of their activity on laptops, smartphones and tablets, the idea of a meal that shuns hashtags and trending topics seems out of place – perhaps even anachronistic. Some 50 people joined us that year.

For Shabbat this year, we hosted close to 70 people in a venue right in the heart of downtown Austin. Speaking with Mike Sheffer, a recent Rutgers graduate, musician, proprietor of a web-design company and one of many returnees from last year’s Shabbat meal, he told us that the event – the opening night of SXSW – was the “highlight of his experience last year.”

Despite the preponderance of events that Friday evening – events boasting giveaways, live music and all matters of digital goodness – somehow a Shabbat meal stood out as unique. Perhaps during the information overload that is SXSW, a Shabbat meal gives participants the chance to pull back – to refocus on the individuals around them and connect in the analog. It gives SXSW participants the chance to do what they’ve wanted to do the entire time. Shabbat at SXSW offers an opportunity to network in the flesh and in real time, not based on presumptions and assumptions.

This does not detract from the digital experience of SXSW interactive – just the opposite – it gives a frame of reference to use as a guide while diving into the tumultuous, powerful, sea that is SXSW.

As Adam Hirsch, the Chief Digital officer at DoSomething.org and advisor to the social media news site, Mashable.com commented, “The Shabbat dinner during SXSWi was an amazing break from all the craziness.” Expecting “a short dinner,” he ultimately found what was his “only oasis during the SXSWi weekend.”