This morning, I walked into shul and counted a minyan of 20 people. What I also counted—painfully—were five people using their cell phones during davening. Let that sink in. Twenty-five percent of the shul was on their phones while standing before the Ribbono Shel Olam.

This is not a minor issue or a personal chumra. This is a crisis of kavod ha’tefillah.

Every community needs to wake up and start a real, visible campaign against cell phones in shul. Every shul should post clear signs asking people to leave their phones in their cars or turn them off completely before davening. Some shuls already do this. More must follow. Much more.

There is no greater deterrent to proper davening than a cell phone in your pocket. Even if you never take it out, its presence alone fractures concentration. You wonder: Did I get a text? An email? A missed call? Your mind is no longer in Shemoneh Esrei—it’s hovering somewhere between Olam HaZeh and a notification buzz.

And when the phone rings during Shemoneh Esrei? The person panics, fumbles, and turns it off. But the damage is already done.

We’ve all seen it: someone picks up the phone, whispers “nu, nu, nu,” signaling that he can’t talk. But that gesture speaks volumes. It disturbs others. It shatters the atmosphere. And sometimes, people actually answer calls during davening, missing amens, missing Kaddish, rushing through tefillah just to see who’s calling.

The ripple effect isn’t minor. When a phone goes off, the entire shul loses concentration. Until that phone is wrestled out of a pocket and silenced, dozens of people’s tefillos are disrupted—because of one device.

And reading messages during davening? Ask yourself plainly: what kind of honor does that show to tefillah? What message does that send about what we value?

Shul is one of the last places that should be phone-free. If we can’t disconnect from our devices for the few minutes we stand before Hashem, then something is deeply broken.

The solution is simple—and overdue: phones out of shul. Leave them in the car. Turn them off. Make it the norm again that when we daven, we are present—fully, without a screen between us and Hashem.

Signed,

E.D.

The views expressed in this letter are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of YWN. Have an opinion you would like to share? Send it to us for review.

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