Shout-out to Mordechai HaYehudi

I was recently visiting a friend whose mother was sitting shiva and we were talking about the fact that we didn't have each other's cell numbers in our phones. Now, our family has been to him for Shabbos lunch and we have davened together every Shabbos Kodesh for the past six years. So, the question comes up why didn't I have his cell number? Because, we daven together ever Shabbos Kodesh, so why would I need to call him. I do have his email address and we're friends on Facebook, so if I needed to I could get ahold of him. However, despite the term "social", Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are really not so social.

Being social means that when you see a guy in shul and don't know his name, you find it out and say, "Hi". Being social doesn't mean (and I admit, I am a shtickel guilty of this) that because we have 223 friends in common that we should become friends or linked into a professional network.

On Purim I got up to daven at 5:30am with my son, heard megillah at 6 and then worked 4 hours, so I could rush home. I gathered my kids and our shaloch manos and drove around two different neighborhoods double parking and finding creative parking spots to be social. My kids went up to people that they don't exactly know and gave out our very creative (thanks to my wife) parcels. We gave to friends, teachers, acquaintances, and some classmates of our uber-kinderlach. Since giving is the precuror to love, as taught by Rav Dessler zt'l, I have to give a shout-out to Mordechai HaYehudi for having the chachmah to creat a real social network for Klal Yisrael.