I came across a new iPhone app called iBlessing which promises to put all the Jewish blessings at your fingertips, so you’ll “…never fumble or mumble a blessing again!” It’s simple enough: in the Jewish religion, it is traditional to say specific prayers over different kinds of food or for certain special activities (hand washing, sunset, etc). This app provides a nice simple interface that lets you touch a food group or one of the special prayers, and hear the prayer spoken in Hebrew in English.

Here’s a link to the application in the App Store, and a screenshot:

A screenshot of the “iBlessing” iPhone app

I personally don’t say blessings over food or at sunrise/sunset, etc. but if you do, and for some reason still have a hard time remembering them, then this is the app for you. Just don’t be using it on the Sabbath, because then you’re surely canceling out any favor you’ve garnered with the almighty deity (that’s God … not Steve Jobs) by whipping out your iPhone 3G on the Lord’s Day.

A novelty, sure, but being that I actually purchased a physical Say-A-Blessing device for my parents, I was intrigued at this foray into the digital space. Looking at the application description on the iTunes Application Store, I was taken with the kitsch and novelty of it. But I actually don’t have an iPhone and so this isn’t a review of the application, so much as a review of the application’s description.

Go on, go back and read it again. All the way through this time.

After the motivation for the application, and list of supported prayers, at the very end of the description is a sentence which reads: “Finally a religious device with buttons that doesn’t explode.”  

 Eeeek. Ouch. Wow. Awwkkwwaaaard. Really, did you just say that? First off, in this golden era of peace,  love and happiness amongst the nations of Middle East, where people are dying on a daily basis because of such “religious devices” it seems at the very least, insensitive to say such a thing. And, not to say that an insensitive remark in the description of a dinky iPhone app will actually have any negative repercussions, but we’re living in a global community, and even actions in jest can, and will, be taken the wrong way when the audience is large enough to include those whom the action or comment potentially targets. And furthermore, the iPhone doesn’t even have any buttons – that’s the whole point of it, duh.

Related posts:

1. Review(?): Ocarina iPhone app

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.