UKs chief rabbi blames Apple for ‘selfish i culture’

The UKs Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who represents Britain’s 300,000 Jews, blames Steve Jobs for creating a selfish consumer culture that has only brought unhappiness.

Speaking at an interfaith gathering attended by the Queen last week, Sacks compared the iPad to the tablets of the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from the mountains.

“The consumer society was laid down by the late Steve Jobs coming down the mountain with two tablets, iPad one and iPad two, and the result is that we now have a culture of iPod, iPhone, iTunes, i, I, I,” he said.

“When you’re an individualist, egocentric culture and you only care about ‘I’, you don’t do terribly well.”

Wanting Apple products takes people further away from faith, he explained, because it takes away their perspective of what is important and replaces it with a feeling of want.

“If in a consumer society, through all the advertising and subtly seductive approaches to it, you’ve got an iPhone but you haven’t got a fourth generation one, the consumer society is in fact the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness.”

Lord sacks called for people to spend more time with their families and on things that matter.

A statement issued by the Rabbi’s office at the weekend seeks to dilute the attack on Apple.

“The chief rabbi meant no criticism of either Steve Jobs personally or the contribution Apple has made to the development of technology in the 21st century. He admires both and indeed uses an iPhone and an iPad on a daily basis. The chief rabbi was simply pointing out the potential dangers of consumerism when taken too far,” the statement quoted in the Jewish press read.