A few weeks ago, we celebrated our granddaughter Sarit’s bat mitzvah. It was a wonderful simcha. Sarit delivered a beautiful dvar Torah that focused on a mishnah in Pirkei Avot that she had studied with me. There was dancing, good food, and a lot of family in attendance to mark the occasion.

Of course, there was also a photographer to capture the moment.

And with the technology available today, the photos being taken were immediately projected onto a large screen, allowing guests to see them almost in real time.

What a difference from just a couple of decades ago, when one had to wait weeks—sometimes even months—to see the photographs from a simcha.

There was a time—not so very long ago—when taking a photograph required patience.

Before phones became cameras that live in our pockets, we carried actual cameras. They had weight to them, a small satisfying feature. You opened the back, carefully slid in a roll of film, threaded it across the take-up spool, and hoped you had done it right.

Then you closed the camera and began counting: 24 exposures,........

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