Very soon, you may witness an unbelievably powerful sight. But the last thing you should do is take a picture of it.

Right now, you’re reading this on a device. Perhaps it’s a laptop at a coffee shop or desktop at work, a smartphone in your hand on the train or a tablet on your lap at home. However you are reading it, you’re staring at a screen. A marvelous screen, to be fair—one that opens the world to wisdom and communication.

Now read this: On Monday, Aug. 21, something historic is going to happen.

For the first time in more than a century, a total solar eclipse will cut a 3,000-mile-long path across America from Oregon to South Carolina. Even those not in the so-called “path of totality” will be treated to this astronomical event.

One astronomer has said it will be the “most photographed, most shared, most tweeted event in human history.”

That makes sense. With our phones, we tap, tweet, snap and swipe our way to a world of shared imagery. Facebook’s 2 billion monthly users upload some 350 million photos daily. We share and for good reason: Through social media, we learn new insights, participate virtually in moments of joy and even connect with others in the real world.

But for those few moments on Aug. 21, I’d like to suggest something novel: Put that phone down!

Rest assured, someone else will be able to take a better photo. Unless you have the proper configuration of lenses, filters and hardware, you may very well end up with a fuzzy red blob in the sky.

Yes, we want to share our experiences; that makes us human. But experiencing the majesty of G‑d’s Creation in all of its unfiltered, disintermediated glory is something else. We can let go of the devices that all too often bind us, looking to the skies and seeing beyond our world.

This isn’t a command or an obligation, but a meditation on what makes us unique.

In Hayom Yom, the collection of aphorisms by the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—he quotes the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Rebbe of Chabad: “ ‘G‑d made man upright.’ The uniqueness of humanity is that G‑d [in His kindness] made us walk upright. Even though we tread upon the earth, we see the heavens. A four-legged creature, by contrast, sees only the earth.”

For just a few moments, take time to look up—and truly see.