The Wrong Address

I have been reading a diary that is printed weekly in Ami Living. A mother tells about her wonderful son who did beautifully in school through high school. Then he inexplicably began acting strangely. She says it is ten years now that she has been experiencing horrible situations with her son, his drug use, stealing, suicide attempts, outbursts, lack of religiosity.  For a while it was a mystery, until her son confided in her husband that he had watched inappropriate things (no further details about this). This is a letter that I wrote to the magazine which they have not published:

I have been following the tragic story of a woman's son's deterioration over the past many installments of Up the Down Escalator and I am perplexed.  What set the young man off was seeing inappropriate things. This led to consultations with psychologists, a social worker, and even medication and hospitalization.

But seeing inappropriate things is a spiritual problem! Out in the 'velt," seeing such things is not viewed as a problem! It would seem that the right person to consult about this would have been a rabbinic guide who could have provided a Torah perspective, direction in teshuva, and guidance in how to get back on track, spiritually.  

Wishing all of us yeshuos,

To me, it sounds like asking for a loaf of bread in a hardware store, shoes in a grocery story.  They may as well consult with a podiatrist; why a psychologist? These professionals were of no use and worse, the young man deteriorated under their care. It is painful to read how misdirected he was. They focused exclusively on his depression and other psychological symptoms and not on what got him in the mess in the first place.

You are Invited to the Internet

There is a full page ad from the Agudah, thanking the 2000 attendees of their convention and over 100,000 viewers.  The ad says, "Experience the Agudah Convention - videos, audios, pictures at www.agudahconvention.org."

I recently heard a lecture, online, by R' Frand, rosh yeshiva of Ner Israel in Baltimore, whose topic was the constant connection to our phones/Internet, in which he said he has a Smartphone. This is the very device that would supposedly prohibit him from entering R' Chaim Kanievsky's home and would pasul him (make him ineligible) from giving eidus (testimony) according to R' Shteinman and R' Wosner.  And yet, with this ad from the Agudah, we are thanked for watching sessions of the Convention online and are encouraged to go to their website! Sounds like very different "daas Torah" views ...

 

Ha, ha

At the end of a talk given by R' Benzion Shafier of "The Shmuz," he said:

"All the shmuzin are available on theshmuz.com.  Don't go on the Internet.  If you do, go totheshmuz.com.  Don't get a Smartphone.  Don't do it! It's not smart, it's dumb.  But if you do, get theshmuz app.  It's available for the iphone and the android."

The audience laughed.

No comment necessary.

We are Confused

I was reading an old Binah magazine which has an extensive tznius section, highlighting various tznius initiatives.

They interviewed a woman who started a tznius hospital gown gemach in memory of her daughter.  The typical hospital gown is immodest, while the gowns she provides are simultaneously modest while allowing hospital personnel to do their work (like insert an IV).

What struck me about the article is where the woman says she is always looking for ways to expand the gemach and since there is an overwhelming demand for these gowns, they need more money for fabric, and they want to set up a website.

A website? Hmmm.  But if the conservative, quite frum readership of Binah follows the tznius guidelines promoted in the magazine, they won't have Internet in their homes! Who would the website be for?

I know that with filters and other measures and guidance from their rabbis, upstanding people have Internet, but the official line is: no Internet.  The tznius stories promoted lately (see next post) include the message of not even using filtered Internet, and as far as business needs are concerned, some stories will tell how they use it under rabbinic guidance while other stories will convey the message that Hashem can send you parnassa without your using the Internet.

So it seems ironic and downright confusing that a tznius initiative wants a website!

Me and My MP3

When I first started using an mp3 on the street, I was ambivalent about it.  Perhaps when I walked down the street, I should just walk down the street, without doing something else.  You know, just do one thing at a time.  Look at the sky, pay attention to cars and where I'm going.  That's enough stimulation.  This is what I considered, even though I listen to shiurim when working on tasks at home that don't require much thinking or attention. 

Why did I think walking outside is different? I'm not sure.  Maybe something to do with closing myself off, to some extent, from what is going on around me.

Now that I've listened to several hundred shiurim, both while on the street and while at the gym, it seems to me that this was and is a good decision.  If my mind was disciplined and I put it to good use while walking and exercising, then an mp3 player wouldn't be necessary and might even be second best.  But my thoughts are not that focused and since our minds are working constantly, with and without an mp3, it seems a good idea to fill it with worthwhile thoughts through shiurim.

So I download shiurim from the Internet, usually on the parsha or upcoming holiday plus any other topic that sounds interesting.  There are literally thousands of available shiurim and so I can be choosy.  If I don't like a shiur, I'm under no obligation to complete it.  Next.  I move on to something I can benefit from.

I recommend it!

P.S. the picture is what my mp3 player actually looks like

It's All About Love

In the September 2004 issue of the Jewish Observer, there was a letter by Dr. Bentzion Sorotzkin in response to a previous article about the dangers of the Internet.  What follows are some excerpts from his letter:

Some of you may erroneously conclude that exposure to the Internet, by itself, will cause someone to go off the derech or become involved in promiscuity.  If this was true, then one would expect that such tragic events would be significantly more prevalent in modern Orthodox communities than in more insular ones, since the people in the latter communities are much more shielded from outside "cultural" influences.

Judging from my professional experience, the sad fact is that the percentage of rebellious teens and promiscuous spouses are very similar in both types of communities.

Some may feel that the ends justify the means and therefore, it is worth using (inaccurate) scare tactics to encourage parents to protect their families from the spiritual dangers of the Internet.  However, there is a distinct danger to this approach.  It gives a totally inaccurate picture of the reasons for youngsters going off the derech or for couples to stray.  As a clinical psychologist, with many years experience working with rebellious teenagers in the frum community,  I can state categorically that the Internet has never been the prime factor in causing a child to rebel against his family's way of life. Rather, it is family conflict, often caused by parental mishandling of common childhood behaviors, that cause a child to rebel. 
   
When I meet parents of rebellious teens they often express shock that their children went off the derech when they worked so hard to shield them from outside influences. They are much less sensitive to the negative impact of their own harsh and critical parenting style on their children's future ruchnius level.     In a book of lectures by rosh yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg he states: "Show me the juvenile delinquent and in almost every case I will show you a person resorting to desperate means to attract the emotional warmth and attention he failed to get but so much wants and needs ... Aggressive behavior, when fully understood, is in fact nothing but love frustrated. It is a technique for compelling love, as well as a means for taking revenge on a society that has let the person down, leaving him disillusioned, deserted and dehumanized .. If you find rebels in society today, it is because they were never given the proper love."     A recent sefer on chinuch (Chinuch Malchuti) makes the following points: "Parents who treat their children with flexibility and do not overreact to minor infractions will have children who remain loyal to them and to their way of life.... "Educators who deal with dropouts relate that every single one only dropped out because he or she received insufficient love at home. None of them claimed that they left due to complaints against Hashem or the Torah. Lack of love at home is the reason for dropping out of yeshiva and for going off the derech. A child who receives sufficient love at home will never drop out or go off the derech."

Information Overload

From a blog called Susan's Musings:

... I have been deluged with reports of serious illnesses with requests to add the sick to my prayers, articles about the tragic death of a young girl in a pedestrian accident and links to introspective pieces about troubled marriages, mental illness and other challenging life experiences.

Relatively few years ago, I would not have known of much of this... While I knew of sad occurrences taking place in my local and intimate social circle, word of personal tragedies around the world didn’t intrude into my space....

Prior to the ubiquitous presence of the Internet in my life, the tragedies in the lives of those I know were offset by the joys. Yes, I heard of a friend’s stillborn infant or a relative who was diagnosed with cancer, but at least as frequently and usually more often, I heard of an engagement, a birth or other celebratory events. Now that everyone is connected to everyone else, I am asked to add my prayers to those of thousands of others around the world, pleading for a complete recovery for people I have never met or previously heard about...

The urgent emails notifying me of crises are not offset by joyous reports... I’m invited to share in the sorrows but never told of the celebrations or the normal, uneventful daily lives that pass without horrifying interruptions.

This is our reality. We can access news non-stop and disseminate information at the click of a mouse. Geographic distance is no barrier to communication. This is, in many ways, a wonderful advance. Yet, it carries with it the danger of being overwhelmed by gloom.  We can come to expect bad rather than good...

How true.  If you check in with each of the frum news websites, you will find out about frum people involved in car accidents, sudden deaths, fires, drownings, operations about to take place, disasters of all kinds.  It's relentless.  It's news.  It's not only that we are connected globally.  It's that we are updated constantly. 

Years ago, you may have gotten the Jewish newspaper which was published once a week.  You may have tuned in to a Jewish radio program that was broadcast once a week.  Now, in addition to frequent Internet updates and emails, we have many weekly (even daily) newspapers and magazines.  They've got to fill them up and we have been getting a surfeit of articles addressing all our frum societal problems as well as first person "sharing" of all kinds of tragic lives with details that we might be better off not knowing.

Nobody says you must visit news sites and nobody says you must read frum publications.  The alternative though, is to be disconnected from our Jewish brethren which is not an option.  How to do this while remaining positive is a challenge.

The Theory of Absolute

Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein gave a thought provoking post-Pesach talk.  He said this was the talk he gave at a hotel in Florida as the closing speech for the Pesach program there.  (He reassured his audience that he was home for the first days of Yom Tov, since he speaks about the importance of spending Yom Tov at home).

He pointed out that people managed without a phone and Internet for five days, for the first and last days of Yom Tov plus Shabbos Chol Ha'Moed.   His friends, who smoke two and a half packs of cigarettes a day, manage without a cigarette on Shabbos and don't have withdrawal symptoms.  How is this possible?

Regarding the phone and Internet, people say it's because nobody else is using it either and there is nobody to communicate with, so it's easy to refrain on Shabbos and Yom Tov.  However, that doesn't apply to those who smoke or those who tell him that they can't fall asleep without watching a movie.  The reason why Jews can refrain on Shabbos and Yom Tov, he says, and they don't even have physical withdrawal symptoms, is because they regard these prohibited activities as absolutely off-limits.   Just like his grandson stopped whining for chocolate when Zaidy said it wasn't kosher.  Frum children will not persist in asking for a food item if they are told it's not kosher.  Why? Because it's absolutely not acceptable and they know it.
 

R' Wallerstein went on to describe his gambling history and how caught up he was in it.  He said that praying to Hashem and swearing he'd stop gambling, if G-d replaced his money so he could pay off his debts, did not help. He went back to gambling. What stopped him was "happening" to come across the sefer Kav Ha'Yashar and seeing what he says about ill-gained money, how the good things done with it go to the “other side.”

Gambling was no longer a taava for him. It became absolutely off-limits.  He didn't need a 12 Step program or any kind of therapy.  Once that "clicked" in his mind, gambling became a non-issue for him. 

What are our absolutes, our red lines? It seems with R' Wallerstein to have been an "Act of G-d."  Hashem directed him to the particular sefer and the particular page that made a deep impression on him.  That wouldn't necessarily work for someone else.  How can we gain the Absolute mindset?

You can watch his talk here

The Yumminess of Being a Yid

Rabbi Bloch is the rav of the Lakewood minyan in Monsey.  He recently spoke in Flatbush and said that he changed the topic of his speech on his way to giving the speech.  This was because of a story he just heard a story about a rebbi in a classroom of 14 yr olds in a good yeshiva in a very frum area. 

The rebbi was teaching the Gemara in Kesubos about a ger katan who at age 13 has the right to decline being Jewish.  A good boy in the class innocently asked - why would this kid want to become a Jew?

The shocked rebbi thought he was making trouble but he saw that the whole class agreed with the boy! He made a questionnaire and asked everyone to check one of three boxes anonymously on a paper.  Today if you had a choice, what would you pick: 1) you'd choose to be Jewish 2) you'd choose not to be Jewish  3) undecided

The entire class except for two boys wrote they would want to be goyim.  One wrote undecided and one wrote he'd choose to be Jewish.

In R' Bloch's words:

Don't tell me that that's because of the Internet! That's foolish!
We are goofing big time.
These are 14 yr old kids whose parents have some control over them; What about when they're 15, 17, 19?
How do they say the bracha "asher bochar banu ... ", "shelo asani goy"?
We had these kids for 9 years in school!
This is where we're holding.  We are failing immensely in giving over to the children: what is our religion! We are failing terribly in conveying "ashreinu mah tov chelkeinu." We say the words, do we mean them? That Hashem is our chelek and that goraleinu is olam haba and how  pleasurable-fun limud ha'Torah is (if it's done right).

If the children were given this feeling, the joy of being a yid, then "s'eis" - you'll go up.  Yes, you have to be careful of aveiros, but Hashem said, "im lo seitiv," if you won't have this warmth, desire for something higher, then "l'pesach chatas roveitz" - sin crouches at the door, with or without a computer.  Kayin did not have a computer.  The sota did not have a computer ...

If you desire to get close to Hashem, you are moving up and away from bad things.  If you're just going to fence off the bad stuff, I have news for you.  You won't be able to fence it all off.  It's impossible.
 
Our grandparents did something right.  It has become popular today to look at ourselves as being great and our grandparents as so-so. We have it backwards.
40 years ago, R' Dessler described our generation as one of chitzoniyus.  Our generation is completely about status-kavod.

A father came to speak to me, he's ready to die.  His son came home for bein ha'zemanim and put on a T-shirt and shorts to play basketball.  After 15 minutes or so, I asked the father about tefillin and the father said he does not think his son puts on tefillin.  The father was agonizing about the T-shirt and shorts and not ready to die over the tefillin.  That is why the kid is not wearing tefillin! Because he sees it's all about appearances.  We have honest kids and they ask, why should anyone want to be be a Jew! Good question.

We have to give kids the yumminess of being a yid.  Fear of gehinom won't do it.  People ask me what to do about their children not wanting to stay at the Shabbos table.  The Shabbos table must be the highlight of the week.  The father must be a DJ, MC, comedian, journalist.  When your daughter goes into the kitchen, you want her to say wait, don't continue until I come back.  The kids should be glued to the table.

I don't think the story with the 14 year olds is an isolated situation.  I am almost positive that it is indicative of the general situation today. 
The problem is not that the kids don't get it.  The problem is that YOU don't get it and they don't get it because you don't have it.
I repeat, we undervalue our grandparents.  What we have is more visible yiddishkeit. What they had was more genunine, internal.

The first thing we need to do is internalize "ashreinu ..."

link to his speech

E-Books and E-Invitations

I've gotten so used to using Control-F to locate a word on a page that sometimes, when I read a book, I find myself wishing I can use that feature to find what I'm looking for. 

Now there are E-books, Jewish ones too, and boy, does the description sound tempting.  You can adjust the font and font size, you can do word and phrase searches, and you can mark important or favorite pages.  Sounds great, but you can't use it on Shabbos and of course you have to pay for every book instead of being able to read it for free from the library.

But this means that sometime soon, E-books and Jewish E-books will become part of our life just as our computers are a major source of our reading material now.  As someone in this transitional generation, between the Old Technology and the New, I find it all still most remarkable.

Another aspect of this transitional generation is the fact that we still snail mail invitations and even include a return envelope with a stamp when the percentage of people who mail them, don't justify their cost.  Why don't we email invitations to all friends and relatives who have an email address? Well, we feel that it's just not the same as receiving a "real" invitation in the mail.  That because all it entails is a click and no expense, that the recipients of e-invitations will be offended.  Give it a few more years and that will change too.

Ban by Israeli Rabbis on Frum Internet Sites

Frum sites have been discontinued because rabbis in Israel said there should be no "chareidi" (an Israeli term for frum) presence on the Internet.  The reason given is that so-called frum sites promote lies, lashon hara, defame talmidei chachamim and foment machlokes and even if these sites would have no garbage on them, they inevitably lead the readers to use the rest of the Internet which has caused many people to fall spiritually.

1) The Kol Haloshon website (over 200,000 shiurim), based in Eretz Yisroel, has ceased operation in compliance with the ban by Gedolei Eretz Yisroel against chareidi websites. Kol Haloshon is seeking permission from these Gedolim to reopen its website.

2) The Command, and the Retreat

In light of the comments recently made by Gedolei Yisrael, shlita, "Etrog" – a site that is completely free of lashon hara – has decided to discontinue its services on the internet. From this moment on, there will be no news or other informative postings on the portal

Chaim Twerski 16/12/2009 16:00

Dear friends and site visitors,
 The letter signed by Gedolei Yisrael regarding chareidi internet sites, which was posted at the end of last week, is familiar to all of us.

We are confident that any of you who have visited the "Etrog" portal during the last year, by chance or on a regular basis, will testify to the fact that our wide variety of news and Jewish postings have met all of even the most stringent criteria set by the Gedolei Yisrael in their letter.

We are all familiar with the damage caused by the internet in the last few years. But we honestly believe that you will all agree with us, that this site was a home of Torah and Jewish knowledge, and that our portal only presented the true facts of the news, clean of any slander or sensationalism.

With the publication of the rabbis' letter, we must take action to verify the exact details and limits of the issur. This morning, we were personally informed that all chareidi internet activity must immediately cease. From the moment we began planning, and then eventually established the site, we decided to accept any guidance and halachic ruling received from Gedolei Yisrael. Therefore, just as we have adhered to the psakim of our Torah leaders thus far, we must continue to maintain that standard today.
 This is not an easy step for us to take. Much thought and effort was invested in this project, and we have endeavored to fulfill a self-assigned mission of providing a clean, respectable site. A source of light in the terrible darkness. There have been occasions when we chose not to report on individuals and events that made very interesting stories, and lifted the "ratings" of other sites. If the material was not appropriate, we did not publish it.

We felt that we were continuing the legacy of those who followed the psak of the holy Admor of Gur, the "Imrei Emes", ztz"l, who one hundred years ago battled against the influence of the "Enlightenment" and assimilation movements in newspapers. But that same devotion to truth and purity forces us now to stop everything, and follow orders, without questioning their legitimacy.

This is something that must be done, dear friends. The Yetzer Ra has invaded every corner of the internet, but will now be left alone on the battlefield. We hope that the strength of Gedolei Yisrael will empower you as well, and we are confidant that you will be able to overcome the temptations of the internet, even without the help that we extended to you all for the past year.

***
I will say this - kol ha'kavod to this individual for submitting, even though he did his best to have his site conform with halacha and had noble goals.