Principals and directors of chareidi mosdos attending the urgent kinos in Yerushalayim on Wednesday expressed their commitment to continue efforts to eliminate the threat that the internet brings to chareidi homes. In response to the recent call from Gedolei Hador Shlita, the directors of the mosdos reaffirmed their commitment to removing this unprecedented threat for the daily lives of the community.
The turnout for the kinos, which was held in Yerushalayim’s Talmid Torah Yechavei Daas was impressive, and the evening’s opening remarks were heard from Rav Berkowitz, the director of the Belz talmid torah in Beit Shemesh. He called on the tzibur to stand united and firm to remove the ‘tuma’ from our lives.
There were many other speakers, including Rav Mordechai Shlomo Steinmeitz Shlita, head of the Har Nof Vishnitz community, who expounded on the dangers posed by bringing internet into one’s home, and the need to oust this danger from our midst.
Delivering a message from Maran HaGaon HaRav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv Shlita was HaRav Yosef Efrati Shlita, who spoke of the responsibility of each and every member of the community towards eliminating this threat. He explained how Gedolei Yisrael Shlita delved into the matter, probing it in-depth before reaching their decision, and they are now in the process of formulating the directive that will be distributed to heads of mosdos, a directive that he expects will be ready in the coming days.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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8 Responses
I do not chas v’sholom question the decision of the g’dolim. But in my experience, (I do not have internet at home) it is becoming increasingly difficult to live without it. I do have access at work and am constantly going online for my wife & kids for something or other. General information, shopping, planning, coupons, travel, returns, tracking a delivery, insurance, automobile registration, paying tickets, paying taxes, warranties, rebates, research etc etc etc are all done via the internet. Now we can still survive without it though its difficult but I fear that in the future it will be impossible to function without internet.
Go YeshivaNet!
Are they banning use of the telephone (voice is an internet application – though perhaps the opposite is true, internet is a telecommunication “front end”)? What about banning use of the banking system, which is now totally integrated with the internet?
Aren’t we reading THIS on the internet? and how did the chareidi community get the news about D/C’ing the internet? through the internet of course!!
This is obviously going to be a difficult thing.
The internet IS a very slippery slope. At the very least it can easily consume tremendous amounts of time, time then not available for avodas HaShem. I see that the internet is a tzunami of bitel Torah, & tuma in a pretty package.
It is also a place where mitzvaot can be done, but there is the very legitimate argument that we should simply not risk it, and seek other ways to serve HaShem in a safer way.
The big problem I see is that it is also more than that we just need it to do business, as in parnassa. It is now becoming the only way, or at least the best way to do household business. Even if it is not required, the costs and penalties and time delays of not banking on line, getting your airline tickets, ordering your medication…etc are becoming constant.
It is like not having a car (outside NYC) You can decide you simply can’t afford it and plenty people have lived with out a car. BUT since “everyone else” has a car, the world expects you to have a car… in that there are no longer local grocery stores, hardware stores or any of that, so you end up regularly taxi-ing, renting or feeling you are endlessly bothering your friends for rides.
Will the Rabbaim accept people going to library computers to have access to certain services? (Obviously not a secure way to do your banking tho)
Because other wise I wonder at what the fall out will be. L’havdil- the Amish will not use networked electricity. As I understand it, that means that unless they own a generator, they also can’t have an electric washing machine…
The separation from All things internet will have some serious challenges, and they will grow with time.
Obviously I am not separating myself from the internet, but I am hearing the message and trying to honestly cut back on my online time. Not an easy thing for me, and especially as part of my job, as my husband’s business manager, is to explore what’s out there, seeking acceptable ways to increase our parnassah- and the internet frontier is the “happening” place.
The other difficult consequence of this is an oft repeated consequence of any people taking their free choice to leave a group- the balance shifts; now the less people with ethics, tzneeus and respect for HaShem on line, the less ethics, tzneeus and respect for HaShem there will be on line for those remaining.
But our lives have always been challenging; I see this as a new set of kashrus and humras for klal Yisroel.
So how will I internalize this? Where will I hold?
What will my new Rebbe say??
(I don’t want to bother him till after the shloshim.)
All this loss and change is unsettling but that’s what makes it an opportunity for growth.
This is spearheaded by the Chassidish Mosdos, if this is their desire, fine & dandy. The litvish world has always managed to use technology in a proper torah way. Teach, educate, model … and provide paths that the youth can follow.
There is no way to be part of the employment world, even in academia with computer/internet access. Online course work, banking, airline tickets, paying bills, mapquest, health questions and support groups. It is easier to read the paper online that to shlep and bring it in the house.
stan/6: Incorrect.
Maran HaGaon HaRav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv Shlita and HaRav Yosef Efrati Shlita are from the Litvish Gedolim.
This is a united effort across the Torah World.
What you are espousing is your own daas, not Daas Torah.
Radio was also assured in Europe, until it was realized that there’s no way around it and it could be used as a kli le’tova, when used with some care.
Plenty of Chareidi poskim took seriously the need to do normal things that are necessary in day to day life, even when they have some risk to them. See Rav Moshe’s teshuva on riding in crowded mixed busses, where he says bottom line that going to work to otherwise getting around is a mitzva and a necessity, and over-rules the risk of a mixed crowded bus (which he deemed not assur in any case).