quote:

Originally posted by rob:
I think the essays can be found here:

http://www.geulah.org/9acatalog.htm#Self

If you scroll down to "Eight Key Essays", #3 is the one which I believe discusses this point.

Is it available to read online anywhere or only for sale?

Here is a question about how we look at self control and intentions.

Perhaps this would be the start of a good poll.

For yourself and for your family members do you think of yourself and your online interactive internet use with a web browser:

1) Online seeking good kosher Torah learning content?

2) Online seeking tame safe home consumer use for banking, bill-payment, Israel and world news?

3) Online to socialize?

4) Sneaking online to socialize or find out things that are not necessarily permissible to you?

5) Sneaking online to access information or multimedia data that is surely not permissible or beneath your dignity?

6) Sneaking online in secret solely for the purpose of finding smut or exploiting security weaknesses in others' computers to have some fun vandalizing?

Everyone for number 6 raise your hand!!!

LOL Rob,

as a cheshbon hanefesh its a great thought provoker- but I think in reality- as a poll, it would flop.

quote:

Here is a question about how we look at self control and intentions.

That list was a good thought clarifier, Rob. Thanks. I can now say , with determination and clarity, that I do not want anybody or anything but me to try to restrict how I handle the internet. But I can also say, with total honesty, that I never choose to go to sites I know are not ok. It does not please me if very, very occasionally I visit a site not knowing that it is bad. I feel disgusted and get out of there straight away. But such inadvertent exposure to bad things happens not just on the internet. It is the price of not living in a cocoon (other words come to mind but I will not say them). But, even in a "cocoon" , one is not really safe: bad things can come breaking in; and sometimes the bad is within also, even within ourselves.

The subject of the internet is just a little focus point of a spotlight of inquiry that could shine wider and deeper, including looking at the nature of being human and also of the striving for self-discipline and holiness.

quote:

But such inadvertent exposure to bad things happens not just on the internet. It is the price of not living in a cocoon

B"H with technology, if an ad image or just irritating image shows up and bothers me I pop into my ad blocker configuration of guidescope and mark that image to never be shown again.

This is a luxury I do not have with ad images on public transportation, no disrespect to Brooke Shields or GAP jeans intended.

And this is a luxury I do not have with telephone calls, even with caller-ID and do-not-call-list laws, and their calls do not likely rise to the secular government standard of telephone harassment, at least on their first call ;-)

Internet been very very good to me.

By the way, if someone buys food with a good looking kosher hechsher but then found out that the food item was the subject of a kashrus alert should we monitor their pantry and report their ATTEMPT to access inappropriate edibles, and send email to their parent or rabbi?

quote:

Internet been very very good to me.

By the way, if someone buys food with a good looking kosher hechsher but then found out that the food item was the subject of a kashrus alert should we monitor their pantry and report their ATTEMPT to access inappropriate edibles, and send email to their parent or rabbi?

I agree with the points you are making, Rob.

quote:

Originally posted by rob:
...

By the way, if someone buys food with a good looking kosher hechsher but then found out that the food item was the subject of a kashrus alert should we monitor their pantry and report their ATTEMPT to access inappropriate edibles, and send email to their parent or rabbi?

Rob, youre analogy is way off the point. In your analogy you wrote of a person who attempted to buy something kosher- and ended up with something not so kosher- whereas the discussion is about the internet and the question of its kashrus in the first place, and if possible- how to MAKE it kosher. The correct analogy would then be of a person who went shopping and bought not-Kosher in the first place, knowingly. In that case- then perhaps yes, we SHOULD monitor his pantry. I wouldnt want to end up his house for dinner!

Even in your analogy- if I happened to have been a shopper and picked up something with a kashrus alert on it- how happy i would be to have my pantry monitored and told whether or not my kashrus was up to par!

quote:

youre analogy is way off the point. In your analogy you wrote of a person who attempted to buy something kosher- and ended up with something not so kosher- whereas the discussion is about the internet and the question of its kashrus in the first place

Actually you hae indicated just how correct is my analogy....

I am challenging the assumption about the communications mechanism which Hashem has entrusted to our generation with such powerful capability for Torah learning - the assumption that the internet is treif.

I say the internet is at least as kosher as a telephone, and clearly far more powerful; and although as prone to smut and abuse, includes capabilities under our control to keep out intentions upheld.

The insinuation that an ATTEMPT to access unauthorized material is an indicator of intent belies these facts:

1) a pedestrian with good proper intention who has a sequence of 5th avenue busses and taxi cabs drive by should not be infered to have improper intent, despite the fact that there is advertising imagery not suitable for a Jew's eyes

2) a food purchaser of an item with something that looked like a well respected and trusted hechsher symbol made a mistake

3) a web site which funds itself by advertising revenue ended up directing a web browseer to open an advertisement image with undesirable content

Imputing intent to access the crud is a big mistake. Hence the risible view of monitoring reports implying intent.

Take the same monitoring technology, applied with the Jewish concept of assuming good and proper intention, would cause one to jump to the conclusion that a monitoring report that logged referer-URL would make great sense...

Any otherwise proper web site which inadvertently linked to a smutty ad would have to be subject to content filtering to filter out the links which COULD have led a Jew astray against their intention.

For a direct-entry URL of smut with a pattern of such direct-entry of the same URL or closely related URL's each containing undesirable content, _that_ would be grounds to infer a question about the user's intent. Lack of referer-URL in the HTTP protocol may be an indicator of direct-entry URL, or an embedded URL within an email message for those users who let their mail readers fetch viruses on a spammer's demand.

quote:

Rob, youre analogy is way off the point. In your analogy you wrote of a person who attempted to buy something kosher- and ended up with something not so kosher- whereas the discussion is about the internet and the question of its kashrus in the first place, and if possible- how to MAKE it kosher. The correct analogy would then be of a person who went shopping and bought not-Kosher in the first place, knowingly. In that case- then perhaps yes, we SHOULD monitor his pantry. I wouldnt want to end up his house for dinner!

Bracha,

I really don't believe the internet is anymore trief than the highway, telephone or television. It can be used for great good. We are all here discussing this because of it. But it can also be used for tremendous evil. The question is how do we avoid evil on the highway, telephone and television? We have managed to do it on the other venues so we must figure out how to do it on this one. I think a major kosher portal with its own server with super filters could do the job. But even then it might restrict some legitimate information that may appear to be trief when it is, in fact, kosher.

I think there is two issues here. First of all, on the individual and second on the community.

Even with one self. We're not dealing with someone who is out to see porn. Even if someone only wants it for Kosher things, all it takes is one weak moment, since everything is accessible (much more than what's in public places,) and no one is around. It's not theoretic, since there are many cases in the Frum community that this had happened to. Rabbis included (as per JO article from one such Rabbi.) The Gemarah in Sukkah says that those that are greater than another has a greater Yetzer Harah.


Even if there is no need to worry on the individual, but since there is worry on the community at large, and if people in the community would be allowed to have unlimited Internet, then that's giving a lot of opportunity to do things that normally wouldn't do if not having a chance. SO it might be better to stop it from the whole community, not to let it ruin certain individuals.

quote:

Originally posted by MosheYisraeli:

... The question is how do we avoid evil on the highway, telephone and television? We have managed to do it on the other venues so we must figure out how to do it on this one...

So see, we agree- as i wrote above:

quote:

... the discussion is about the internet and the question of its kashrus in the first place, and if possible- how to MAKE it kosher.

Rav Chaim, thank you for your valuable input- we have to realize there is community beyond oneself to be concerned with.

quote:

all it takes is one weak moment, since everything is accessible (much more than what's in public places,) and no one is around.

Here at the Global Yeshiva and other sites for interactive Torah learning we seem to accept that the computer screen is more than a mechitza in the physical world. That is, we permit mixed-gender learning.

Hence the reality that what is on our computer screen is nothing but an image, less than a memory, less vivid than reality... in truth nothing like a real world experience.

Noone can contract a socially transmitted disease through cyborspace interaction.

Thus Rav Chaim's statement would seem to ignore this reality differential.

What is actually "available" in the the physical world red light district is real.

Let us please attend to the incessant glamorous advertising on public transportation which is 2-dimensional high resolution imagery. Please tell me how this is not completely analogous to the undesirable advertising imagery which can pop onto a computer screen against our wishes.

Does Hashem hold a rabbi in a weak moment of looking both ways before crossing the street and having his attention caught by a bus advertisement rolling by - does Hashem hold the rabbi as accountable as if he were to choose to gaze at a congregant, or an immodestly dressed person passing by?

Perhaps an analogy could be drawn to thinking of something not so nice to say, but choosing to not say it, and with great exertion of self control to not respond verbally in a manner beneath our dignity?

That an online image is no worse than a thought; and while we aim to have pure thoughts, the worst that can happen seeing an undesirable advertising image on the computer screen, is that we are accountable for having a bad thought upon which we did not act?

quote:

Originally posted by rob:
Hence the reality that what is on our computer screen is nothing but an image, less than a memory, less vivid than reality... in truth nothing like a real world experience.

None can contract a socially transmitted disease through cyborspace interaction.

Rob,

One needs not contract socially transmitted disease to fall into ill-repute. Have we not been taught by the Sages, "sinful fancies are more injurious to the health than the sin itself?!" הרהורי עבירה קשין מן העבירה

David

quote:

Does Hashem hold a rabbi in a weak moment of looking both ways before crossing the street and having his attention caught by a bus advertisement rolling by - does Hashem hold the rabbi as accountable as if he were to choose to gaze at a congregant, or an immodestly dressed person passing by?

I shall not dwell on, but shall merely agree again, that I do not think the internet should be singled out for special naming as a bad thing.

Firstly, I want to say that I think that the availability of two sex participation, is because of the fact that certain not permissible elements are not present, such as the two really being alone together, a point I think you were getting at. Indeed, one cannot actually be sure of the gender of a person on the the internet, a fact that some dishonest persons take advantage of. But we still have to be careful because we have to guard our minds and because a further opportunity for going the wrong way could be presented. This is not against the internet per se, but what we have to do in so many situations.

The main thing that needs to be stressed is that the really important thing in all this is the way we are in ourselves. Thus "attention" is not the key matter, as the Tanya points out, but what we make of it. For comparison, to make the point,if we realize we inadvertently sat on a hot plate of a cooker (stove?), strangely mistaking it for a sofa, we get off quickly, right? This matter has to be analysed carefully and accurately.

quote:

"sinful fancies are more injurious to the health than the sin itself?!"

Dear Reb David:

Do you think this might be a story to be taken as advice, and not the sort of statement which could possibly be an actual halacha?

For example, if one tries and fails to be a false (zoma) witness, is there not a halacha that he is not punished as a zoma witness since unless he succeeds he is not a zoma witness?

Such would indicate that action is actionable, and intention in of itself absent action is ignored?

quote:

"sinful fancies are more injurious to the health than the sin itself?!"

I don't want to comment on the quote itself. I just want to remark, in the context of the discussion conductex over quite a number of posts (one has to see this in the context of what we are talking about) that merely having some bit of one's awareness prompted by some object we have identified by our sense organs (seen, heard, etc) , does not equate to how one subjectively reacts to that identified object.

People vary in how they react to such stimuli. For example, a rasha will react very differently to a tzaddik, just to give two examples. It is a mistake to imagine all people react in the same way. If one naively thinks this is so, it often is the case that a person is imagining everybody else must react as he does to something. And this can inadvertently give people an insight into what that person is like in some respects. In saying this, I am not denying that we should not do certain things, eg, such as are considered immodest.That is another subject.

Another way of coming at this is to draw attention to the fact that , as has been noted by sages, we do not see things the way they are; we see them as we are. One person may see a picture of a woman as a sex object. Another may see her as just a female. A rabbi who looks at a scantily dressed female in the synagogue, may register just that she is the sister of the day's bar mitzvah boy and recall that he must say such and such to their parents about something or the other later. The Tanya explains all this much better than I can.

Personally speaking, I find porn sites and that sort of spam disgusting. Not that I did more than recognise what they were about before I got away from them. And I do not at all like vulgar, secular chat or web sites even though they are not porn. So I successfully avoid them for the most part. If I do get a glimpse, it is by accident and I minimize my chance of having it happen again. All this is no problem for me and I do not find I need assistance with this. There is nothing as good, to me, as a good Torah site that meets my needs. May we have even more of this.

quote:

Originally posted by David Ben-Abraham:

One needs not contract socially transmitted disease to fall into ill-repute. Have we not been taught by the Sages, "sinful fancies are more injurious to the health than the sin itself?!" הרהורי עבירה קשין מן העבירה

David

David, where is the source for this?

B"H

R. Sam,

The source for this is in Yoma 29a

All the best.

I cannot see how the Rabbis could give a general heter to the internet without some kind of global filtering and/or accountability program. The default position now is that the internet is forbidden and individuals receive heters. I also feel it is much worse for men than it is for women. I would love to see someone with some money come up with a system to help Am Israel. I am willing to be the accountability partner for anyone who wants to signup at http://www.covenanteyes.com/ . That is the only solution I see for now.

quote:

Originally posted by rob:

quote:

"sinful fancies are more injurious to the health than the sin itself?!"

Dear Reb David:

Do you think this might be a story to be taken as advice, and not the sort of statement which could possibly be an actual halacha?

For example, if one tries and fails to be a false (zoma) witness, is there not a halacha that he is not punished as a zoma witness since unless he succeeds he is not a zoma witness?

Such would indicate that action is actionable, and intention in of itself absent action is ignored?

Rob,

What are you advocating here? That a good Jewish boy can look at porn magazines and the like of such filth and, so long as he has not done anything to anyone, he has done nothing amiss?
While, on one hand, if a Jewish man thinks to do a bad thing, although he has not yet done the thing, G-d does not impute upon him any action, as if he had done it. But what about making ourselves a vessel fit for G-d's service? Do you think such thoughts are sanctioned by our Maker? Zanuth (fornication & sinful license) is on the extreme opposite end of kadusha (holiness). Let us not forget that one's actions are usually preceded by fore-thought. So, should we not fear that by exposing ourselves to such filth, we might be tempted to do the thing - may G-d forbid?

David