Q&A: Unfiltered Internet
Unfiltered Internet
Question
What is the Rabbi’s view regarding having a phone with completely unfiltered internet, when there is no livelihood-related need for it?
Answer
There is no halakhic prohibition, but certainly one who refrains from it is praiseworthy. But filters, too, need to be chosen intelligently, and one should under no circumstances use a Haredi filter. There the filtering is more ideological and thought-control oriented than halakhic. It is the result of interests and a crooked ideology, under the supervision of interested parties.
Discussion on Answer
The medieval authorities (Rishonim) in tractate Pesachim wrote that “an alternative path available” applies when there is no difference in the level of difficulty in using this or that. This is not a case of exemption due to duress (I wrote about this in the column on immodest films). Besides, even without a filter you are not obligated to enter immodest sites; you only can. Each person has his own way of guarding himself.
Fear of Haredim would be fear of transgression. So there is no more or less here.
Please explain why. They observe every jot and tittle of Jewish law, so what transgression is there among them?!
*Jewish law
Every jot and tittle except for quite a few fundamental principles that they have ignored. I have already spelled this out in many places. About this it was said: “A young Torah scholar and an ignoramus by Torah law.”
Whom are you referring to? The Chazon Ish? The Chafetz Chaim? Rabbi Chaim of Brisk? Rabbi Chaim Ozer? Rabbi Meir Shapiro? Rabbi Moshe Feinstein? All of them? All Haredim?
I mean the public and its leaders in recent years, not this or that individual.
By the way, since we’re already talking about it, which sect in Judaism is the best—which one has the truest methods, and so on?
You wrote: “I mean the public and its leaders in recent years, not this or that individual.”
That is certainly not correct. Today’s Haredi public is a continuation of the people mentioned, and most of the complaints you have about today’s Haredim you could also say about the Haredim of the past, who were led by the people mentioned.
The difficulty is even stronger than that, because all Jews who are observant of Torah and commandments—their parents before the Holocaust were all Haredi! There is no other sect in which Torah was maintained for so many generations except them. I’m not talking about after the Holocaust, when not enough time has passed yet to see what became of the grandchildren of those groups.
Why is there no prohibition? There is “an alternative path available,” and it is almost certain that one will end up committing a transgression there—each person according to the strength of his inclination.
Apparently the fear of Haredim is greater than the fear of transgression!