Q&A: Smartphone
Smartphone
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
First of all, thank you very much for all the content you provide here. For me personally, it has really organized a lot of thinking that I was "afraid" to think, because in some way it isn’t in the religious mainstream.
Do you think there is a problem with a smartphone (iPhone, Galaxy, etc.)? Personally, I learn a lot of Torah from my phone and read.
Answer
Wisdom is never a problem. This prohibition seems to me like just baseless Haredi nonsense. I can understand those who avoid it because of wasting time, but I don’t see any prohibition in it.
Discussion on Answer
More than once it has crossed my mind that maybe I’m wrong. But there is a presumption regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, that He does not deal harshly with His creatures. This is what I truly think, and a judge has only what his eyes can see.
Rabbi Aviner said that for someone who knows he stumbles, it is forbidden for him, and for someone who doesn’t, it isn’t.
I’m not well-versed in Jewish law, but if he meant someone for whom this regularly causes stumbling blocks (I don’t know whether the intent is specifically a smartphone, presumably unfiltered internet and the like), and certainly for someone for whom it is a "base for a forbidden object," that sounds like a reasonable (indirect) prohibition. Like going through a place that is highly likely to make you stumble; one may not put oneself into temptation.
Of course I’m not saying that I "join in the ruling," because there are also quite a few reasons to permit it, and even for someone who regularly stumbles, that is not the essence of the device. But again, also walking down a street full of stores and one brothel in such a case…
Without going into it deeply, in my view this is simply a decree that the public cannot uphold, not even the Haredim.
Leaving Jewish law aside, this is a decree that definitely can be upheld. Many people live completely full lives without a smartphone, and I’m not entirely sure they’re wrong. This thing is an enormous consumer of time. Note that we’re not talking here about avoiding the internet. There’s a computer at home.
Avi,
So what are you actually talking about? Neglect of Torah study?
Obviously cutting down on hanging out on TikTok is a positive thing, but from here to saying they aren’t mistaken halakhically?!
And obviously a person can comply with the decree (what are we talking about? The physical possibility of complying? Psychological?)
But this is a decree that the "public" cannot uphold—the meaning is always: de facto, it does not uphold it; it’s too much for them…
Someone who wastes time and/or stumbles into prohibitions and can abstain—blessing upon him. I was talking about a halakhic prohibition.
Thank you very much.
The truth is that I find myself, in terms of outlook, very similar to you in my views (regarding God’s involvement in the world, etc.). Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe you’re wrong, that in the World to Come you might have to pay for these thoughts, etc.?