Q&A: \
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Question
Rabbi Michael, I’ve happened to see many times that you don’t understand the Haredi abstention from the internet. You argue that it does not stem from halakhic considerations but from other things. Even if that is as you say, still, how is there permission to use unfiltered internet and to watch movies? I mean from a purely halakhic standpoint. I would be very glad if you would answer me as soon as possible.
Answer
Why shouldn’t there be permission? How is there permission to walk in the street (immodest sights)? To drive a car (risk of killing or being killed)? To live in society (evil speech and gossip)? The internet today is part of life, and therefore using it is permitted. It is true that while using it, one should try to prevent transgressions.
As for watching movies, search here for a column about that.
Beyond all that, there is non-Haredi filtering that deals with the problems without the Haredi censorship, which, as stated, is really not meant to deal with prohibitions but with exposure to the world and undermining Haredi identity.
Discussion on Answer
Here it is completely a case of “there is no other way.” See my above article.
But it still bothers me, because in the Haredi public, precisely because of their abstention from the internet, there are almost no dropouts. Meaning, there are some, but in small percentages, very different indeed from the Religious Zionist and Mizrahi public. And indeed, if there were a sector in which they were especially strict about the prohibition of evil speech, and anyone who spoke about others simply would not be spoken to, wouldn’t you join them?
It has no connection at all to abstaining from the internet. It is separatism in general, together with terrible social pressure. I would never in my life join something like that.
As for all these claims, I addressed them extensively in the past. In the Haredi public there are many more dropouts than in any other public. All of today’s secularism came out of there, and the current dropping-out there is quite hard to measure, because we are talking about people who are coerced and hollowed out within a Haredi outer shell, and the rest of that sort of thing.
You are talking about the short range, but in the long range such an approach has heavy costs also in the aspect of dropping out. This is aside from all the many disadvantages of that degenerate and warped society. To join something that is not Judaism just because they are more careful about evil speech (which of course is not true regarding the Haredim, but hypothetically), sounds absurd to me.
I also thought about this, but in Bava Batra 57b it seems that the whole permission is only when there is no other way. Is there no other way besides viewing with Haredi-filtered internet? Perhaps one could say like Tosafot on Avodah Zarah 48b that there is no end to the matter, but that I do not know. [I’m asking this because I too hold like the Rabbi’s view, but I wonder about the halakhic prohibition involved in it.] Thank you, I’d be glad for the Rabbi’s answer.