We Are At War

I am in the midst of delving deeply into Tosfos Ksubos ט,ב about ספק ספיקא and שם אונס חד הוא. How can a Yid sleep at night when the answer to the question is so obvious that you don't even understand the question. OF COURSE it is all one שם אונס and there is no ספק ספיקא! But I feel that the מצות עשה שהזמן גרמא is to write about a pressing matter that is DESTROYING people left and right....

I translated [roughly] this from an article in a weekly flyer called "Olam Katan" which is distributed in non-charedi shuls all over Israel. It was written by a woman named Adi Aharon.

The day after Rosh Hashana I found myself walking the streets of Geula to exchange my cell phone for a kosher one. If you would have told me a week before that I would do this I would have laughed and given a short speech about how inconceivable such a step would be.

But on the second day of Rosh Hashana in one of the moments of chesed of clear thinking, between the meals with the simanim and staring at the clock waiting anxiously for chaztos so that I can go take a nap, Hashem sent me pure understanding. Suddenly, I knew exactly what I have to do.

The change started when I remembered the painful conversation I had with my friend before the holiday. She related with tears her fresh story. Another prominent religious-zionist family [roughly parallel to what we call in America "modern-orthodox"], that fell apart because of unfiltered internet. One moment of weakness followed by another until a complete downfall. Another Jewish home crushed to pieces. Another mizbeach sheds tears as it does when two people get divorced.

When I was trying to hold back my tears I thought of all of the victims of this silent but cruel war. From the best of our boys [and sometimes even girls], from the biggest tzadikim of our educators. The smartest and most gifted people have been ruined and rendered brainless when meeting the formidable opponent of גילוי עריות. Chazal already said אין אפוטרופוס לעריות. Put a fellow in jail with an armed guard and he will still find a way to fulfill his base desires.

We religious-zionists thought that we are immune to this battle. We thought that we can scale the fence and have one foot here and one foot there and not be affected. We can surf the internet, watch television, read unkosher newspapers even if on the way we see pictures of immodestly clad women. [My addition - I have walked into homes of Rabbanim and noticed that they have the MOST immodest pictures in magazines and newspapers sitting on their dining room table. It is shocking that they are not embarrassed and I wonder why people let their children be taught by people who look at such filth which also includes heavy doses of lashon hara and apikorsus]. We have to "know what is going on in the world". BE OPEN MINDED!! We don't want to be like the Charedim who are primitive. What about shmiras einayim??

We are at war. A war for our home. For its purity and its very existence.

We have to internalize that a kosher phone is not for Charedim only. We also have to guard our eyes. I don't know how I will manage with my new phone which lacks some of the features of the phone I am used to. But one thing I know. I have fulfilled my obligation in waging war on behalf of a stable Jewish home.