Years ago, I learned with a boy "bi-chavruta". When we weren't learning the Gemara [which he did, when he wasn't looking into the smartphone he had in front of him next to the Gemara as we were learning], we would talk about Hashkafa. He shared with me his non-traditional views on tradition. Afterwards, I found that his father had a blog, which I then read. It turns out that the son was in fact parroting what his father believed. It was like his father talking in the son's voice.
One of his "enlightened" viewpoints was that there is nothing wrong with a married man having female friends. His father has female friends and there is NOTHING wrong with it. He can go for lunch with them and that is fine. I have a pet peeve about people spouting attitudes that undermine basic Kedushas Yisrael, so I argued against: A married man should have one female friend and that is his wife. [It makes me wonder what this boy's mother thought about this].
The year ended, the chavrusa ended, the job ended [BARUCH HASHEM!!! - for them and for me] and that was that.
Some time later there was an article in a major newspaper revealing that this boy's father was "relieved" of his job [what we would call "fired"], a VERY GOOD JOB, after NUMEROUS women accused him of trying to get "too friendly" "against their will" [called in modern legal parlance "sexual harassment". I think again of this boy's mother and what she thought about this. Something tells me that she was less enthusiastic about her husbands "friends". Anyway - Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan already made a whole movie in 1989 whose message was that platonic relationships between men and women don't usually work. It was called "When Harry Met Sally" which was before he went to Yeshiva and became a REAL "Harry". Not that I saw it חס ושלום. A "friend" saw it and told me 😉😉].
This man was a well respected member of a prominent Orthodox community. A pillar of chesed!!!
Lessons:
1] BE CAREFUL what you teach your kids. If they respect and love you enough it will be hard for them not to fully embrace what you teach. If they don't respect or love you enough and thus don't pay heed to what you teach - then you have a different problem...
2] Men should only have male friends. Of course at work and in other situations he will have to interact with females [unless he lives in a cave and never leaves] but he should never forget that he is male and they are female and for the same reason he is attracted his wife [we hope], he can be attracted to them. Even if nothing ever happens - just being attracted to another woman is unholy.
3] Orthodox Jews have a yetzer hara [!!!!]. If they fuel it then it gets worse. So even if you wear a yarmulke, tzitzis and even sport a BLACK HAT on Shabbos - the yetzer sneaks in there somehow. The moment you can let your guard down is the moment that you have no pulse. Until then - you need BIG TIME זהירות [as the מסילת ישרים calls it].
4] If I were this boy's wife [today he is married] - I would keep a close eye on him. מעשה אבות סימן לבנים....
