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With Hashem's help, 1 Iyar, 5763
In response to the halachic query from the Modi'in
Illit— Kiryat Sefer rabbonim about playing games and
looking at all sorts of movies on computers, the following is
our opinion:
1) Use of Computer for Playing Games
The gemora (Brochos 28b) teaches us: "Prevent your
children from [engaging in] higoyon." Rashi explains
this saying of Chazal to mean: "You should not accustom them
to study Chumash too much since it appeals to
them."
If Chazal instruct us to deter children from studying
Hashem's Torah in an easy and appealing way since it prevents
them from laboring over Torah study, surely they forbid
children's playing various sorts of valueless games that
cause them to detach their thoughts from Torah study. Playing
such games cause a tremendous decline in the child's level of
spirituality.
2) With Regard to Looking at Movies on Computers:
Even if the movies do not contain anything that is
specifically forbidden to see, it is still forbidden to look
at it based on what the Shulchan Oruch Orach Chaim
(307:16) rules: "It is forbidden to read war stories on
Shabbos, and even in the middle of the week it is forbidden
since it is a moshav leitzim (occupation of frivolous
people), and by reading them one transgresses, "Do not turn
to the elilim" (Vayikra19:4) — "You should not
remove Hashem from your mind" (Shabbos 149a).
The Mogen Avrohom (par. 22) writes: "This includes
visiting theaters and circuses that are types of
entertainment as we find in Avodoh Zorah 18b." The
Meiri (Shabbos 149a) writes: "These things [pictures
of people fighting wars and the like] appeal to his heart,
cause him to waste time and make him despair of avodoh
to his Creator."
The Chayei Odom (Hilchos Shabbos 61:1) writes: "These
things appeal to a person's heart and annul his yiras
Shomayim."
What difference is there if he goes to see a movie somewhere
or instead he sits at home and looks at it, like those people
who waste their time? See the gemora (Avodoh Zorah
18a) that teaches us that the punishment for this is
tremendous, that Hashem torments him, and that his livelihood
decreases, Rachmono litzlan.
3) Women and Girls:
Doing this harms even women and girls and distances them from
yiras Shomayim. (See Tosafos, Avodoh Zorah 19a,
that teaches us what is included as prohibited in the
posuk, "How fortunate is the man who walked not in the
counsel of the wicked . . . and sat not in the session of
scorners" (Tehillim 1:1) does not exclude women from
the prohibition.
4) The conclusion from all the above, is that halochoh
forbids using a computer for playing games and looking at
movies even if they do not contain anything that is
intrinsically forbidden for us to look at.
5) Educators of boys and girls are well aware of the fact
that computers distance the soul of the children from Torah
and yiras Shomayim. We therefore warn parents and
educators not to use the computer for entertainment
purposes at all.
I join the above appeal,
HaRav Yosef Sholom Eliashiv
We hereby sign on the above,
HaRav Nissim Karelitz,
HaRav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner
* * *
Menachem Av, 5765
And also I join,
HaRav A. Y. Shteinman
HaRav Shmuel Auerbach, HaRav Chaim Kanievsky
*
The Torah writes the obligation to study Torah in, "If you
follow My decrees" (Vayikra 26:3), and Rashi cites the
teaching of Chazal (Toras Cohanim 26:2), "You should
toil over it." Besides this command itself that is the
Creator's will that itself obligates us, without toil over
one's studies and investing efforts one cannot attain depth
and understanding of them, since this depth is attained only
as a gift from HaKodosh Boruch Hu, as Chazal (Nedorim
55) expound on the posuk, "And from Midbar to Matonoh
. . . " (Bamidbar 21:18).
It is therefore obvious that halochoh forbids using a
computer for playing games and seeing movies even for those
that are intrinsically permitted. Through being careful in
this matter one will be zocheh to fulfill what
Chazal (Avodoh Zorah 5b) write: "Tana Dvei
Eliyahu teach: `For Torah learning a person should always
put himself like an ox with a yoke [on its back] and a mule
carrying a burden.'" And even with regard to women it is
cited above what Tosafos in Avodoh Zorah write,
that these things distance them from yiras
Shomayim.
Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz
