IT WON’T HAPPEN TO ME

By A Desperate Parent

I am writing out of desperation and frustration, and in the hope that someone will be able to provide some useful advice. I will skip the preface and begin with the problem:

I live in a pleasant neighborhood, and I am part of a very close knit and caring community. Recently an individual moved into our neighborhood. This person happens to be a very intelligent and suave individual. While he can’t in any way be considered an official Chossid, he is without question a very good friend of the Chassidim, and has provided immeasurable assistance to numerous mosdos.

He is very witty and entertaining, and extremely willing to extend a helping hand to anyone in need. He is always helping out kids with their homework, and in general giving them a good time and keeping them out of their parent’s hair.  He helped one woman fix a broken sink, saving her thousands of dollars. And when anyone needs information about almost anything for any reason, he is a veritable fountain of knowledge.

Needless to say his popularity is soaring. Many in our community bless the day when he decided to join us.

But. . .

But its been whispered for some time, and subsequently confirmed, that this individual has had a very shady past, one in which he dabbled with ideas VERY foreign to Torah and Judaism. Ideas that would be classified as Avodah Zara, one of the three cardinal sins of Yehoreg veal yaavor. Ideas that he has never fully renounced to date.

When this information began coming to light there was a subtle but persistent campaign by various members of our community to warn parents against allowing their children to associate with this individual. I mean, we all continued to treat him royally, we continued to respect his virtues and varied talents, but the protection of our children should be our number one priority. Right

To my surprise and chagrin, the campaign met with little to no success. Not that anyone challenged the information. On the contrary, every yenta had their own little tidbit to enhance the developing story. But as far as concerns for the safety of our own children, these were dismissed as unrealistic and fatalistic.

Some time went by, and the teenage son of one of the fine and upstanding families in our neighborhood began showing laxity towards crucial aspects of Yiddishkeit, while espousing ideas that he had definitely not heard from his Rebbe in Yeshiva. It took little investigation to trace the source of the problem to the above individual.

While sharing in the sorrow of a fellow Jew, I was certain that this cloud had a silver lining. At least now the danger would finally be recognized, and everyone else would take appropriate precautions for the future.

To my shock and dismay I was wrong. Again.

While feeling genuine sympathy for what their neighbor was experiencing, the overall response of the neighborhood parents was that this teenager must have been heading astray from the start, and they still didn’t believe that their own children were in any risk.

The story doesn’t end there.

Shortly after the above incident some new information came to light. This fellows past escapades included even worse incident than what had previously become known (suffice it to say that there were others of the three cardinal aveiros). What’s more, he had a record of improper contact with children in the past, with catastrophic results.

Undaunted by their earlier failures, some diehards embarked on yet a third campaign to show people the folly of their ways. And still nothing changed in our community.

Not that anyone questioned the information. Nor did anyone bring to light anything that could exonerate him. Yet everyone chose to look only at what they could see of him and of his interaction with their children, and he continued to be a welcome guest in the majority of the homes in our neighborhood.

And then came the last blow. It was discovered that he had been making available to some local children indecent publications.

By now I was certain that everyone would be convinced that this person was merely a demon disguised as an angel

Could you believe that I was still wrong

Though its true that many people, at this point, did see the light, there were many others who persisted in coming to his defense, pointing out that he didn’t show anything to anyone who didn’t themselves ask for it, and that if anyone is at fault it is the parents of the victims etc. etc.. They insisted on focusing on all of his positive qualities, pointing out that anyone seeking inappropriate reading materials would have easy access to them anyways, even without this persons help.

I still see this individual as a prominent shabbos guest in most homes, and as an esteemed participant at all kinds of programs and functions (including children’s functions, where he continues to have unsupervised interaction with local children).

I (and others) beg people: Don’t let him into your house!! KEEP HIM AWAY FROM YOUR CHILDREN!! But alas our words are falling on deaf ears. The women promise to discuss it with their husbands. The men say they’ll discuss it with their wives. BUT NOTHING CHANGES.

This is where my story ends, and my plea begins. It may or may not be my affair, but there is an injunction in the Torah LO TAAMOD AL DAM REIECHO! We just can’t sit back passively and witness tens of families destroy their children slowly but surely.

What should we do?! What can we do

All of the above is a true story. Not only that, but it is taking place not in one community, but in almost every community around the world. In fact, many of you are probably familiar with the individual in question. His name starts with a W. Three of them in fact. And his last name is always dotcom or dotnet or dotsomethingorother. He is the Internet a.k.a. chatrooms a.k.a. email/instantmessaging. The invasive stranger from Cyberspace.

Surely you heard speeches decrying the dangers of the Internet. Surely you’ve heard from rabbanim and mechanchim about the great risks inherent in email and chat rooms. Surely everyone has read all kinds of articles lamenting the great damage that has actually been caused (to young and old alike) by various aspects of the Internet. Some articles may have even been very convincing (you know, the ones you downloaded from the internet so that you can email them to a friend).

And yet this vile object continues to be a welcome guest in the majority of Jewish homes. We continue to benefit from its multitude of services, from helping our children with their homework, to saving us money on plane tickets, to organizing our affairs.

It continues to hold a prominent place in many homes. All the while corrupting our youth, perverting their minds, and defiling the very essence of our family purity.

None of this is even a drop of an exaggeration. On the contrary: it is understating the problem. I don’t think anyone today still questions the dangers entailed. And most people must know families who were personally impacted by this blessing of modern technology.

What more will it take for us to open up our eyes, to take action before its too late? How many victims do there have to be before we acknowledge that the danger is genuine? How many casualties before we pay heed to all the horror-stories

The point of the above is very simple: If you care at all about the future and spiritual wellbeing of your children GET RID OF THE INTERNET FROM YOUR HOUSE! BREAK THE MODEM! DESTROY ANYTHING THAT PROVIDES INTERNET ACCESS! If the only way to do this is to get rid of your computer, then by all means GET RID OF IT.

At the very least download this article and email it to a friend. And chalk up another credit to the Internet.

CREDIT: RABBI WAGNER TORONTO