Rafi Hecht's Blog

Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Aaron Feinhandler

Some readers have emailed us claiming it was a Purim Prank, we decided to verify the facts of the story, and sure enough it turns out this was a serious event.

Below is an Exclusive interview VIN News Israeli correspond Ezra Reichmann just conducted with the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Aaron Feinhandler, to hear why he decided to publicize the computer-pulverizing event.

VIN: What’s so bad about a computer?

Rabbi Feinhandler: The computer and specifically the Internet has broken up many families — both religious and non-religious. For the past 25 years, every week dozens of baalei tshuva from all over the country spend a Shabbos at our yeshiva and I am involved in counseling many of them. I know many people whose sholom bayis was ruined because of it. I have given speeches in countless places explaining how dangerous the Internet is.

On the Internet you see women without their hair covered – so why does your wife have to cover hers? If you see immodest pictures on the Internet, why are you putting up mechitzos at weddings? Why are you sending your children to chareidi chinuch if you’re getting the Islamic and Christian world on the Internet?

The reason we send our children to chareidi chinuch is because we want to keep out everything that is out there. So why are we bringing the Internet into our home? We want to dance at two weddings, but it doesn’t go.

Why did Moshe Rabeinu break the Two Luchos? He did it to shock the Jews. He wanted them to understand that the Golden Calf doesn’t go together with the Two Luchos.

Eliyahu Hanavi did the same thing. He told the Jews of his time: Go with Elokim or go with baal — but you can’t have both together.

VIN: Whose computer did you break?

Rabbi Feinhandler: The computer we broke this time belonged to a photographer. He used his computer to develop his pictures, but then he realized it was causing him to fall spiritually. He decided he’s better off taking pictures with a camera and then he’ll develop the film in a photo shop.

By the way, this is the 3rd time we’ve shattered a computer. The first computer we broke was a $1,000 computer belonging to a bochur who wanted to save himself from the temptation of watching films.

VIN: Don’t you have a computer in your yeshiva’s office?

Rabbi Feinhandler: We have no computer in our yeshiva’s office. How do we print letters? We send a handwritten letter to an office service by fax, and they return it printed instead of by email. We pay them for the service. And we have plenty of office work; we have 75 bochurim in our yeshiva and 40 girls in our girls’ division.

VIN: Why don’t you use computers with Rimon or Netiv filtering servers?

Rabbi Feinhandler: If we can’t get people to get rid of the computer completely, we tell people to use Rimon or Netiv. We don’t like to rely on them, because you can get rid of the filters. We know of people who managed to evade the filters, and then they fell into bad things. We can tell you countless stories of youth who left yeshivos and took off their kipot and girls who stopped dressing modestly because of the influence of the Internet.

Lev L’achim say that 70% of all youths who leave Yiddishkeit is because of the Internet or cellphones.

Our boys visit homes voluntarily to try to get people to remove their computers or at least change to a kosher service with filtering.

VIN: Do your students have computers?

Rabbi Feinhandler: Our yeshiva will not accept students who have a computer or unkosher cellphone. When we make shidduchim for our students, we stipulate that the home they found will not have a computer, they will work on a computer at a workplace only if it has filtering, and they will only use kosher cellphones. We won’t make a shidduch for any of our baalei tshuva unless they agree to these conditions.

It goes without saying that you won’t be accepted to our kolel if you have a computer at home or unkosher cellphone.

VIN: What’s wrong with having a computer at home if you have filtering on it? Isn’t it better to expose kids to the computer in a controlled way, rather than having them go elsewhere to see a computer unsupervised?

Rabbi Feinhandler: We feel you have to get rid of computer from your house, period. From my experience, once you have a computer in the house, your child will get used to seeing films. Chiloni films on discs are everywhere, a dime a dozen. The kid will quickly figure out that when Abba is not home or is sleeping, he can watch chiloni films without them knowing about it. After all, Ima and Aba said it’s OK to use a computer and they see all kinds of things on it too.

In a home where there’s no computer and kids don’t get used to seeing it, the kids don’t go around looking for it.

It’s not just a problem for the kids. It’s a problem for the adults too. The parents start seeing films and other things and that brings a big yerida to the home. If there’s no computer at home, the parents and kids will both be OK and won’t fall into problems.

Many families were broken up through meetings which began on the Internet. We want to save people from tragedy. Even many goyim admit that the Internet destroyed their lives. Kal v’chomer us, the am hakodesh, have to keep away from it.

Having a computer in the house is the same as having a cinema theater in house.

With a nonkosher cellphone, you can get connected to the Internet in a minute. It’s like a cinema theater in your pocket. I can tell you that whoever doesn’t listen to the rabbonim on this matter will fall. The temptation is too huge to withstand. Whoever listens to the rabbonim on this matter will have hatzlacha. Whoever cannot withstand the temptation of getting rid of their computer completely should at the minimum get a filtering service.

VIN: What if you need to work on a computer at home or at work?

Rabbi Feinhandler: They need to work on the Internet for their parnossa? It’s better to clean streets and dirty your body than to work on the Internet and dirty your soul.

Before we examine and analyze it, it may be instructive to examine a well known Gemorah in Meseches Avodah Zarah (2b). The Talmud tells us that in the future the western powers will stand before Hashem and declare that all their technological innovations were made by them for the sole purpose of enabling Klal Yisroel to learn Torah. Hashem responds, “You are the greatest fools in the world! You paved streets and created side streets for your own licentious purposes! You built bathhouses for your own pleasures!”

The greatest of our commentaries pose the question as to how could these western powers be so foolish? Did they not know they did it for their own purposes which had nothing to do with Torah?

Rav Tzaddok HaKohain (Pri Yitzchok Parshas VaYeirah) explains that Hashem’s purpose in all the technological innovation was, in fact, so that Klal Yisroel could better learn Torah. The mistake of the west will lie in self-deception as to their own motives and rationalizations – but the essence of the issue is true. All technological innovation is so that we can better learn Torah.

Which brings us all to a very significant question: Shouldn’t we recognize this point?

Should we not embrace the fact that there is such a thing as the Otsar HaTeshuvos with 25,000 seforim available to be searched and printed, with the Tzuras haDaf? Should we not marvel that Hashem gave us the Bar Illan Responsa project? Can’t we recognize that Microsoft Word has Hebrew and we can all learn and type and write our chiddushim on Chumash, Shas and beyond? Don’t we recognize that Hashem created all these technologies solely for our benefit?

The Smartboard, for example, is an amazing tool for Chinuch. That combined with the Bar Ilan is one of the greatest tools since the Guttenberg press. And speaking of the Guttenberg press – are we not proud of the fact that our ancestors a mere 500 years ago jumped on the technology and printed Rashi on Chumash, Shulchan Aruch, and so many other Seforim?

The technology of the printing press could have and has been used for so much evil. Yet our Rabbonim, Achronim and mechabrim were smart enough to realize that technology should be embraced for Torah – not rejected. Loudspeakers can be used for some real horrific music. Boruch Hashem we use them for Torah. Tape recorders are used to chazar shiurim.

These were why Hashem made them. Anyone that does not recognize this is in violation of numerous Gemorahs and Chazals.

That is why a Youtube video where a laptop is destroyed by a Rosh Yeshiva in a Yeshiva for Baalei Teshuva in Yerushalayim is particularly disturbing. The link can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7A6nKuvuk0&feature=player_embedded for those who wish to see it for themselves. The viewer is left in a state of utter shock. Is this what we have come to? Rachmana Litzlan! Where is the normalcy, the saichel? Boruch hashem such people did not exist in the time of the Guttenberg press.

The question is now, who is more foolish? The western powers who will recognize that technological innovation was in fact so that Klal Yisroel will learn Torah or those who reject the technology and that it is all from Hashem in the first place?

True, with all innovations comes risk, but our task is to learn how to train ourselves to reduce or eliminate that risk, rather than to destroy the technology itself. All our kochos should be directed toward this end. In doing so we should remember the phrase yagata velo matzasa al taamin. We should also remember the notion that ain davar haomed lifnei haratzon.

If we fail to learn this lesson, then we are ignoring the gifts that Hashem has bestowed upon us. That laptop in the Youtube video could have been used to write seforim, it could and should have been used to search Shas and poskim. What we saw was an example of Bal Tashchis that ekkles the sensitivities of Torah Jews everywhere.