Society’s Influence on Our Lives: NCSY Kollel 5775

There are two different types of questions or topics in halakha, in hashkafa that one can address. There's one type of question where the question remains constant, the question remains stable, identical throughout the passage of time, and because of that we don't need to reanswer the question, we don't need to reconsider the question anew every time it's asked. If you want to know whether or not it's tochin on Shabbos to cut a piece—thank you—if you want to know whether it's tochin on Shabbos to cut a piece of meat into little pieces, so the answer that אין טוחן אלא בגידולי קרקע is a constant. The question doesn't change over the passage of time, the answer doesn't change. So we know that what our parents did, the way our parents related to that question, the way they conducted themselves is good for us, and the way our grandparents did, the way our great-grandparents did vechulu. Other questions, the question changes. The reality which the question addresses isn't stable and changes. When we talk about how we relate to the culture that surrounds us, how we interact with the culture around us, so the culture that we live in ה'תשע"ה is a very different culture than the culture that existed 25 years ago, than existed 50 years ago, ואל אחת כמה וכמה that existed earlier than that as well. So we can't just literally transpose that well, I know, I heard stories that my parents or my grandparents used to do such and such so obviously that was considered acceptable. I know that my grandparents used to watch TV. So what was on TV 70 years ago? So they watched Leave it to Beaver 70 years ago. Okay, so that was one type of TV program. Today TV programs I think are a little bit different and maybe not quite as innocuous. So it's very important to realize that when we're talking about such a topic, the reality which we're addressing is constantly in flux, is constantly changing, and because of that there's no literal ma'aseh rav. We can't just transpose what our parents, what our grandparents, what earlier generations how they interacted with the culture around them. That's a sort of one programmatic comment. Another programmatic comment is that unfortunately when one talks about this topic, it's very hard not to sound extreme. And the reason for that is not that we are extreme, but we happen to live in a society, in a culture that's very extreme, and because of that, in reacting to the culture, in trying to chart a course of how we can or cannot interact with the culture, of what we can be open to and what we have to close ourselves to, as the culture becomes—to be a little bit less euphemistic—becomes crazier and more immoral by the day, so obviously that dictates, not that we're in any objective or absolute sense being extreme or more extreme, we're just reacting to what's happening around us. Around 40 years ago or so, Rav Soloveitchik already described Western society as being neurotic. So that was 40 years ago. I'm not sure exactly, I'd have to take out the dictionary and the thesaurus to try to figure out what he would say about Western society today. All of which is, again, not to in any way deny or fail to give its fair due; there is a lot that we can and do and should benefit from in the society around us, to give one or two examples, by no means an exhaustive. List, there are very valid and important insights that psychology has to offer that can and are of benefit to us in education, whether it's dealing with learning disabilities, recognizing them, knowing how to treat them. There are lots of positive elements that we can and do and should benefit from. That having been said, there's also an awful lot of insidious influences in the culture around us. And one of the most important things in reflecting on the topic is to realize that perhaps the most insidious, the most deleterious influences are those which we don't necessarily recognize, which are those which are more subtle. To give one or two examples of what that means. There are all kinds of unstated assumptions in the culture in which we live, the culture that surrounds us. And what happens is, beyodin or belo yodin, usually belo yodin, usually without our being aware of that process unfolding, so by osmosis we absorb those or somewhat absorb and are influenced by those axioms, by those unstated assumptions. And the repercussions of that, again it's a process that people are unaware of that unfolds, and the consequences can be catastrophic, literally catastrophic, without no hyperbole, no dibur, loshen hara, they can literally be catastrophic. And one of the prime contemporary examples of that is the widespread confusion and bilbul hamochos about legitimizing the practice of homosexuality. So in the society in which we live, the greatest lobbyists and public relations people in the history of the world are the people who spearheaded this campaign to legitimize the practice of homosexuality in Western society. It's unbelievable what they changed, the way the Western world, something, an idea that was entrenched from Chumash, that the behavior, we're not talking about the person, we're talking about the acting on it, we're talking about the behavior, we're talking about the practice. Something which had been entrenched thanks to the influence of Chumash for thousands of years, they overturned in the matter of a generation. It's mind-boggling. If you're thinking of running for political office, so one of those mushchasim is definitely the person to spearhead the campaign. And what happens is that people, we're surrounded by it, and unless a person is very sensitive to recognizing what the unstated assumptions are and what the axioms are, so it ends up influencing people, ad k'dei kach that one has the unthinkable situation that people who view themselves as Orthodox and who in other areas and facets of their life are Orthodox, challenge a pasuk in Vayikra, challenge a pasuk in Vayikra which categorically forbids the behavior and says that it carries with it an onesh of misas beis din. There's nothing ambiguous about what the Torah says and it's an example again just of how insidious the influence of the culture of the society can be. The next, it's quite clear that having I think the Rav zichrono livracha once said in a drasha, maybe said more than once, I was zocheh to hear it once, that how is it or why is it that Sdom and Amora became the epitome of evil when we read in Shabbos Chazon in the Haftorah כסדום היינו לעמורה דמינו? If you want to say that something is such debauchery, that it's so corrupt, the comparison is to Sdom and Amora. So what was it about Sdom and Amora? There's been a lot of rishus throughout the generations. So the Rav said because in Sdom and Amora, not only were they immoral, but the immorality was legislated. It wasn't only that they were cruel, but they legislated the cruelty. It's a cruel thing not to give tzedakah. It's a cruel thing if an oreach is passing through that the oreach should be attacked and abused. That's cruelty. But the height of cruelty and the height of rishus is when the cruelty, when the immorality is legislated. In Sdom it was legislated that you couldn't give tzedakah. All the rishus was legislated. The culture we live in is not so far in certain respects from that. It legislates the immorality. It legislates the dvarim ha'asurim. The next area in which the society around us will continue to erode Hakadosh Baruch Hu's morality is lo tirtzach when it comes to murder. Having already decimated when it comes to giluy arayos, so the next area will be lo tirtzach. It will go from physician assisted suicide to euthanasia. And here too we have to recognize that there's nothing extreme about our position. There's nothing to be apologetic about. It's Toras emes. And the world we live in is in many respects, again, it has its positive virtues, but in many respects is a corrupt and immoral world. Another example, a much more subtle one, and not one that in any way is being equated with the first two examples, but in terms of our awareness and sensitivity, it's also something we need to be aware of and need to be sensitive to. Again, talking about how certain assumptions in the general society and general culture frame our thinking and therefore frame our reactions without our even necessarily realizing that, is standard of living. We live, the poverty Rachmana litzlan notwithstanding, pockets of poverty in the Western world notwithstanding, we live in a world that's much more affluent and in a society that's much more affluent than in previous generations. And part of that affluence has sort of redefined what moderate living is. We just had the Rashi in this past week's Parshas Eikev that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is אוהב גר לתת לו לחם ושמלה. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves gerim and how does that love express itself? That He provides them with lechem vesimlah. He provides them with bread to eat and clothing to wear. So we would think He loves them, so let Him give a Lexus, let Him give lechem vesimlah. So Rashi says Davar gadol hu. Davar gadol hu. It's not that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is stinting, Rachmana litzlan, or stingy in His love. Davar gadol hu. What does Yaakov Avinu say? Yaakov Avinu says Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I just want You to take care of me, give me everything I need, ונתן לי לחם לאכול ובגד ללבוש. Our definition of what moderate living is is so heavily influenced. but is dictated by the world around us, the size that we assume our houses need to be, the comforts that have to be present in our lives, and all of that is just so driven and so dictated by the society around us and we're not even aware of it. We just look around and since if we're not as extreme, as indulgent as the society, so then we feel that we're being moderate. We feel that we're living moderately. And yet the definition of moderation is one that has to be driven and supplied by our values, by Torah values. It has to be arrived at by consulting the Rambam in Hilchos De'os. The fallout from allowing the world around us to frame and define our thinking about what's moderate as opposed to what's extreme or excessive is twofold. First of all, when we inflate what the definition of moderate living is, when we blur the difference between what's needed and what's a luxury, so then it imposes financial burdens. And the result is that we're then driven to professions that are more lucrative, that often the more lucrative professions also require longer hours in the office and not necessarily engaging in intrinsically meaningful work. And what that means is less time for learning, less time for Tzorchei Tzibbur, less time for family. And a lot of that is just fallout from the inflated standard of living, the inflated definition of what it means to live moderately. The issue is often highlighted when you go to a Simcha. The extravagance and the waste of money that one sees at our Simchas is, well, I won't finish the sentence. I will censor myself what the end of the sentence was going to be but is not good. It's not something that we can necessarily be all that proud of. The other fallout from this inflated definition of what it means to live moderately and again, one which we're not even, often times, aware of the fact that our thinking has been shaped and framed by the society around us is the Chovos HaLevavos says that love of Olam Hazeh. Olam Hazeh in the sense of the physical comforts of Olam Hazeh. Olam Hazeh in that sense. Olam Hazeh represents different things. But Olam Hazeh in the sense of a world of physical pleasure and physical enjoyment, so the Chovos HaLevavos says that love of Olam Hazeh and love of Olam Haba are no more compatible than fire and water. A person can be oriented towards materialism, a person can be oriented towards hedonism, a person can be oriented towards seeking and trying to get as much physical pleasure out of this life as possible or a person can be oriented towards Ruchnios. And those two are at odds. There's a struggle between those two. The more we're influenced again and it's so challenging because it just happens for most of us imperceptibly without being aware of it but the more our thinking and the more our definition of terms such as what's moderate, what's a necessity, what's a luxury, the more that's driven by the world around us, so the non-Jewish world lives for Olam Hazeh. The non-Jewish world, whatever lip service is paid, so not too many of them are really focused on Chayei Olam Haba. This world is the stage in which to to to get to get the the enjoyment and when that drives our definitions of what's moderate of what we need and how and how we live so then it again with understatement it interferes with the התקן עצמך בפרוזדור כדי שתיכנס לטרקלין it interferes with our ultimate mission and destiny in life which is to come to Chayei Olam Haba. So those are three examples of where there are certain axioms in the society around us axioms which at their core at their root are antithetical to Torah. Again whether it's the whole legitimization of the practice of homosexuality the practice again we're not talking about a person who feels that way but doesn't act on it we're talking about the practice whether it's the whether it's the whole approach to Lo Sirtzach and chipping away at Lo Sirtzach physician-assisted suicide suicide the pashus is is murder is not less morally heinous than than murder and all the euphemisms of death with dignity and all that are a way of trying to paint over something which is morally heinous and and one of the three cardinal aveiros in the Torah and the third area again not to equate it with the other two at all but the third area again where there are axioms which which our society acts upon is in terms of defining standard of living what's moderate what's excessive to maybe just quickly because I I would like to stop in time for if there if there are any questions just to mention a couple of other couple of other issues. Certainly one of the biggest challenges of of the current generation which previous generations did not have to deal with is the challenge posed by the by the internet. The challenge of the internet it's important that we recognize is really a twofold challenge. One obviously is all the sites on the internet that should not be visited that that where we where we shouldn't go because of the extraordinary extraordinary incitement of Yetzer Hara which which they afford but there is a second also very very important nisayon associated with the internet that we need to be aware of and that's just bittul zman wasting time. Even if even if one has a filter on the internet which one doesn't bypass and and it keeps one away from all the all the wrong sites you can just waste an awful lot of time on the on the internet it's it's too enticing maybe even at a certain point addictive and it's important to to recognize that that both of those nisyonos are present in in dealing with this technological revolution in our society that so much so much is is linked to the internet. How do we try to how do we try to deal with it? So the first thing is again not to accept the assumptions of the society around us. When you in a few years from now when im yirtzeh Hashem you're getting married and you're establishing your home and you're establishing your family so don't take for granted that the same way a house nowadays has indoor plumbing and has an electric or a gas stove that it has to have internet. Maybe maybe it will have to maybe you will need it but there's no reason that that should be an automatic assumption the fact The fact that it's an automatic assumption, that it's a given for the society around us, so what? So why does that mean that it has to be? And one has to distinguish between convenience and need. If a person needs the internet if it's work related and work related that can't sort of be limited to when one is in the office, okay, so that's davka need. But one needs to we need to be sensitive to the distinction between convenience and need and convenience doesn't justify the Gemara in Sanhedrin says לעולם אל יביא אדם עצמו לידי נסיון. We're not supposed to invite nisyonos. There are enough nisyonos which are built into life, which are endemic to life, we're not supposed to look to to increase to pile on the the nisyonos. So the first thing again when it's when it's your decision what happens in the home is there's no reason to take for granted that your home has to have has to have internet. Again maybe that will be the decision but there's no reason that that should be a given and the discussion should begin with that without any without any foregone conclusions. If whether it's in the home or elsewhere it's hard to imagine that one isn't going to be exposed to internet so avada the normal precautions that are recommended of filter and or buddy system and or using it in a public place all the precautions are are very much encouraged. All the Rabbanim, psychologists, everyone who deals with this problem they all say that it's it's staggering the amount of damage lives that have been ruined because of addictions which have come about as a result of unfettered use of the internet. And it happens it happens without being poteiach peh l'satan we shouldn't think that the people it happens to are that different or different at all than than we are. And we're not supposed to invite nisyonos. The nisyonos are very are very real so all of these precautions should be taken. Ultimately and in addition in addition to these precautions so we need to be we need to be mischazek. We need to fortify ourselves and I don't say this facetiously and I don't nor do I say it to be to be humorous but if a person would take two minutes out before he has to go onto the internet and learn a paragraph from Shaarei Teshuvah, learn two lines from Mesillas Yesharim, learn two lines from Chovos HaLevavos so then hopefully that that would put him in a frame of mind to use the internet for what it can be used for very very effectively and very efficiently and and halevai not to be drawn into again neither the bitul zman nor even even worse rachmana litzlan. And finally and then we'll stop and if if there are any questions, comments or whatever as as our society has gone downhill in terms of its immorality so one of the ways in which this is so vividly reflected is in the sort of popular culture in in once upon a time there were magazines like as far as I know they still I think they still exist Time Magazine, Newsweek Magazine and they were considered serious serious magazines which were dedicated to news. So as the society has gone downhill and as the way to improve the the bottom line in terms of sales is that everything should be sensationalized and sensationalized in in a way that that tramples over all all inyanei tzniyus so again the fact that the fact that your parents or grandparents read these magazines 20, 40 years ago it's not the same culture that. None of these things are the same. They reflect where the society is. And as the society around us increasingly loses all sensitivity to inyonei tznius, to kedusha vetahara, it gets reflected and there's less and less available which one could stamp with an OU or a Star K in terms of what the popular culture has to offer. So I think I'll stop there if there are any questions. I think the approach that was... I thank you for the question, maybe to make explicit what I left overly implicit is A, that we should be aware of all the assumptions on which society is built. Again, the assumptions that we tried to list and just once you shine a spotlight on them, so then it exposes just what the assumptions are and it sends a very loud message of no, it's got nothing to do with trying to legislate immorality, it's got nothing to do with compassion or anything like that. So A is to be aware of these... to be aware of the assumptions. B is to know that because the society has gone, again, downhill so precipitously that just honestly, there's just... I don't know whether any book... I don't know how many books in terms of popular literature are written nowadays or in the past twenty-five years that one can read that don't come under the category of divrei cheishek? I don't know. I don't really... can't say that I monitor the New York Times top ten bestsellers, but it would be very surprising. So just to be aware of it and that a person should fill those needs elsewhere, but to recognize just what the society is and to realize that the fact that we have to increasingly insulate ourselves from society is not because... nothing to do with we're becoming radicalized, but just to realize how immoral the society around us is. Do you think that this generation, the challenges are much greater than say twenty or fifty or a hundred years ago, or is it in every generation people felt that what's around them was the worst it's ever been? I think it's the Skvere Rebbe that they quote... I'm not positive, so don't quote me on that in case I'm misattributing, but I think it's the Skvere Rebbe said that if a Chassid takes a bus ride from Skvere into downtown Manhattan, they're potentially exposed to more pritzus during that one trip than their zeides in Europe were throughout the course of an entire lifetime. So I think as your question suggests, unquestionably, yeah, the nisyonos are greater, we're just surrounded by it. We're just surrounded by it. The world around us is obsessed with pritzus. The definition of humor is that it has to involve pritzus or מלבין פני חברו ברבים. You can be yotzei with that also. So as the culture on the one hand is just becomes increasingly immoral, meichad gisa, umei'idach gisa, we're more integrated into the culture around us than in previous generations. So the nisyonos are greater than they ever were before. One hundred percent. That doesn't mean... it doesn't mean that we can't overcome them. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't overcome them, but we need to recognize... Is there anything positive you think the homosexual agenda brought out, such as like, a demand for like, ahava, rachmanus, and like, being understanding more? It's like, so it's not besides the fact that they're being accepted, there's more understanding in a positive society. The alleged appeal for compassion and empathy is a way of manipulating people. Because there are two totally different issues which are intentionally confused and intentionally conflated. Avada there should be complete understanding and empathy for someone who has such inclinations and is committed to living al pi Torah and is committed to living according to what Hakadosh Baruch Hu said. Avada there should be understanding and of course there should be empathy and of course there should be a discreet support system for such a person. What the world around us does is very cynically and very intentionally confuse and conflate that with legitimizing what Hakadosh Baruch Hu said is absolutely prohibited. It cynically tries to manipulate public opinion by pressing the right buttons of compassion and love and tolerance. Those are all the right buttons to press. And it cynically uses that to manipulate people to try to undermine what Hakadosh Baruch Hu said is asur. In a different context, the Gemara says it attributes, as it were, these words to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, אי אתם רחמנים יותר ממני. You can't be more, we can't be more compassionate than Hakadosh Baruch Hu. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu said that the practice is categorically prohibited, then it's categorically prohibited and there's nothing intolerant about that and there's no lack of compassion in that. אי אתם רחמנים יותר ממני. We're not, we don't have a capacity to surpass Hakadosh Baruch Hu in terms of rachmanus. So all of that is cynical manipulation. It's cynical manipulation because there's no connection between being compassionate and being empathetic and helping a person remain faithful to devar Hashem and between trying to be oker gufei Torah. And it's again, cynically and intentionally confused and conflated. Their agenda is not ve'ahavta lere'acha kamocha. It could be some people, many people end up being manipulated without realizing that they're being cynically manipulated. But the driving force has got nothing to do with ve'ahavta lere'acha kamocha, nothing to do with understanding. The driving force is to write a pasuk in the Chumash out of the Torah. How do you feel about punishment? Do you consider it too harsh, or is it okay about how it stands? I think the Ran in Sanhedrin talks about that the malchus does have a right to give, does have a right to give the death penalty. So I don't think that would fall into the rubric of what we were talking about. Because I was thinking about the question that societal morals, as well as governmental laws in America, have increased over time. But they stand test by the idea that to be able to do whatever you want, however immoral it is, as long as it doesn't affect another person. So while that makes sense for homosexuality, murder is a little bit of a catch. As you said, euthanasia and all those things are borderline. But do you think that the immorality will go so far as to say that, no matter what, whether you harm another person, stealing, killing, as long as you're not hurting, those are the things that they said as a law, because those laws protect the person. Or is it all morality is going down the toilet, or is it just the kind of things that don't affect others? What will remain of immorality is what's convenient. Lema'aseh, people don't like to be... But this is I apologize this is the last question. In the debate about abortion so at one point the anti-abortion people released a film showing what the fetus looks like and just how fully formed and how you can recognize all the features in the all the human features in the fetus at a point when abortion is entirely legal and there was an outcry at these at these outrageous tactics scare tactics that they were using. That was the pushback. The society we live in is interested in convenience. Sometimes a woman gets pregnant and she doesn't want to be pregnant so it's inconvenient. It's inconvenient for whatever reason she doesn't want it so it's inconvenient. So morality is then reshaped to to conform to what we want and what we need. And when people and when in hospitals and in hospices they don't feed terminally ill patients and they package that as death with dignity so you should know that the reality is that they're starving those people to death. And טובים היו חללי חרב מחללי רעב one of the most cruel painful deaths is to starve to death and there are not too many ways of leaving this world that are more cruel and more inhumane and everything is everything is packaged. Why? Because families want to move on. Here this person is sick he's stuck so the person is a treifa the person is a goses the person is not going to recover. The family wants to move on the family doesn't want to be burdened with a prolonged gesisa with a prolonged death. So what do you do? So the same way the same way the society packages abortion as pro-choice. The euphemism. Our society operates with euphemisms which distract from reality. So abortion instead of instead of being called murder so abortion abortion is called pro-choice and starving helpless terminally ill parents to death is is called allowing them to die with dignity. The reality is and it's ma'aseh bechol yom it's ma'aseh bechol yom people are starved to death. They're not given they're not given people who are in the last stages of rachmana litzlan of of cancer something rachmana litzlan when they're totally vulnerable and totally defenseless they can't say or do anything in their own defense so under the veneer under the cover under the facade of death with dignity they're simply they're simply starved to death. So what will society won't decide that it's convenient to be able to shoot anyone down in the street like in the wild wild west because maybe they'll shoot me. But as long as people are young and healthy for some reason it doesn't occur to people that someday they may be the person who's old and sick and who's going to get starved to death. We don't think that way. People who are young are caught up in the moment so they don't identify with that. So no I don't think they're going to go back to the wild wild west but but lo tirtzach is going to increasingly be eroded in in terms of suicide in terms of euthanasia. It's clear that that's the direction in which the society is headed. Thank you very much Rabbosai.