Incredible Afterlife Video!

I thought I had seen just about everything there is to see, but this video blew me away. Remember, I wasn’t born a frum religious Jew. I was a part of the Age of Aquarius/Woodstock Generation. My heroes, may G-d forgive me, were Lenny Bruce, Henry Miller, and the Doors. I spent a few too many sordid years as a screenwriting in Hollywood and a novelist in New York. But this video made my hair stand on end. With the Day of Judgment just around the corner, this guy’s true, out-of-body, afterlife adventure is a great way to wake up to the heavy-duty fate awaiting us if we don’t get our acts together now.  

To see it, click on the link and scroll down the page. Your teenagers should see it too.

Porn in the Pocket

Gevalt! The virus is out of control. A virus far more deadly than Swine Flu. Its germs are all-pervasive, floating everywhere in the air. Gevalt! Gevalt! Who will save us?

The virus is Internet porn.

This week, schools started in Israel. At my 14-year-old-son’s new yeshiva high school, I, along with other parents, attended a welcoming talk from the Rosh Yeshiva. After speaking about the goals of the school, he spoke openly about the dangers of the Internet. He called it a plagued that was wreaking spiritual havoc on the entire generation.

He said he made a survey of two groups - top students and average students. He asked them to estimate what percentage of their friends watched forbidden material on the Internet. The average response rounded out at 85%.

“Once a youth starts polluting his mind with this impurity,” the Rosh Yeshiva said, “It doesn’t take long before he doesn’t show up to pray and has no desire to study. He falls into a depression, thinking that since he is so soiled, what’s the point of praying and studying Torah?”

Besides the computer problem, there is a huge problem now that every youth has a cell phone, he said. Even if parents block the access to Internet from the cell phone company, there are new “Generation Three” wireless phones that can pick up Internet signals from the air. So, while Mommy and Daddy think they have dealt with the problem, their kid is watching porn on his suped-up cell phone and sharing the smut with his friends. And even if the kid doesn’t have wireless capabilities, chances are that he has something called “Bluetooth” which enables him to download all the smut in the world from one of his buddies.  So, while in the old days, a kid had to go through the trouble and embarrassment of finding or stealing a Playboy magazine, today, thanks to modern technology, he has a mansion of playmates in his side pocket.

Poison in your child's pocket.

To put it simply, my friends, (even the most liberal and secular amongst you), the situation is a disaster for the holy people of Israel.

I was happy to hear the Rosh Yeshiva speak about the problem. Educating parents is one of the best ways of getting the situation under control. But it won’t be easy. We are speaking of a horrendous, horrendous problem.

After hearing him, I did a little private investigating on my own. With my work on jewishsexuality.com, I am not what you would call a newcomer to the subject. My home computer has several filters, and I made sure to block access to the Internet when I opened a cell phone line for my son. But, it turned out the phone that he had, a gift from his older brother, was one of the new wireless varieties that can receive Internet anywhere that there is a strong signal in the air. Having already heard about Internet problems with some of his friends in our neighborhood, and speaking with a few other fathers, I put two and two together, and realized I had a tough decision to make.

One the one hand, my son was starting out at a new yeshiva high school, and I wanted him to begin on a happy, positive note. Plus, it is a sleep-away school with a dormitory, and he would be away from our supervision all week long, with all of the difficulties, temptations, and character-building potential involved. I knew that if I took away his cell phone on his very first day of high school, he would flip out, and be angry, not only at me, but with his teachers, the Torah, and the Holy One Blessed Be He as well.

On the other hand, after the speech of the Rosh Yeshiva, how could I let him do more damage to his holy Jewish soul, and possibly get other kids hooked on the poisonous virus?

So, when the opening day’s speeches and meetings with teachers was over, I told my boy that he had a choice – either to hand over his wireless cell phone, which I would replace with a regular model when he got home; or to have me turn off his phone line the next day. Angrily, he told me to turn it off on my own, and walked away in a huff toward his dormitory, without a parting smile or hugging me goodbye, no doubt thinking what a terrible father he has.

The next morning, after discussing the matter with my wife, and obtaining her agreement, I went to his phone server and temporarily disconnected his phone line. All week, he has been without a cell phone. When he comes home at the end of the week, and gives me his wireless phone, I will give him a less highfalutin model in exchange and reopen his line.

I have heard that many parents don’t do what I did, because they don’t want to cause friction between themselves and their children.

Once again, to put the matter in context with Judaism, let’s look at last week’s Torah portion. The Torah states:

“When you go out to encamp against your enemies, keep yourself from every evil thing. If there be among you any man that is not pure because of a nocturnal seminal emission ("mikre liela"), then he shall leave the camp – he shall not come within the camp… for the L-rd your G-d walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you, and to give up your enemies before you; therefore your camp shall be holy, that He see no unclean thing in you, and turn away from you” (Devarim, 23: 11-15).

Holiness is the foundation of the Jewish Nation. The Torah tells us here that the key to G-d’s watching over us and protecting us from our enemies is directly related to our sexual purity. When we are in a state of impurity due to sexual transgression, the Divine protection of the Shekinah flees from us, G-d forbid.

The Talmud explains that when the above Torah verse says to “keep from every evil thing,” it means that a man should not arouse himself by looking at women and fantasizing about them, because this will lead him to the impurity of a seminal emission, and the squandering of the life-force and souls that are contained therein (Avodah Zara 20B).

This is exactly what happens when men and boys gaze at immodest images on the Internet, whether on their cell phones, or on the computer at work or at home. They pollute themselves and the whole Jewish camp around them, causing the Shechinah to flee.

At the end of the Torah portion is the mitzvah to remember what Amalek did to us when “he met you by the way.” The Hebrew verse contains the root of the same word which we saw above – “karcha b’derech.” Rashi explains that the word “karcha” comes from “mikre,” which means a seminal emission. Rashi explains that Amalek led weak members of the Jewish People into sexual sin, and when the holy Clouds of Glory (the protecting Shekinah that surrounded the Jewish camp) spit them out, then Amalek was able to kill them. Rashi goes on to explain that Amalek further castrated these fallen Jews and derisively threw their foreskins into the air toward Heaven, as if to say to G-d – “What’s the difference between your supposed holy people and us?”

The same strategy of luring the Jewish People into sexual sin, and weakening our connection to G-d, is very much with us today, fostered by the spirit of evil behind the perverts and purveyors of pornography who infect all of cyberspace with their murderous viruses of seduction and sin.

Be warned my good friends, be warned. Download a filter on your home computer. And employers must do so at work. And, parents, check out what cell phones your children are carrying, to make sure they don’t have access to the poison which threatens us more than any other enemy today.     

Last Stop - Jerusalem, Part 3

We have seen that the return of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel is a necessary stage in the t’shuva of the individual, and redemption of the Jewish Nation as a whole.

Still only half the way home.

It follows that a Jew who becomes a baal t’shuva (a penitent who returns to a life of Torah) in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, or Toronto, has only returned a part of the way home. While his personal character and behavior have been purified by the light of the Torah, he has traveled only half of the journey. The “t’shuva train” is continuing on to Israel. The final stop is Jerusalem. Every Jew needs to bring his little light home to the Holy Land where it can join the great flame. He has to raise his private, individual life, to the higher life of the “Clal” (the entire Jewish community in all of its generations), by merging his personal goals with the goals of the Nation (Orot HaT’shuva, 4:7).

To rectify the blemish caused by galut (the exile from the Land of Israel), he has to stop living in foreign lands and join the ingathered in Israel. He has to actualize the words of his prayers, “And gather us together from the four corners of the earth” (Amidah prayer). This is the ultimate meaning of the word t’shuva – to return. By bringing our bodies and souls back to where we belong.

Thus, Rabbi Kook writes that the true t’shuva of the Jewish people is in our return to Eretz Yisrael. Again and again, in his letters and speeches, he called the Jewish people to return home to Zion. One public proclamation, sent out all over the Diaspora, years before the Holocaust, was entitled, “The Great Call.”

THE GREAT CALL

“To the Land of Israel, Gentlemen, To the Land of Israel! Let us utter this appeal in one voice, in a great and never-ending cry.

“Come to the Land of Israel, dear brothers, come to the Land of Israel. Save your souls, the soul of your generation, the soul of the entire nation; save her from desolation and destruction, save her from decay and degradation, save her from defilement and all evil — from all of the suffering and oppression that threatens to come upon her in all the lands of the world without exception or distinction....

“Escape with your lives and come to Israel; G-d’s voice beckons us; His hand is outstretched to us; His spirit within our hearts unites us, encourages us and obliges us all to cry in a great, powerful and awesome voice: Brothers! Children of Israel, beloved and dear brethren, come to the Land of Israel - do not tarry with arrangements and mundane matters; rescue yourselves, gather, come to the Land of Israel...

“From the time we were exiled from our Land, the Torah has accompanied Israel into exile, wandering from Babylon to France, Spain, Germany, Eastern and Central Europe, Poland, Russia, and elsewhere. And now, how happy we would be if we were able to say that she has returned to her first place, to the Land of Israel, together with the People of Israel, who continue to multiply in the Holy Land.

“And now, who is so blind that he does not see the L-rd’s hand guiding us in this, and does not feel obligated to work along with G-d? A heavenly voice in the future will cry aloud on top of the mountains and say, ‘Whoever has worked with G-d, let him come and receive his reward’ (Vayikra Rabbah, 27:2).  Who can exempt himself from doing his part in bringing additional blessing and swifter salvation; from awakening many hearts to return to the Holy Land, to the L-rd’s legacy, that other Jews may become a part of it, to settle it with enterprises and buildings, to purchase property, to plant and sow, to do everything necessary for the foundation of life of a stable and organized settlement....”

BANNER OF JERUSALEM

Another public proclamation was addressed to Orthodox communities to urge their aliyah to Israel. In establishing a movement called “The Banner of Jerusalem,” Rabbi Kook called upon all religious Jews to come to Israel to rebuild the nation’s spiritual life, just as the secular Zionists were rebuilding the physical:

“Jews! We call you to the sacred task of building our Jewish Nation in our Holy Land, in Eretz Yisrael. Come to us, rally together under the ‘Banner of Jerusalem’ which we now raise aloft before the whole Jewish religious public.

“We all know the ‘Banner of Zion’ which unites a certain portion of our brethren on the basis of our Jewish secular interests in the Land of Israel. But there are many who have not joined the union of those who bear the Zionist flag, and a great many who feel it impossible to do so. We simply record the plain fact that this is so, without questioning its veracity.

“Yet it cannot be that the largest, most natural, and earnest portion of Jewry, the majority of the Jewish religious public, should remain indifferent to the wonderful events of the present, and not lend a hand in the holy task of building our nation on our sacred soil because of so-called objections....

“Jews, all the loyal believers in the Jewish faith, there can be no doubt that the Divine power is now manifesting itself in us amidst the great world events. We are certainly called to return to our ancient home in the Land of Israel, there to renew our ancient holy life....

“We religious Jews must all profoundly know and believe that the Divine hand is now leading us openly to our high, ideal destiny. We must make known to the whole world, the true meaning of the present wondrous happenings, whose purpose is so clearly the hastening of our redemption and salvation, from which alone will also spring forth the redemption and salvation of all mankind.

“With the flaming, illuminating, Divine faith, with all the luster of our holy Torah, with the vitality of all of the most refined and devout Jews, we shall carry our flag, the ‘Banner of Jerusalem’ by which alone the ‘Banner of Zion’ will also be properly hoisted. For the value of Jewish secular power will be demonstrated to the world only in the light of our holy Jewish spiritual power, emphasized by the uplifted voices of the whole religious Jewish world community, setting with holy enthusiasm to the task of our national construction, of our return to the Land of Israel, by the grace of the Divine and illuminating light, O House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the L-rd.”

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, lovers of Israel, and dedicated readers of Arutz 7, this year, make your t’shuva complete. Come home! Return to the Land! As Rabbi Kook urges – put all of your reckonings and affairs behind. Return all the way. Give up your love affairs with foreign lands, and return to your roots, return to yourselves – return to the Land of your G-d.