Internet Cancer

Posters have been plastered all over billboards in Israel warning that Internet surfing causes cancer. In large, bold black lettering, the posters note that the gematria (numerical value) of the Hebrew letters spelling Internet is the same as the gematria of the Hebrew word for cancer. Both add up to 319.

Public Warning

The posters are referring to the widespread availability of pornography on the Internet, and warning of the very real dangers it can cause. Make no mistake, looking at erotic images on the Internet, in whatever form they take, is a violation of the Torah. Among the several commandments that a person violates when he gazes at immodest images is, “You shall not stray after your heart and your eyes which cause you to go astray.” In one sitting, a surfer can violate this commandment dozens of times, engaging himself in a severe transgression of the Torah for hours on end.

One should not deceive oneself by saying, “What did I do? I only looked. I didn’t do any forbidden deed.” The very looking at pornography and its offshoots is a forbidden deed. Fantasizing about sexual wrongdoing is equally forbidden. And because a person’s eyes and thoughts are connected to the highest spiritual worlds, the damage he or she causes is devastating, severing one’s connection to everything holy, with grave physical consequences as well.

A recent TV show in America dealt with the 13 billion dollar porn industry. The porn industry is a global obsession. Every second, 3,075 dollars are spent on adult content; every second, more than 28,000 Internet users are viewing porn; and every 39 seconds, a new pornographic video is produced in the United States.

Noteworthy is the finding that 70 percent of all online porn access occurs during the nine-to-five workday. Here are just a few of the most likely behavioral clues:

·       Hiding Internet use or secretive behaviors.

·       Declining work performance.

·       Withdrawing from others.

·       Increased irritability.

·       Losing sleep and declining health.

·       Declining interpersonal skills.

·       Inappropriate sharing of sexual beliefs with others.

Please don’t take this lightly. Protect yourselves and your families by installing anti-porn filtering systems today. Don’t trust yourself with the password and code. Also, click on our jewishsexuality.com website and read through the articles and Questions and Answers. Check out the Pornoholics Anonymous section, even if you think it doesn’t apply to you. Heaven is patient, but don’t be foolish and wait for the axe to fall.

Please.

Chocolate Chip Cookies and the Land of Israel

Believe it or not, chocolate chip cookies were one of the things that made me realize that a Jew’s true place is in Israel. When I started to learn about Judaism in Hollywood, someone told me that a Jew has to say a blessing before and after eating, in order to thank G-d for the sustenance He gives us. For instance, after eating a chocolate chip cookie, one says the following:

“Blessed art Thou, L-rd our G-d, King of the universe, for all of the nourishment and the produce of the field, and for the lovely and spacious Land which You didst grant to our fathers as a heritage to eat of its fruit and enjoy its good gifts….”

My friend explained to me that the Land which G-d had given to our forefathers was the Land of Israel.

That’s strange, I thought. I mean, since I was in America, wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to thank G-d for California, or for the wheat fields of Kansas? But that’s not what the blessing said. A Jew was to thank G-d for Eretz Yisrael. The blessing said we were “to eat of its fruits and enjoy its good gifts.” That was funny, I thought.

The blessing after eating cookies continues:

“Have mercy, L-rd our G-d, on Israel Your nation, on Jerusalem Your city, on Zion the abode of Your majesty, on Your altar and on Your Temple.”

Hmm, I thought. That’s interesting too. Why didn’t it say, “Have mercy on America Your nation, on Los Angeles Your city, on Hollywood the abode of Your majesty, on MGM Studios and on Grauman’s Chinese Theater?”

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Obama praying at Grauman's.

Archeological remants of America's biblical past - Footprints of Roy Rogers and horse, Trigger

The blessing after eating cookies continues:

“Rebuild the holy city of Jerusalem speedily in our days. Bring us there and gladden us with the restoration of our Land; may we eat of its fruit and enjoy its good gifts; may we bless you for it in holiness and purity.”

Wow! That was really a mindblower. I mean, be honest. Look what the blessing says. After eating some chocolate chip cookies in LA, or a slice of pizza in Toronto, or one of those big salty pretzels off a push cart in New York, we ask G-d to rebuild Jerusalem and to bring us to the Land of Israel! We ask G-d to make us happy “with the restoration of our Land.”

Wow, I thought. America isn’t my land. My Land is the LAND OF ISRAEL.

As far as I knew, no one had put any hashish in the chocolate chip cookie, but it blew my mind all the same!

A Jew was supposed to eat the fruits of the Land of Israel and enjoys its good gifts – not the gifts of America, Australia, Canada, or France! Israel was our Land. America, Australia, Canada, and France were meant for the goyim.

Also, I couldn’t help but notice, a Jew was also supposed to bless the L-rd in holiness and purity, in the Holy Land – not in the impurity of foreign countries!

And if the message wasn’t clear, the end of the blessing repeated it another two times, “Blessed are You, O L-rd, for the Land of Israel and for the food.”

All that I learned from a chocolate chip cookie!

Crying over the Diaspora Jew

The Sages enacted special restrictions and signs of mourning on Tisha B’Av, and the Three Weeks preceding it, to remind us that the longing for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and for the ingathering of the exiles should always be the center of our lives.

The “Pele Yoetz” states:

“It is true that mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temple is something that should be expressed in outward actions, especially during the Three Weeks, when one should put ashes on one’s head at the place where one lays tefillin, and sit by the doorway day and night to recite Tikun Hatzot. Still, the main thing is not the outward actions, but the feelings one has in one’s heart. One should feel brokenhearted, shed bitter tears, and sigh mournfully over the pain of Heaven. This depends on one’s level of knowledge and insight, one’s love of G-d, and the purity of one’s soul. 

“It may be true that today we have fallen to a very low level, and no one understands the full extent of what we are missing and what we have lost, what we have caused because of our sin, and what the exile of the Shechinah really means. Our very lack of understanding and sensitivity should fill us with anguish. Even so, each person is obligated to do what he can. One should imagine how he would feel if his mother was swathed and garbed in black, and was crying bitterly and shrieking, ‘The pain in my head! The pain in my arm! I brought up children, I raised them, and they rebelled against me!’ One should focus one’s mind and heart on similar bitter images and pour out one’s soul in a bitter cry, and then one may be worthy of seeing the consolation of Zion and the building of our Holy Temple in all of its glory, soon in our days.”

Bernie Loves Bridget

As Rabbi Eliezar Paapo, the “Pele Yoetz,” makes clear, it isn’t easy to rise up to the level where you can experience actual anguish over the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile. To help myself, I think about the Jews in the Diaspora, my brothers and sisters who are dwelling in the darkness in Toronto, New York, LA, Manchester, and Johannesburg. I picture them going happily about their lives, lost, ignorant of their true situation, unconcerned or indifferent to the Shechinah’s terrible pain that her holy children are living amongst the heathens in the far corners of the earth. I think about all of my dear brothers who have married gentiles and unknowingly abandoned their souls. This awakens in me a profound sadness and sorrow, and then I can recite the Tikun Hatzot with true feeling, if not with the flowing tears that I’ve seen in the eyes of genuine Tzaddikim.

May our brothers and sisters, in all of their exiles, all return soon, on their own, ahead of the ever-increasing assimilation, and persecutions, that will surely come, with the speedy rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash and Jerusalem. Amen.