Of course they are. But like with everything in life, there can always be improvement, as the verse says, “There is not a righteous person on earth who does good and never sins.”

One of the areas in need of improvement is summer vacation. Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, Chief Rabbi of Tzfat, spoke about this in the weekly Torah class that he has been conducting since his father, former Israel Chief Rabbi, Rav Mordechai Eliahu, fell ill last year – may he have a complete and speedy recovery. What follows is a summary of his warnings, teachings, and advice.

One of the mitzvahs that parents have is to educate their children and keep them from away from harmful influences. During the year, parents, to a very large measure, entrust this mitzvah to their children’s teachers and schools. But come summer vacation, the mitzvah falls back upon the parents in all of its force.

Do you know what your children are watching?

One of the ways a parent must guard his child from negative influences is by keeping him or her away from the television. Leaving the kids in front of the TV screen for hours on end is a sure-fire way to fry their brains and their morals, since television shows are permeated with, and glorify, all kinds of immorality, violence, and perverted, non-Jewish values. It is forbidden for a parent to leave a child in front of the television, and think that the resulting damage is not their responsibility.

Regarding the Internet, the fact is that pornography receives more clicks than all other sites, and Jewish children (and their parents) are not immune from the temptations. Therefore, installing a filter is an obligation upon parents so that the junior surfers at home can’t get into forbidden sites. While Rabbi Eliahu recommends the filter, Internet Rimon, for people in Israel, there are many effective filters which can be downloaded, often free of charge, by doing a simple search for anti-pornography filters. And a good way of repenting for having entered immodest sites in the past is to warn friends of the danger and advice them to download filters too.

A parent must remember that someone who looks at erotic material on the Internet is violating the Torah commandment, “Thou shall not stray after your hearts and your eyes which lead you astray.” A person may be Orthodox, yet his heart and eyes may be totally polluted by making light of this commandment.

Judaism-Lite

This is called “Dati-Lite.” A person can be is dati (Orthodox) in most aspects of his life, but when it comes to having a TV at home, or unlimited Internet access, or going to mixed swimming pools and beaches, he pretends that the Torah doesn’t forbid these spiritually polluted activities.

The Rambam lists this transgression as one of the twenty-four things that stand in the way of repentance: “Someone who looks at sexually immoral images and tells himself that he isn’t doing anything wrong, saying, ‘Did I actually fornicate or caress her?’ He acts as if gazing at forbidden things is not a serious sin. Yet this brings a person to actually committing sexual wrongdoing.”

Someone might protest, “Who can live like this? This means that you can’t even walk down a street where you might encounter women in immodest attire!” This is not so. If a man has no other way to get to his destination than to pass though an area where he knows women are to be found immodestly dressed, it is considered that he is acting under compulsion, having no other choice. If he averts his eyes and goes on his way, he is not considered a transgressor. But if there is another way to reach his destination, yet he choices to proceed via the route where immodesty is sure to be found, even if he averts his gaze from looking at the immodest women, he is considered a wicked person (Talmud, Baba Batra, 57B).

It is obvious from this ruling that going to mixed beaches and swimming pools is forbidden. This applies to watching TV, surfing the Internet, or reading magazines where immodest imagery is prevalent. For no one is forcing him to watch TV, or click onto the web, or read the magazine or newspaper. Not going to mixed beaches and swimming pools is not just some super “Haredi” ultra-Orthodox over-precaution, but a clear ruling of the Talmud. On this, our Sages have stated, “Someone who gazes at a woman with the intention of deriving pleasure from the sight has no portion in the world to come.” But if he is on his way home, with no other route to take, and he sees a woman in immodest attire and turns his gaze away, he is not to be faulted for this.

A G-d fearing person must also avoid attending concerts and other types of musical performances where there is mixed seating.  While music has the ability to raise the soul to the heights of spiritual inspiration and religious devotion, it can also lower a person the depths of immoral passions and unrestrained behavior.  The main thing is the intention behind the song and the intention of the musicians. Thus a parent must examine the nature of any upcoming concert before he lets his child attend what can turn out to be a sordid excuse for an orgy of unbridled emotions.

Concerning summer camps where boys and girls have separate activities, but are housed in close proximity, this is certainly not conducive to holiness and should be avoided. But if the choice is between sending a child to such a camp, or to leave him free to go to mixed beaches, the option of unsupervised days at the beach is far worse.

It may be luxurious, but is it Jewish?

From the outset, everything should be judged in the light of holiness. This applies to choosing a resort for a vacation holiday as well. Is the dining room really kosher? Can a gueat really keep the laws of Shabbat? Does the swimming pool have separate hours for men and women? Are dress codes up to the standards of modesty, or relaxed because of the summer heat? Will his room overlook the swimming pool? For even if he doesn’t look at the women there, he is putting himself in a forbidden situation to begin with, as noted above.

So before you make your vacation plans, do a little research before you make reservations. Remember, you can take a vacation from work or from school, but you can’t take a vacation from the commandments of the Torah.     

I mean if you are going to let women parade half naked around the streets of Jerusalem, then you have to let the gays parade around too. What’s the difference? It’s a democratic country, isn’t it? If you support women’s rights, then you have to support gay rights as well.

On with the Parade!

If you want to protest against the gay parade on the basis of Torah, then you have to protest against the parade of immodestly dressed women as well. Both are forbidden by the Torah. What’s the difference?

Candy shop window

In fact, the daily parade of under-dressed women may be even worse. The Torah forbids homosexuality, but it does not forbid homosexuals to walk down the street. In contrast, a Jewish woman is not allowed to parade the streets with her poopik showing like some belly dancer from Beruit; or with her chest on display like the cheap wares in a discount store window; or with her behind bursting out of her bottoms; or with her bare legs stretching along across the street from Acco to Beer Sheva; or with her naked back and shoulders reflecting the glare of the sun like the solar panels on Jerusalem rooftops.

Blinded by the light...of G-d and truth and right

So if you are one of those who staunchly maintain that women should be left alone to parade around half naked on the streets of the Holy City, then you should defend the rights of gay people as well to conduct their parade.

Be fair. Be liberal. As the songs says, “Live and let live. Your business is your business, and my business is mine.”  

Once upon a time, kids could escape the summer heat by staying indoors. But today, with the advent of the Internet, staying indoors means getting all heated up even more. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has a poster on the streets proclaiming that the Internet is the “Father of Spiritual Impurity.” Thousands of Jews are being lured away from the Torah by the pull of Internet pornography, the poster declares.

If you don't have a filter, this is where your computer belongs.

Now that summer vacation is upon us, any parent who hasn’t done so already, will download an anti-pornography filter if he cares about his children. In our home, we have three different filters to make sure our little Einsteins can’t crack the security codes. In Israel, the Rimon filter is very popular, but it has to be kept at a high safety level to prevent kids from getting into youtube, which is loaded with smut.

Instead of relying on your home computers to keep your kids busy, find your children things that are more constructive, like summer study programs, sleep-away religious camps, sport activities, part-time work, and the like.

Parents who don’t install an anti-porn filter are transgressing the commandment, “Do not put a stumbling block in front of the blind,” and several other prohibitions as well.

Why procrastinate? Save yourselves and your children today!     

We mentioned that to rectify the sin of the Spies, who despised the cherished Land, we have to love the Land of Israel more than anywhere else. So here’s another tribute to the Land of Milk and Honey.

The land of milk and honey - South Africa

The land of milk and honey - France

The land of milk and honey - Melbourne

The land of milk and honey - Toronto

The land of milk and honey - Brooklyn

Oops! There must be some mistake. How silly of me! But this is exactly what Korach’s followers maintained. Like the Spies, they too wanted to remain in the wilderness, protected by the miraculous Clouds of Glory, where they could learn Torah in all-year-round air-conditioned comfort, without having to meet the physical challenges and dangers of conquering and settling the Land of Israel. True, Korach and his crowd were top Torah scholars, the heads of the Sanhedrin, but they knew that a new type of leader would be needed upon entry into the Land, so they rebelled against Moshe.

Still, Moshe wanted to give them a second chance to repent before their fate was sealed, so he called them to the Mishkan for a meeting. As it says:

“And Moshe sent to call Datan and Aviram, the sons of Eliav, but they said, ‘We will not come up (lo n’aleh); is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, and you will make yourself a prince over us?....Lo n’aleh!’” (Bamidbar, 16:12-14)

“Lo n’aleh!” they told him. We won’t make aliyah! Not only that. They called Egypt the land flowing with milk and honey! In their craving to stay in the safety of the Clouds of Glory and hold on to their positions of leadership, they turned Egypt into the Promised Land! Gevalt!

The land of milk and honey - Egypt

Because they rejected the Land, the land swallowed them up. They were swallowed up physically, but a person can also be swallowed up culturally and morally too, by the influences of the foreign culture around him, and by personal cravings foreign to the Torah.

A friend of mine who recently returned from a short trip to New York on a family matter told me that one day, while walking along a New York City sidewalk, he heard a small voice coming from below the street. When he went over and put his ear to the manhole covering, he heard voices calling out from the depths, “Fishman told the truth! Fishman told the truth!”

"Fishman told the truth!"

What a shame they didn’t listen.       

For a Jew, every day is Father’s Day. Not just once a year. One of the Ten Commandments is “Honor thy father and thy mother.” It is one of the most fundamental commandments of the Torah.

In many synagogues, a representation of the Ten Commandments, in the form of the Two Tablets of Law, can be found above the ark which houses the Torah scrolls. The five commandments on one side of the tablets concern laws between man and G-d. On the other tablet are five laws between man and his fellow man. Interestingly, the commandment of honoring one’s father and mother are on the side of the tablets dealing with commandments between man and G-d. This is because our parents are our gateway to G-d. It is they who teach us about G-d and the Torah. Therefore, honoring them and the Torah they teach us, is essential to the preservation and continuity of the Torah from father to son, generation after generation.

The full wording of the commandment is: “Honor thy father and mother that thy days may be long in the Land which the L-rd thy G-d gives thee” (Shemot, 20:12).

Not many commandments come with a clearly stated reward. Please look closely at the reward for keeping this fundamental commandment – that your days may be long in the Land of Israel. Isn’t that interesting!

What’s the connection? Well, if you honor your father and mother, you will respect what they teach you. Since Jewish fathers and mothers are obligated to teach their children the Torah, they will naturally teach their kids that a Jew is supposed to live in the Land of Israel. Part of respecting one’s parents is obeying them when they instruct their children in the ways of the Torah. Thus a child who honors his parents will live in the Land of Israel in line with the Torah’s teachings.

Though my parents were not happy when I told them that I was moving to Israel, I made aliyah anyway. While honoring one’s parents is an essential tenet of Judaism, if parents do not want a child to move to Israel, the child does not have to listen to them, since going on aliyah is a mitzvah, and parents are not allowed to prevent a child from carrying out a commandment of G-d. In my parents’ great merit, even though they strongly disagreed with my decision, they always helped me out financially through the years so that I could observe the commandment of living in Israel, which our Sages tell us is equal in weight to all of the commandments of the Torah.  

Later, when my aging parents became ill, I had the good fortune of bringing them to Israel to live adjacent to my family in Shilo and then Jerusalem. My father, of blessed memory, spent his last nine years enjoying a new life in the Holy Land. At the end of his sojourn in this world, he merited to be buried on the Mount of Olives, alongside the Prophets and great Rabbis of Israel.

How sweet it is! On the terrace in Shilo

Dad’s yahrtzeit is coming up next week. Every day this year has been Father’s Day for me, dedicated to his memory. May the Torah that I continue to learn, and the mitzvot that I and my family keep in the Land of Israel, be our way of celebrating Father’s Day the whole year round, for all of our many years to come in the Land that G-d gave to the Jewish People.

Honor Thy Father and Mother - Escorting Mom and Dad to their Melabev Senior Citizens group in Jerusaelm.

May his memory be for a blessing.