After discussing problematic Internet usage, Rabbi Sternberg referred us to two mechanchim who deal with this matter, each of whom has a different approach to handling the Internet. One recommends focusing on chinuch and the other says we must block and filter. * See how an approach that utilizes both approaches in tandem is the best formula for averting problems.
In last week’s interview, the first in a series of articles on the Internet, Rabbi Shlomo Sternberg explained how dangerous the Internet is. Many people felt that although he stated the problem, he didn’t provide any solution. So we asked R’ Sternberg what he recommends for safe Internet usage.
R’ Sternberg: There are two general approaches that seem contradictory, each of which has advantages and disadvantages. There is the approach of chinuch in which we educate ourselves and our children to Chassidishkait and we speak openly with them about the challenges of the Internet. We understand that there are red lines that we don’t cross. Then there is the approach of using various means to filter and block access to problematic sites and objectionable material.
The technical approach: There is a website called “Guard Your Eyes” (see box), which offers all the possibilities for effective blocking including technical support for those who need help in installing filters or outsider password protection. The options are generally: 1) Filtered Internet – Internet service that comes through a kosher Internet company so there is no access to objectionable material. 2) Filtering content – installing a program on the computer that filters sites and only allows access to decent content. 3) Content reporting – a system in which every site visited is reported to an outside person. 4) Monitoring – using a program that captures photos and records all actions taken on the computer that enables parents and teachers to check which sites were visited.
It is important to note that effective filtering is needed even (or primarily) for mobile devices. Likewise, it is very important that a home computer be centrally located where everyone can see it which greatly limits using it for problem sites.
The educational approach: This involves constant and serious chinuch, which includes specific education for Internet usage, as well as general chinuch with strong demands towards p’nimius and no compromises. On the one hand, children have to hear things spelled out clearly so they know the difference between good and bad. They need to be fortified from within to be able to withstand outside influences, just as we do for the kashrus of food and drink and everything else.
On the other hand, this is not enough since the enticements are great. This is why we have to invest in their chinuch which includes firmly placing the important things in life on top of the list of our priorities as parents, and consequently, the message gets across to the children. When a child is raised in a Chassidishe environment in which the values are Torah and mitzvos, hiskashrus, Geula, Moshiach, shlichus, he can more easily overcome tests and enticements.
R’ Sternberg referred us to two mechanchim, each of whom believes in a different approach. We asked them to explain their views so that the readers can see what the advantages and disadvantages are of each approach, and can adopt the one that most suits them and their children.
We began with a general question: What should a parent do if he is afraid that his children will be exposed to objectionable material on the Internet?
EDUCATOR: In my experience, children today understand technology far better than their parents and they will always find a way to circumvent the filters and get to the sites they want to visit. Even if there is no Internet in the house, they can always go to a friend or other places, so the filtering approach is not effective.
The only approach, in my opinion, is to work on instilling children with a deep, authentic chinuch in which we explain the dangers of the Internet. We tell them just where it can lead and engage in open discussion so that they won’t want to fall in. It is no different than teaching about being careful when crossing the street, because every parent knows that you can’t have fences on every street, and you must tell children about the dangers and how to cross the street safely.
FILTERER: We don’t accept that at all. We believe you may not use the Internet without a filter and that it would be wise to incorporate additional protections such as reporting and monitoring. Chinuch, when it comes to this issue, has a limited impact, and if we don’t block the Internet for ourselves and for our children, explanations won’t stop them from visiting objectionable sites. A parent must know that the Internet is so dangerous that he can’t take a chance and suffice with chinuch. He must do all he can to prevent his children from using the Internet without a filter.
True, any system can be circumvented, but with blocking and filtering the Internet problem is almost entirely solved since without free access to the Internet, the problem is remote. A parent who thinks that chinuch alone will save his child is unaware of the great danger in Internet usage and that is why he is confident that chinuch will save him.
E: That approach sounds strange and not in line with the Chabad approach. Since when, in Chabad, do we put an emphasis on scare tactics? In Chabad we always emphasized the study of Chassidus, which has the desired effect on a person’s soul and refines the middos. We emphasize the importance of avoda p’nimis (inner work). We are not afraid of the world and don’t hide out in our little ghetto. We go out to the world and engage it while teaching that we are not to be influenced by the world but are meant to impact on it.
The Internet is not the first challenge to rise up against Chabad Chassidus and threaten it, and Boruch Hashem, we have survived communism and the chinuch of heresy that they tried to instill in our children. We survived the maskilim who tried to pull our kids off the derech, and it wasn’t done through fear but with chinuch p’nimi with the power of Chassidus.
F: That is precisely what I’m afraid of. I am afraid that we will survive the Internet just like we survived the communists. Some success story that was … (sarcastic). We lost at least half of the boys and girls in previous generations to the maskilim and communists. All the books and articles are about the heroes; they don’t say that there were casualties in every home and how, in every family, there were those who caved in to the winds of heresy.
True, whoever prevailed did so with the power of Chassidus, avoda p’nimis and hiskashrus to the Rebbe, but what did the Rebbe himself tell the Chassidim to do in order to save their children from a heretical education? The Rebbe did not tell them to let their children roam in foreign pastures and merely educate them as to the dangers therein; he screamed that it was forbidden to send children to the government schools. He said it would be better if a Chassid jumped into a fire and not send his children to a place where they would be taught to deny G-d. The Rebbe said this was in the category of “be killed and do not transgress,” and declared that a Chassid who did not send his children to a proper yeshiva “would not live out the year.”
The Rebbe established a similar red line for the talmidim who learned in Tomchei T’mimim. In Lubavitch, they conducted searches of the talmidim’s belongings to see whether they had books of the maskilim. If a bachur was found to possess one of these books, he was expelled. Why were they so afraid of those books? Undoubtedly, they learned enough Chassidus and invested in avoda p’nimis?
E: Listen to what you yourself are saying. According to you, those who successfully prevailed did not do so because they did not go to public school, but because in their homes they received an authentic Chabad chinuch. It was that, and only that, that enabled them to withstand alien influences. The special success enjoyed by Tomchei T’mimim was not because they threw out the heretical books, for that was done in other yeshivos in Russia as well, and the other yeshivos eventually closed; only the T’mimim stood strong. This was thanks to the fact that they were steeped in the knowledge of what is good and what is bad.
We don’t have to go back to communist Russia. There are groups that tried to establish ghettos without computers and Internet where they are protected from the dangers these pose. Today, even these groups realize that this approach is wrong because at a certain point, people go out to the world and out in the world you cannot ignore the Internet, and you cannot always install a filter; then the fence is breached. There was a massive Asifa (gathering) recently in which 42,000 religious Jews gathered to hear about the dangers of the Internet. Even there, they did not forbid the Internet. Why? Because they know that bans and running from the world just don’t work.
F: But at that same Asifa, a filter is what they insisted on since everyone realizes we must be extremely wary of the dangers lurking on the Internet.
Every approach in chinuch has advantages and disadvantages; none are so perfect that we can say that following it will guarantee 100% success. Although we would like to say this about Chabad chinuch, it’s not the case.
Generally speaking, for young children we should use the approach of insulation and isolation because children follow what their parents show them. This approach doesn’t work with older children and those who leave school.
The more open approach in which you don’t escape the world is dangerous at a young age since children quickly lose their innocence, but it is far more successful for those who are older. This is because someone who gets a good education is more immunized against the tests presented by the world and his connection to Hashem is more real and deep.
We need to learn from both approaches and I definitely do not negate the value of a proper chinuch, but it has to go hand in hand with clear boundaries. This is true for every area of chinuch and it is all the more true for the Internet, since most of the danger is present for the young. If we manage to maintain their purity until they grow up, the likelihood is far greater that they will stand strong afterward when they are older and wiser.
E: I partially agree with you, but we have to differentiate between that which is secondary and that which is primary. I still think that your approach won’t help when a bachur grows up and is exposed to the Internet sooner or later, since we cannot seal off the world.
The real reason for spiritual decline is not the Internet. The Internet is only the medium through which the problem manifests. The real reason is the lack of a proper Chassidishe chinuch. We all know that if the chinuch in our schools was the way the Rebbe wants it to be, and the house was run the way the Rebbe wants a Chassidishe home to be run, we would not have any problems. Filters are merely stopgap measures. We would be better off investing in improving the chinuch in our schools by putting in more Chassidus, more Yiras Shamayim and a much deeper connection between parents and children and teachers and children.
F: Assuming you are right, the situation today is still one in which our chinuch is not 100% the way it ought to be, so what should we do with today’s youth? We cannot wait until we improve the system while allowing the present generation to be hurt.
E: In Chabad the emphasis has always been on the aspect of “do good,” while other groups have emphasized the aspect of “stay away from evil.” Now you say that we need to focus on “stay away from evil?”
F: I am not saying to focus on staying away from evil, but I am saying that there is a Torah concept called Sur MeiRa (stay away from evil) and it was not the invention of any particular group. The laws of Yichud apply to Chabad Chassidim too and no one claims that since he is a Chassidishe person the laws of Yichud do not apply to him. Every morning we daven, “do not bring me … to be tested,” and we are very careful not to go to unsuitable places.
E: A bachur who is taught about the right values in life will have the inner fortitude to not even want to go to unsuitable places, and if he mistakenly ends up there he will run away just as a sane person runs away from fire. That is precisely why we constantly teach that “behold, Hashem stands above him.”
F: I agree that we need chinuch, but consider that chinuch takes time and nobody becomes a tzaddik in a day. At the same time that we are involved in chinuch, we must set up fences to protect ourselves and our youth. In the Internet Age it is not a matter of what are the chances of being exposed to inappropriate material, but a question of how soon it will happen. As long as we cannot say with certainty that our chinuch is perfect, nobody has a guarantee that he will withstand temptation.
E: A filter is no guarantee either, but there are ways that are much more successful and that is the point of being a role model. Our children need to know and see how we handle tests in life and how we discipline ourselves. I think a parent needs to explain to his children the dangers of the Internet and tell them how he avoids problem websites, and even how “Tatty has a filter on the Internet,” because the Torah says “not to believe in yourself until the day you die.”
If a parent does the opposite of what he says, then even if there is a filter on the computer, it won’t help. If the father puts a filter on for the child but the child sees that the father visits news sites that are not in the spirit of the home, he receives a destructive message.
F: You are right, but at the same time there are bachurim from Chassidishe homes whose parents are role models of Chassidishkait and Yerei Shamayim, and yet they do not withstand these and other tests. They are Chassidishe bachurim who daven with avoda and learn diligently etc., but they fall just as other bachurim do who did not get the chinuch they got. It’s true that there is a big difference between the types because a Chassidishe bachur doesn’t look to fall but does so inadvertently, unlike the other bachur, but chinuch does not kill the animal soul. The example of a righteous father doesn’t turn his son’s heart into plastic. It diminishes the danger but does not do away with it entirely.
E: The way I see it, even if you use a filter, it is very important to explain the process to the children in a proper educational way. They cannot be allowed to feel bad for not being able to visit certain sites. On the contrary, we need to instill them with pride that our Internet connection is blocked or we don’t have the Internet at all. Just like a child feels proud not to eat candies that other kids eat because he knows that this means he is better than they are, so too, a child needs to be taught that our attitude towards the Internet comes from a place of strength and not out of fear and running away.
F: I agree that using a filter has to be done right but even if it’s not done just right, that is not a reason not to use one. The problem is that exposure to indecent material can happen at a young age, long before we even think that it’s time to talk about the subject, especially when chinuch cannot eliminate curiosity and achieve a situation in which children won’t have an interest to want to see what is being hidden from them.
E: After this long conversation with you, I accept your bottom line that we must install a filter, but I still maintain that it is not the filter that saves us. Consider a man who wants to kill himself. No protective wall will stop him, because he’ll just go to another roof. The most successful filter won’t save someone who wants to visit unsavory sites and so the emphasis must be on chinuch.
F: You are right, but nevertheless, the Torah tells us to make a parapet for a roof so that a person won’t accidentally fall, and it’s a Biblically ordained mitzva. A parapet won’t stop someone who wants to jump, but it will prevent someone who is careless from falling. The filter won’t stop someone who really wants to sin, but it will stop most people who are not looking to fall from being exposed unwillingly to forbidden things. Once you have a protective wall, you can teach children to be careful when they walk on a rooftop.
E: So you also agree that once you install a filter the main thing is chinuch?
F: Of course, I agree. I am just saying that a filter is Alef-beis, before you begin to talk about the subject altogether.
In conclusion we ask both of you to sum things up as you see them now.
We both agree that the optimal solution is proper chinuch that will immunize us and our children to the spiritual dangers that lie in wait in the world in general and the Internet in particular. Only a proper chinuch will provide them with the spiritual fortitude to continue on the path of Torah and mitzvos without being fazed by the world and enable them to impact the world and not be influenced by it.
However, in order to be able to reach that state, and in order to be able to begin with a proper chinuch, we must seal the breaches. We must be exceedingly careful in the face of the spiritual threats posed by technology, and those who use the Internet need to ensure that it is protected by a filter, a monitoring and outside reporting system, as well as any other means. All this is in order that we can turn our attention towards really working on developing a proper chinuch approach.
It is only by combining the two approaches, chinuch and protection, that we can raise our children properly.
There is a website called www.guardyoureyes.com that addresses the challenges of the Internet and has the approbation of rabbanim. There is a section devoted to filters which includes recommendations for filters and other protective measures. The site contains links for installing filters or review and reporting programs, along with help from volunteers who will aid anyone with technical questions. Installing a filter is easy and doesn’t take more than a few minutes.
K9 is a free filter that is recommended for Americans who use English language sites, and the site also lists filtered Internet providers and remote filtering services.
Guard Your Eyes has what they call a “filter gabbai,” which can hold your password for you and will allow you to make changes remotely.
For those who need full access to the Internet because of work, you can use reporting software which sends a weekly report of sites that were visited. Check out www.webchaver.org or www.eblaster.com.