methinks that the whole basis of yidishkeit revolves around resolving internal issues...
think mussar, personal development...
Yidden of all generations have had to battle the yetzer hora, and especially that of arayos,
but with the internet, the YH has declared a nuclear war, so we need a full force counter-offensive

afreshstart39 wrote:

A couple of things:

First of all, not everyone is an addict. Not everyone turns to the internet because of inner turmoil. Some people start innocently enough and either waste loads of time, spend time looking at devarim asurim even though they never become addicted. And some, who would not have become addicted, do actually become addicted.

Secondly, even for those of us who are addicts, the internet "helps" the addiction progress at lightning speed.

Thirdly, what do you want the gedolim to say "please everyone go get psychiatric help, so you will be emotionally stable, so you are not harmed by the internet?!

Finally, Dr Sorotzkin has a great piece on this and yes, an emotionally healthy person will have "less" of a problem with the internet, but it isn't really very healthy for anyone. You can read it here drsorotzkin.com/pdf/PSYCHOLOGICAL-FACTORS.pdf . The part about the internet is towards the end, but the whole article is worth reading. he also references an excellent article by Lawrence Keleman. You can read it here as part of a "panel" of experts guardyoureyes.com/ebooks/item/gye-protecting-our-youth-experts-speak?category_id=149 .

Ok, it was more than a couple of things. I hope this makes sense.

I think that what the gedolim are talking about is something else.
They aren't really talking about p*** addiction.What their problems with the internet are is
1)the whole culture of hefkeirus, lashon harah etc.
2)the incredible waste of time that it causes, plus that it ruins the family relationships etc.
3)that you can end up seeing the wrong things, like p*** and hashkafah ideas

Those things do all come from the internet, or at the very least become a lot worse due to the internet, so making the takanos are extremely sensible and necessary.

About p*** addiction itself, even if there are underlying causes that need to be fixed I still think that without access to the internet most of us here would not have a problem.Maybe we would have other problems or addictions but not this one, and this one is particularly bad because we're being over a a lot of issurim each time.

Unfortunately you're not the only one i heard complain about the takanos, i'm not sure why since the takanos make a lot of sense even without our issues, and especially here everybody should be agreeing to them.Someone please enlighten me.

ever heard of the yetzer horah?

gibbor120 wrote:


Would that be so terrible?
Maybe not psychiatric help for everyone, but some kind of program that helps deal with our internal issues, whether they be psychological, or spiritual,

I understand the takanos, and I implement them in my home, especially now while I am working on recovery, my issue was more, why only takanos, and why only "it's Treif!!!"

I just feel that if the gedolim would stress a move to get more motivated with our yiddishkeit, and battle the inner complacency this generation faces, alongside the takanos, the takanos would be a lot more effective.

This goes for addicts like us and for those that are just wasting their time.

Again this is my personal feeling, but I feel that there are so many in this generation that just don't care, and just do Judaism, don't live it,
Why aren't there asifos for battling the complacency? Maybe some of the speeches should be designated to describing a system that schools, Shuls and families can implement to get us interested in yiddishkeit again.

We all know that a filter only goes so far, it helps the innocent stay innocent, but it doesn't stop the wasting time,
What will stop the wasting time is being interested in real live Yiddishkeit!!!

Yes the Internet makes all Aveiras much easier, and if we stop it the addicts will remain addicts and the gedolim are trying to deal with the regular people and their regular sins,

But getting rid of Internet doesn't fix the sins, they just go into hiding untill the yetzer hara can find a different way to express them.

Why don't we view all Aveiras as a type of mini addiction which needs its own recovery program (teshuvah) and just banning the tool that aids it isn't going to be enough

The Rambam has four steps to the teshuvah process, and removing oneself from sin is only one step in that process

Again I am not against the takanos, they are great, and we need the chizuk, but I feel that alone, it is not a strong enough tactic

A lot of the tools I learned here on GYE can be used to implement such a program, we know here that just banning doesn't help, we need to be proactive in protecting ourselves,

Maybe the addicts who need to fight the hardest fight can help the non addicts with the smaller battles fight theirs

you're probably right that alone the takanos aren't going to help too many people alone and that plenty of the tools here can be (and i have) used in other parts of life.

about addicts teaching the non-addicts, uh we might have to get better first in order to do that...

But when we will (and we will) then i think that it's a good idea.

in the meantime let's KOT and KOL (keep on listening) to our precious gedolim

thank you all for all your replies.
actually after I posted this post i reminded myself that this is not the first time in history gedolim making takanos. throughout jewish history the gedolim were alwyas there watching the dor & making takanos. what happened to our dor is ויהי בימי שפוט השופטים - ששופטים את שופטיהם. we started looking to see if this godol is a real godol eanough fo me to listen to him. & if this takono is realy for me or is too hard for me so let me find excuse not to listen.

I don't know about you of course. talking about myself. I can't be מכניע myself to the gedolim, aspecially if they belong to "the other group"... וד"ל

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