The Atheist Rabbi
Israeli Sephardic leader Rav Ovadia Yosef, patron of the Shas Party, has joined with others, including Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, in calling for religious Jews to disconnect from the internet. With this he joins the ranks of the many Ashkenazi rabbis who long ago forbade access to the internet (or, for that matter, secular education).
From Ynet (Hebrew only):
In a “holy call” to the wider community, the rabbis warned about technological developments: “We’ve arrived at a situation where within a telephone found in anyone’s hand people can be taken to images that are difficult and dangerous to a person’s soul, that the viewing of them is forbidden by the Torah without doubt, and their results are extremely destructive. And it is known that many have failed and their world has been lost, God forbid. And there are those who arrive there out of curiosity about the world and with no evil intention, God forbid.”
…According to Rav Yosef and the rabbis who signed [the statement], disconnection from the internet is an obligation from the Torah. Rav Moshe Shapir added that the internet is “an evil satan” endangering its users with very serious religious sins which every Jew is commanded “to die rather than transgress them.”
I’ve read the Torah many times and I can’t recall anything in there about the internet.
Also, could someone please explain to me why, if it’s so bad and so forbidden there are so many religious Jews on the internet? Shas, of course, has its own website: www.shasnet.org.il.
As the many Israeli talkbacks rightly pointed out, this isn’t about the really sketchy stuff on the internet. This is about closing down avenues to secular knowledge. No wonder so many Israelis call these rabbis the Jewish ayatollahs.
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