It’s not another satirical piece by me, it’s actually a fairly lengthy discussion in one of the yeshiva world news coffee room forums and it’s a pretty hot debate. The basic premise is that smoking will cause you physical harm, but facebook will cause you spiritual harm which will lead to physical harm in the long run so facebook is obviously worse. As can be expected, Rav Moshe’s mythical teshuvos are being tossed around and every few comments someone asks “what’s wrong with facebook?” followed by people saying that kiruv organizations can disseminate their propaganda quicker on facebook, but lets look at why facebook may be both a good and evil thing and why smoking has always been argued about in the frum community.
Smoking has never been banned from the frum community for one simple reason, it’s one of the few pleasures that yeshiva guys have enjoyed through time and if the gedolim were to ban it, many non-frum or anti-frum people would look back and make snarky comments about gedolim and yeshiva guys smoking. Just like translating Igros Moshe could be used for evil, banning smoking could essentially paint frum ehrliche yidden who smoke as evil and this they are not – they are merely dumb (although back in the day, how could they know) Banning smoking would also acknowledge that science has some truth to it and this is bad, hence the reason most frum people don’t visit doctors and practice blood letting instead, did you know the Rambam was banned because he believed in modern science? They only hold of him now, because those were different times.
So smoking is bad, but we can’t say it’s bad, because then those evil modern orthodox and so called open orthodox people could look at gedolim like Chaim Shmulevetz and say that they were bad because they smoked, but what about Facebook, why the bad wrap?
It is only recent that the frummies decided to embrace the internet, instead of listening to bans, they instead figured out how to make money by convincing us that everyone – given the chance would only look at porn or have extramarital affairs due to the ease of which this is done on the net and so they started putting out filters. In all seriousness Facebook is like any tool that could be used for good and evil, I use it for evil, picking up girls, hating on Jews, shameless self promotion, finding a wife and learning the daily Tanya, but many Jews use it for good – they use it to communicate with their fellow Jew, create achdus and learn Torah – chabad is probably the best example as jumping on the Facebook and internet bandwagon early. Like always, all the other kiruv organizations had to copy chabad and can now be jealous once again at their extremely good command of the internet and social networks.
Facebook also enjoys the luxury of only having dead gedolim as members. As of now I am friends with Rav Moshe, Rav Ahron, Mar Zutra, Shimshon Raphael Hirsh, The Alter Rebbe, The Baal Shem Tov and Resh Shlukesh – since all of these gedolim were placed after they were nifter they will not be under cherem if it were totally banned. Not one real live gadol is on Facebook knowingly, their profiles are all private, I just k now there’s a big rebbe list-serve out there somewhere, so banning facebook wouldn’t incriminate anyone. It’s not like any anti-orthodox people could say something bad about some rabbi being a member of facebook like they can of smoking.
Be sure to friend me on Facebook and join the evil fun!
Dude, I saw this discussion last night after yo mentioned its a good place to find some wierd commenters…holy crap! some of those guys are cmpletely ignorant and listening to them is painful. They sound completley clueless as to what facebook even is, and even those who do know just mindlessly repeat the mantra “so many hings can come from just going on facebook one time, its mamesh assur”. Makes me angry!
when i was a kid i learned that pekuach nefesh can override any other mitzvah. Therefore I would think that not smoking (the leading cause of preventable deaths in the US, and the leading cause of death in general) would be more important than any BS chumrah.
as my mom used to say, if you just keep putting up geders and geders eventually you can’t walk a step cause you’re surrounded by fences.
A.E, the way I heard it was “We’ve built so many fences around the Torah you can’t get within ten miles of the sucker.”
You hit the nail on the head there mate.
My philosophy in one line! Thanks for making it catchy
i went on the forums yesterday for the first time after reading about it at least a zillion times on here. when i saw the name of the topic ‘is facebook or smoking more assur’ i literally laughed out loud
the ignorance makes me want to cry
I’ve heard that there are some rabbonim who have banned smoking and they refuse to give hechshers to restaurants that sell tobacco.
Ok, srsly…
i feel like a total moron..
ive been using facebook for years..
and i havent been picking up/chatting with/harrasing girls
i must have been doing something wrong..
i mean, thats obviously what facebook is for…
that, and farmville.
Impossible to tell which is spiritually worse. We can break it down to how many potential aveirot each habit includes, but no humna can judge the gravity of any particular sin for a person, let alone for an entire gammut of Jews from different backgrounds.
For example, let’s say that with each puff of a cigarette, you’re endaring your life. Probabaly 1 meva tel one “assay” and one “lo tassay”. Smoke a pack a day, you’re probably at 600 – 800 aveiros. Add some more for second hand smoke harming others, and another for wasting money on smokes (baal tashchis). The number is seemingly astronomical.
Let’s compare with facebook. First and foremost, unless you’re learning, it’s bittul Torah. If each second is another aveirah, one hour = 3600 seconds, we’re already in deep doodoo. Lashon hara, & untznius pics are pretty much inevitable as well. Of course, you have to add everyine that you bring along with you. Every time you write on a wall and cause others to respond, you’re probably partially responsible. etc.etc.
So in THEORY, facebook is way worse, unless being used only for “good”.
Like I said, ridiculous for any human to try to figure this one out, no matter how great of a chacham they may be. How much more so for bored YWN commenters.
I say let God sort this all out, He’s got a better algorithm.
If you do something bad with Facebook you can always stop doing it and repent.
If you kill yourself with smoking and give money to the Tobacco Lords so they can spend more money advertising their poison you not only kill yourself, you contribute directly to the deaths of others and the corruption of little children.
I am a frequent poster on YWN (screenname Popa_bar_abba).
I also hang out here because I have a cynical side.
Generally, I find the posters there to be far more honest than the ones here. It seems many of the posters here just want to bash with really no regard for the truth or intellectual honesty. That is fine as satire, but is a bit disturbing when the posts turn serious.
Although, this particular post is absurd. As you will see, I offered no opinion there.
Just because people are bashing others, doesn’t mean they aren’t being honest. There’s a heck of a lot of bashing going on at Yeshiva World News and in all honesty, it seems mostly bogus and unintelligent, on this site we are doing intelligent bashing as you say – although I would rather common sense dissent.
I’m not sure ‘Popa_bar-abba’ has realized the irony of mocking FrumSatire for dishonest ‘bashing’ without a single piece of evidence or tangible claim.
I was referring to a lack of intellectual honesty. I see no irony.
You are of course correct that there is significant stupidity there as well, as this example references. And I do come to your blog for things I don’t get there.
I still stand by my comment that I find much of the bashing here to be motivated by things other than intellect. That is normal as satire, but seems weird when serious.
But they are also extremely ignorant. (and that is from the RW posters there).
I posted there basicly what abandoning eden said (1st paragraph), and it was blocked.
So be it.
G@W
Correction: not everyone there is ignorant, but the level of ignorance from the so-called Yeshiva World” amazes me.
Hi GAW. Fancy meeting you here. I will agree that there is some nice ignorance there.
Generally, I have better discussions there though, which is why I post there more frequently.
I like the posts on this site because it satisfies my cynicism in a way that is not allowed there.
I enjoy both Facebook and smoking; but I can’t take too much of either before I get a headache.
I love the lady who blames Facebook for her daughter being led down the wrong path, and then says the courts did bad things in her divorce, “just like they did to those kids in Japan”.. Funny stuff, that is….
its crazt stuff….scary actually
Umm….I was under the impression that smoking is semi-assur. What I mean by that is that it was deemed assur to START to smoke. If you are already smoking, then it is not as assur. Something like that.
i dont think theres anything halachally wrong with smoking- its just unsafe. Please correct me if im wrong! 🙂
ther is an org based in FAKEwood (lakewood) called T.A.G. Tecnolagy awareness group. I once met the head guy and asked him what he thought about fbook AUSSUR!!!!! He yelled. When i asked him why, he said he doesnt know but he heard its bad. What a load of b.s.
To me, a frum person smoking might as well have a sign hanging around his/her neck saying “I have no bitachon”. Why? Because that person needs that crutch to feel calm, to feel good, to function well. How sad.