TV Education--DANGEROUS Or INNOVATIVE (13 Minutes)

0:10What is a human being? What's an Adam? What is Adam? Adam means that you're not an animal. An animal works off of instinct. The lion sees a zebra. If he's hungry, he goes chasing her. If he's not hungry, he says, what's up? And he goes back to sleep. The lion will never go hunting for no reason. Even a cat that sees a nice, delicious mouse right in front of it, if it's not hungry, it's not going to kill it.

1:36An animal that works off of instinct only goes and eats if it's hungry. It only kills if it's hungry. A human being, on the other hand, sometimes kills for no reason, sometimes kills for fun, like some people who like to go hunting because they enjoy killing. The difference between a human being, what is supposed to be a human being, and the animal is... That the human being can decide what to do and when to do it. He doesn't work off of instinct. Even if he's hungry, he doesn't necessarily have to go kill; he could just take some money out of his pocket and give it to somebody that already has a slaughtered animal and cooked it into a nice burger and give it to him. He doesn't have to go eat something off the street. Being a human means he can control himself, and... So how come so many people can't control themselves? The reason why is because our education today is a tragedy. There's a PhD by the name of Norman Herr, and he did a study on what does TV do to our public today. So, you know, a daycare is all these parents that want to go be businessmen and businesswomen and...

3:07They think they're doing a good thing by sending their kids to daycare, and the mom makes money, so that's important, so we send the kid to daycare. Now, if the daycare is like the normal daycares of today, it's not such a great idea to send the kid to daycare. Why? Today, according to Norman Herr, PhD, seventy percent on average of the time at a typical daycare is spent watching television. Seventy percent—three-quarters of the day that these young children, little kids, are in daycare—they're watching television. Now, sometimes people at home are also watching that much. But let's see, let's continue to explore. What does this mean? Today, unfortunately, 99% of US households have a television, and the average household spends six hours and 47 minutes watching TV per day. Six hours and 47 minutes per day watching television, but yet nobody has time to come to shiur Torah. Almost seven hours a day watching TV they have.

4:23Watch Lost, and they get lost and found in Jurassic Park and Superman with the kryptonite. All this to you out in the world, they have time, seven hours a day. They have time for the news, and Trump, and the guy that wants to assassinate Trump, and the guy that's going to replace Trump after he gets assassinated. All this stuff, they have time, seven hours a day, they have come shoot. Oh no, it's so long, the shiur Torah, it's so late. Where you go to sleep at nine o'clock at night anyway? No. What time do you go to sleep? Ah, like 1:30, 2. So what do you do from 9 o'clock until 1:30? Oh, I watch TV. He has to fill up his quota of seven hours a day. Machmir, he's eight hours sometimes. Now, what's the big deal about watching TV? By the way, this is not even including the internet, which is even worse. People that spend so much time on the internet, Facebook, YouTube, and all of these websites reading the news because, all of a sudden, everybody's a politician. They want to know what happened in the news. I can tell you what's going to happen in the news tomorrow and for the rest of your life: A bunch of people will die, a bunch of people will sue, a bunch of people will have kids, and a bunch of people will get divorced. Some people bought, some people sold. The only thing that changes is the names.

5:47There changes the names. Now, what's so bad about watching this television or playing on the internet, which is even worse, are the statistics of television. The average child, by the time he completes elementary school, still a little kid, by the time he finishes elementary school, has now seen a... 8,000 murders on TV. He has seen 8,000 people get killed on television. Now, to a kid, when they tested his brain—studies have been done on this—they found that he believes the murder on TV is 100% real. It has the same impact on his neurological state of mind. same thing, whether he saw somebody in front of him or it's on TV, it's the same thing to him. And he has seen 8,000 of these by the time he hasn't even gone through puberty yet. He hasn't even gone to puberty's elementary school—8,000 murders.

7:03That's not bad enough. By the time he reaches 18, the kid now, hopefully, is going to go into the real world. In America, he goes to college. He's still a baby, but in the rest of the world, at 18, you become a man. In Israel, you go to the army; in other countries as well. By the time he's 18 in America, he has seen over 200,000 violent crimes in his life on television. 200,000! and then people are so surprised why there is a school shooting every week in America statistically today. Then people are surprised why there are so many suicidal individuals, why there are so many sociopaths, and why there are so many people that are psychotic in every way, shape, or form. So when we say in the religious world, if you send your kid to public school, you might as well kill the kid. If you have a TV and you give the kid the freedom to watch whatever he wants, you might as well not have the kid. You're killing him. Somebody came to me and he said to me about a week or two ago, he said, "I like you, Kvod HaRav, I like your shiurim, I've been watching for a year, and so on and so forth." I don't really believe he's been watching for that long because the question would have been different. But anyway, he says, "You know, Kvod HaRav, like I was born yesterday, you know, Kvod HaRav..."

8:28You have a few shiurim that are very frightening. A shiur about Gehinnom is very frightening. And you know that there are young children who might watch the shiur on the internet. Your shiur about Gehinnom can be seen online, and you may frighten them. I believe you should exercise caution. I think you should be prudent. Now, what is the response? Correct response of what I can learn it's what I told them not because I said it but because I verified it with my love is that when you're trying to be a ba'al mussar, you no longer take yourself as something; you take the other person. You look at the other person's perspective; you put yourself in somebody else's shoes. In English, it's called empathy and...

9:29Sympathy is something that no one really wants because people just feel bad for you, and you feel bad for yourself. Feeling bad for yourself or having other people feel bad for you is the key to depression. Empathy, on the other hand, is when somebody can relate to you by putting themselves in your shoes. They try to feel your pain by imagining themselves being in your shoes, and this understanding can lead to comfort and deeper connection. I wanted to put myself in the shoes of the little kid that this guy was telling me about, who can see my shiur about Gehinom and get really, really scared by pressing play. He also told me that, you know, in the beginning of the shiur about Gehinom and some of the other shiurim that we have—some of the videos that we have that are scary—there is a warning. It's a really cool voice. Some guy with a really cool voice says, "Warning, dude. This is not for everyone," or whatever he says, but it sounds like a movie. He says that, you know, it actually makes people want to watch it even more. So I imagine myself as a little boy for a second. I have to go back a long time. And I said to myself, "Oh,"

10:42I saw if I pressed play and I saw the Kol warning and then I watched this guy with a beard start talking to me about Gehinom and Kafa Kela and all the punishments that happen for lashon hara and all the punishments that happen for wasting seed and all the punishments that happen for chillul Shabbat and all the punishments that happen for eshet ish. What would happen to me? I'd be scared. I'd be very, very scared. But that would save my life. Why would it save my life, and why did I give this response? I told him that if that boy is on the internet and he presses... Something I love, something I cherish, is when he insists on attending my shiurim about Gehenom. Whether it's for a 10, 11, 12-year-old kid, a 9-year-old kid, a 6-year-old kid, an 18-year-old kid, or any other child, I delight when they earnestly seek out my shiurim on this topic. Why do I wish for them to attend? Why do I hope and pray for him to press on this matter? Because if he, unfortunately, has parents who lack wisdom and guidance, then my shiur is the only thing that's going to save him from the real Gehenom, as his parents surely are not providing the necessary direction.

11:57to give him complete freedom on the internet at his age, my shiur is the only thing that's gonna save him from the real Gehinnom. Because of course his parents are not. They gave him complete free admission to go to Gehinom. But I don't know. Honey, go play on the internet. Do what you want. Have fun. Go watch TV. Do what you want. Have fun. Rent movies. Watch whatever you want, with or without nudity, with or without violence. Go, honey, enjoy. Well, you have a girlfriend now. You're 13 years old. Enjoy. My shiur is the only thing that's going to save him. Alvaihi watches my shiur because then he'll realize what kind of problem he's really in before it's too late, before he's addicted to all of the sins, like we became addicted. Sometimes when a person does cheshbon hanefesh and he starts emulating the middot of Hashem, he starts looking at the things that are around him. He starts realizing that he is part of the problem. He starts realizing he has to fix himself. And even when he tries to help other people, he starts realizing, "Hey, I have to help myself to help them." The perspective in general changes and...

13:14Because you're not looking for all the good things you did; you're looking for what needs to be fixed. You're seeking growth and improvement, as Chazal teach us that real introspection involves identifying our shortcomings. In the words of HaRav Yisrael Salanter, we must always strive to better ourselves.