Regarding icemelter’s questioning why we need pictures to ‘see’ our chachomim in front of our ‘eyes’, when past generations never did –
The Chofetz Chaim writes in one of his kuntreisim (I forgot which one because I have been learning them all from my ‘Kol Kisvei Chofetz Chaim’, but I could find it if anyone doubts me,) about the invention of the camera and voice recorder in his times. He says in past generations, when people learned the mishnah that says ‘Ayin Ro’eh, V’Ozen Shomaas, V’Chol Maasecha Nichtavim’ (An Eye sees, an Ear Hears, and all of your actions are being written down, for playback on the Yom Hadin) they used to believe it completely. Due to the degradation of our spiritual level, we no longer believe it so easily. So Hashem caused the inventions to happen so that we can now realize – if even a human can use a machine to record verbatim a voice conversation or a picture, surely in Shomayim they are recording every word. How much more so that should apply to today’s real-time video and audio recordings that are everywhere, on dash-cams and security cameras. Hashem has at least HD cameras!
We can extrapolate that the same might apply to our fear of sin. Whereas for Yosef Hatzaddik in Mizrayim the mere thought of his father’s face (whom he hadn’t seen in a year) was enough to stop him from sinning, today we need an actual photograph to make a difference. Someday, to stop us from sinning, we might need 3-D life-like android robots that look like our Rebbeim following us around giving us mussar all day long!
If the Yetzer Horah can use the latest updated technology to entrap us, we need to fight back with better equipment.