HaRav HaGaon Avigdor Miller, zt”l
Q:
If the temptation for immorality is uncontrollable, how can we blame society for its descent into wickedness?
A:
I have to say that it’s not uncontrollable; the fact is that up till recently, and even today, most people are controlling it. The fact is that what’s depicted in the newspapers and in the other media is not a picture of life; it’s a perverted and crippled picture of what’s in the minds of the writers. Actually many people are living normally; as you walk down blocks and blocks of Irish houses and Italian houses, they’re living more or less normally. They’re living married lives, and they are controlling themselves; otherwise there’d be mayhem, there’d be murder on all sides. Human beings are controlling themselves. Does it mean every Irish man is perfectly perfect all his life? This I wouldn’t say. But in general people are controlling themselves because that is the only way for civilized people to live.
And therefore, we can’t say that the world has lost its control. Of course the liberals are doing their best to break down everything. But despite them, human nature abhors disorder; human nature likes a certain amount of decency, and therefore it will continue no matter what they do.
Of course we have to try to stop the torrent of wickedness; we have to attempt to abolish pornography and so on, but that doesn’t mean that we’re losing the fight. We’ll never lose that fight; it’s inherent in human nature. There’s no society that ever abolished morality entirely; impossible. The Roman society, even the Greek society, even though they had certain perversions, but they had certain principles; you have to know a society that’s going to break down all the restrictions is going to decay and fall apart.
And if America won’t stop this headlong flight into perversion, who knows what’s going to happen. Let’s hope the Italians and the Irish will win out against the Jewish liberals. Jewish liberals are doing the best to ruin America. I say the Jewish liberals – the truth is that the Orthodox Jews should help a little more than they’re doing; the Jewish Orthodox should identify with American scene and they should all join in the fight against pornography, against gays, and against women’s rights which really means immorality; women’s rights mean mixed dormitories in the colleges, mixed barracks in the military. The United States military has already yielded long before the ERA was passed – right now military barracks are mixed.
And so, it’s up to us to speak up and write letters; we must write to congressmen and protest constantly. And not to vote for liberals! Don’t vote for a liberal! Reagan is running now; it’s an opportunity. He’s a decent man. Of course I’m not going to put an OK on him and say a kosher l’mehadrin min hamehadrin, but as far as goyishe candidates go, everybody should work for Reagan. Forget about being a Democrat, forget about your party affiliation, forget about the private deals. Some institutions make private deals with the politicians and they sell their vote or the votes of the Jews; don’t listen to them! Make it your business that the Jewish people should vote for Reagan – he’s more conservative and more decent than the others – because we have to fight for decency. It’s our big job today.
TAPE # 308 (March 1980)