Reply To: Smoking vs. Bochurim on the Internet

To flatbush27 it doesn’t say anywhere in the Torah that paying a credit card bill, trading a stock or reading Yeshiva World News is Asur. If you learn the Torah and it has an effect on you and it has an effect on your Derech Hachayim there are many things on the Internet that are not assur. A Yid has a neamnus that what he does is kosher you have no right to assume that someone using the Internet is doing things that are assur. If that was your outlook then you would assume your local butcher or restaurateur are serving you treif at kosher prices because it increases their income. Of course in both cases it is possible that someone is doing things which are not yosher. To make that your assumption about every yid or every butcher is very foolish. The Internet is not Assur, You can do Assur things on the Internet. Smoking is Assur. There is no way that it can ever be Muttar. There is no comparison between the two. Moreover when someone who learns the whole day walks outside the Beis Medrash wearing yeshivish garb and lights up a cigarette he is doing an issur in public. He is outright embarrassing the torah he just learned and the institution he just walked out of. To the Majority of people who see him he is causing a Chillul Hashem and a Bezayon Hatorah. If his smoking harms others he is oiver even more Issurim Bein Adam Lchavero, which Yom Kippur is not Mechaper for. That is an outright crystal clear Issur. When someone is on the Internet there is no Issur taking place. If a person can’t control himself it is possible that he will see something he shouldn’t and obviously that is assur and is something the Tzibur should be concerned about on a Klal level but the actual Maysa only affects that person. It is wrong for you to make the assumption that every Yid on the Internet spend his whole day looking at things he shouldn’t be looking at. When someone smokes and disregards the suffering of those around them his aveira is in the open. There is no doubt that he is killing himself both physically and spiritually as well as harming others. Any one that cares for the Kavod of Klal Yisrael has a chiyuv to tell them to STOP. Your trying to rationalize this clearly assur and harmful behavior just makes you an accomplice to their crime and therefore an enabler of their Chilul Hashem.