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My kids come home from school telling me about this comic book called “TINTIN” that all their friends read. They claim its appropriate. Anyone know what its about and if its actually appropriate?
Loved it when I was kid and now my kids have read all of the books. My opinion yes it is kosher.
The books were written many years ago (starting in 1929) before all of this crazy woke stuff.
I suggest go to the library (or try to find online) and check it out yourself if you are concerned.
In the 1970s and 1980s (and probably before that) Tintin was to be found in many frum European houses, I think that there were not a lot of alternatives. Many people grew up to upright shomer mitzvah Yidden and even rabbanim with the adventures of Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus.
Having that said, Tintin is far from having a Torah Hashkafa, it has even been rumoured and is still a subject of debate whether the creator of Tintin (by the pseudonym of Herge) was an antisemite. Tintin is not a very Jewish comic. Thirty, fourty years ago it was not considered as being very bad, it was more or less a necessary evil. There were no alternatives anf Tinin very often gave particular understanding about actualities in the worldnews. Now we have Gadi Polack and the like so I would very much hesitate giving them Tintin to read.Read it and you’ll know.
Alternatives – R Twerski recommends Peanuts, or at least has a book about it
Yes
They’re great, my kids run around all day quoting randomly from them. Thundering typhoons!
Peanuts is not an “alternative” to Tintin. They both happen to have pictures and speech bubbles on paper, but they’re not really vaguely similar beyond that. Tintin is a series of exciting entertaining adventure comic books. Peanuts are short comic strips, sometimes mildly amusing, sometimes with some lesson about life. Kids will love reading Tintin. Peanuts… Not so much.
levi – my thoughts exactly. why read something devoid of value, even if harmless, when there are torah comics(and lots of them) out there?
However, I don’t like some of the tanach-themed comics…sometimes they’re violent; we’re supposed to learn about these things intellectually, not expose our kids to seeing violent pictures. I’d say it’s better to read tintin than those things.
Regarding violent comics about Tenach and holy people of the Tenach being depicted by the feeble minds of our day and age are also wrought with difficulty. How do you depict a Shimshon? A Dovid HaMelech? People tend to make them way more human they really were. These people were on such a madreiga that we do not have the Keilim to Masik them. Then we leave the people of (for example marshmellow) depict them (even though they are better then most other ones) and we are definitely diminishing the real stature of these kedoshei weGedolei Elyon of the Tenach.
But AviraDeAarah, I agree that some happenings in Nach would be better if not used at all.I never read Tintin, but I had a “chup” like his, which my Rebbe despised. Therefore his books should be considered a bad influence.
Batman, on the other hand, dresses in black and covers his head, so he seems more Yeshivish. Plus his gloves help him avoid N’giyah when apprehending Catwoman.
The great tzaddik and phenomenal talmid chacham HaGaon HaRav Shmelke Taubenfeld zt”l of Monsey once told me that he held a criticism of the mashgichim who speak about the greatness of the outstanding personalities of Nach.
No matter on what high level they depict them, he said, they are actually lowering their stature by the very fact that they describe a situation that we can perceive.
In truth, he explained, their madregos were totally beyond our perception.RBZS? What is new, that is almost exactly what I wrote. Shoin, you should have a gemar chasimah Toiva and may we all be zoiche to Bias Goayl Bimheero byomeinu…
Levi
I had thought that you would appreciate being back up by an adam gadol.
Shanah tovah.RBZS, I am sorry for my rushed reaction. I thought you poshut had not read what I had written. In retrospect I do appreciate your what your post, although (as an European, never set foot in the USA) have to admit that I have no idea who Rabbi Taubenfeld זצ”ל was. That of course does not diminish your words. A gut Kvittel!
The only time that I got a glimpse of tintin was when someone somehow got access to the Yeshiva’s Otzar Hachochma (which was usually all locked up) and managed to upload all the Tintins.
You can imagine our surprise when we browsed through the list of seforim and we found countless volumes of “טינטין”!
B”H there is so much Jewish material nowadays, why treif up our children’s minds with goyishe shtusim? Even if there is nothing there that is clearly against halacha, it definitely lacks the Yiddishe taam.
No one here studies Orach Chaim?
[siman shin zayin, sif tes zayin]Go – i agree 100%, but if people are holding by reading those things, there are different levels of how bad the content is. Also, it might be allowed for an am haaretz, as shu”a says that on shabbos an am haaretz may speak about devorim betailim because it’s oneg shabbos for him.
Nobody here brought any insights from tintin so far, so it is hard to judge. Even R Twersky’s book did not convince me to see other peanuts. I even his book just for the articles, as they say in another context.
Maybe the fact that kids are doing pictures instead of books is the most concerning here. Jews are a nation of readers, not painters, Chagall not withstanding. My kids loved to read a series of books that is now understood to be treif… are there are other books/series that might excite viral following among kids? Please put your suggestions. Another books my kids love is “another side of the story”. It brings simple (kosher) life stories where some mis-understanding caused or could have caused a major blow up. After the kids got the idea, it is fun to read the story first and then try to guess what was mis-understood. One example – an Israeli teacher receiving a check from someone’s parents post-dated by half a year! Turns out 1/10 means different things on 2 sides of the ocean.
Aaq, stories that have a message or torah value are not devorim batailim, sichas chulin, etc… they’re mussar and they’re a mitzvah (not to replace Torah if it can be learned during that time)
Avira > stories that have a message or torah value are not devorim batailim,
Glad we agree. R Twersky quotes Beis Halevi who observed 3 horses with carts going in a convoy. Each horse would eat a little from the previous cart. So, horses 1 and 2 benefit by having lighter load, and horses 2 and 3 benefit by eating. So, horse 2 is in the best position. Beis Halevi concludes that this illustrates the Rambam’s middle road approach is the most beneficial, rather than taking extreme positions (a lesson for CR also). R Twersky’s meta-comment is that Beis Halevi can learn mussar from the horses, while some may read mussar books many times and still not get it.
So, maybe it depends on the reader – if you learn mussar from tintin or peanuts, it is mutar. If you learn shtus, then comics are assur and maybe even other books.
Personally I feel as though there are many bad middos to be learned from the Tintin books. It glorifies violence, verbal abuse, idol worship, kol ishah, drugs and alcohol, and little white dogs. All of the above are assur, and is therefore unsuitable material for anybody, much less children.
There innumerable inappropriate elements throughout the series, all of which can terrible influence on impressionable young minds. The Thom(p)son brothers’ antics leave one with a mocking disdain of law enforcement. Professor Calculus exhibits a seeming ability to wreak untold havoc, even creating weapons of mass destruction, and get away with it on the pretense of a hearing disorder. What good can possibly emerge from that? Captain Haddock epitomizes a kiddish club gone wrong, yet is portrayed as quite the lovable rogue.
Tintin himself is not much of a role model either. In the books (and the movie), he is depicted as quite a young man, appearing not a day older than 16. Where are his parents? What kind of chinuch is this? A child may very well put the book down thinking that they too can simply gallivant around the world with no repercussions.
I hope that I have convinced at least a small portion of you of the grave danger this terrible series poses to our youth. If even one parent reads this, and does not allow their child to read the books because of it, I will consider this time well spent.
(I have only included a small portion of the many terrible habits and ideas prevalent in the series. There are many more, and I’d be happy to share them with anyone who is not yet completely convinced.)
Besides rav yaakov emden, i don’t think any other poskim hold that owning dogs is assur
Zaphod,
In all seriousness, I suspect the problems with Tintin in our community aren’t the adventures in the name of justice. While Tintin and his friends’ methods can be subversive, the results are positive for the people who were wronged and the bad guys who needed to be stopped. The real problem is that Tintin and his adventures glorify a goyish/secular life that is anything but Yeshivish. Why would anyone want to feed our kids an appreciation of a life off the derech? Would we want our daughters to aspire to marry former boy scouts or military men?
Zaphod, thanks for the summary. I don’t like it based on this description …
Orange > While Tintin and his friends’ methods can be subversive, the results are positive
Well said. BUT this is exactly what we do NOT want the kids to learn. Leads directly to joining commies or whatever current equivalent is that claim to have positive goals justifying subversive methods.
@avira I didn’t say that dogs are assur. I said that little white dogs are assur. Anything smaller than a beagle is basically a really loud cat. Cats are animals commonly associated with witchcraft and are therefore maaras ayin.
Z – lumping together something that’s a joke with things that actually are serious averos is the definition of laitzonus, making light of something important. You should do teshuva.
As an aside, while rav yaakov emden holds that dogs are assur, there is definitely no issur with cats
“Tintin himself is not much of a role model either. In the books (and the movie), he is depicted as quite a young man, appearing not a day older than 16. Where are his parents?”
Although he APPEARS young he may in fact be suffering from a medical condition, specifically hypopituitarism resulting from repeated head trauma.
see:
Cyr A, Cyr LO, Cyr C. Acquired growth hormone deficiency and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism in a subject with repeated head trauma, or Tintin goes to the neurologist. CMAJ. 2004 Dec 7;171(12):1433-4. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.1041405. PMID: 15583175; PMCID: PMC534570.ubiquitin, you would think that Tintin’s prodigious “chup” would have been effective protection against repeated blunt force trauma. As it turned out, my own chup provided little protection from corporal punishment. In fact it probably increased the frequency of both frask and patsch applications to my personal space.
I don’t know about Tintin, but Rin Tin Tin is going to the dogs.
I don’t think there is any particularly bad message conveyed in those books. It’s based on a pretty mild liberal, world-saving attitude with some comical characters. It surely does not portray alcohol in a positive light, but rather as a tolerated nuisance.
Most comics are cheap versions of reading, and aren’t great for advancing language arts. Jewish comics usually carry some story of message, at least. Tintin comics hardly has any.
And so, I don’t “ban” this at home. My kids borrow it at times, and they know that it is cheap and just fun. Like jellybeans, once in a while it is fine to have some, but don’t eat them for supper.
A major problem with Tintin is his attitude of risking his life to save the bad guys, refusing to kill a murderer even when other’s lives are in danger, etc. It’s a modern, terrible attitude which sadly has become popular among many authors, and made out to be noble.
Harry Potter saved Pettigrew’s life because “his parents wouldn’t want [Sirius] to be a murderer.” How many innocent people–wizards and Mudbloods alike–were subsequently killed after Voldemort’s rise to power? [Arguably, Potter need not have anticipated Pettigrew’s escape, in which case sparing his life wasn’t AS terrible; however, Dumbledore’s approval at the end of the book is totally unwarranted.]
And A Series of Unfortunate Events is so lousy–a word which here means “replete”–of this horrible mindset, a phrase which here means, “the lousy lousy messages in A Series of Unfortunate Events,” that I can’t even enumerate them, and instead must advise you to never open the book, and instead open a more cheerful book.The answer is yes and no speak to your local Orthodox consultant
@tunaisafish, do you have an opinion or not?
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