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Rav Avigdor Miller (June 1993)
Q: Is there anything wrong with me listening to the radio?
A: You must know that the radio, even if it’s just the news, it’s all adulterated with the opinions of the people writing the news scripts, and the people announcing the news. And most often these people are low people. People, who if you saw them, you wouldn’t think of talking with them. People whose minds are full of the sewage of the outside world.
Now, I’m not going to tell you not to listen to the news; I’m not going to tell you that as a p’sak halacha, but you should know that what goes into your ears will never come out again. That’s all. And what goes into your eyes will never come out again. Once you let it into your head, it remains in your head forever and ever. It becomes part of you forever.
And chas v’shalom, those who have a TV in their house, and they sit and look at TV, they should know that they are ruining their neshomos, no question about it. It’s like taking a goy into your house, a bum, and letting him talk to you for an hour, and you sit there like a dumbell listening to him. So this bum is filling your mind with garbage, and you’ll never get that garbage out again. The Kuzari says that. He says that you’ll never get it out of your head. Not in this world and not in the next world.
So, I’m not going to give you any p’sak, but you must know that it is of utmost importance to realize what you are doing to yourself by listening to the bums on the radio. You’re opening your neshama, your mind, to all the sewage that fills their minds.
TAPE # 918 (June 1993)
Very scary thought. Even teshuvah will not get out the shmutz.
Every time I read the secular news, I think of this thread.
@Joseph
“The Sewer Pipe That Leads to Your Head” is the PERFECT description. Did you create that phrase, or did Rav Avigdor Miller?just curious where is the kuzari?
If its really really so terrible as rabbi miller says it is then why would he not pasken that it is indeed assur to listen to the radio.??
T2-2T -“why would he not pasken that it is indeed assur to listen to the radio.??”
Simply because it’s a Chumra. The same thing with the internet!
I wonder why we have Assifas on internet and Not on LH?!?I’ve met some frum people in my life who have filthier mouths and values than those talk show hosts who have been on for decades. One doesn’t excuse another, but listening to a particular host on the radio on the way home is certainly not a bum and certainly not a piece of sewage (because he is a secular Jew, I will not say his name as per Loshon Hara). R’ Miller (perhaps innocently without realization) doesn’t realize that many in the radio/television news media business are Jewish (secular), and must be careful to distance himself from hatred and L’H, especially if he doesn’t fully know what goes on in a 3 hour evening segment.
T22T
Because the obligation to be Kedoshim is not a מצות לא תעשה. One has a מצות עשה to be enveloped in קדושה.
I believe that Rav Miller ZT”L understood that the pattern of creating issurim was not the way to lead Klal Yisroel. As it is, we have 365 prohibitions, and there are plenty of gezairos and takanos from our Chachomim without manufacturing more.
“”mutav sheyihei shogagain, vial tihieh mezidin”
R’ Miller (perhaps innocently without realization) doesn’t realize that many in the radio/television news media business are Jewish (secular), and must be careful to distance himself from hatred and L’H
Whether or not those apply to secular Jews, lashon hara is in any case permitted
when the purpose is to warn others about the person in question.DovidBT: I’m pretty sure someone else created the phrase based on Rav Miller zt’l’s lesson.
Thanks. In that case, I’ll consider it to be in the public domain, with no crediting of the source required.
A web search on the phrase only shows this thread, and articles on plumbing. 🙂
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