Our Family, Our Strength - Principle #4: Keep Away Negative Influences - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Abramov

you hello we are continuing in our series of twenty five principles of Jewish child rearing we are now on principle number four principle number four has become all that more relevant with the advent and the advance of technology technology has become a very very large part of people lives the the world is is beaming messages at us others are beaming at us messages in the most sophisticated way in the most colorful way in the most attracting way and it's something that when the child ventures out of his home and he walks into this large world with an enormous amount of messages coming from all sorts of directions advertisement cyberspace he's just assailed with many many messages very often these messages are nothing but commercially driven as one of the Great's of the movie industry once conceded and said there's not an ounce of moral of morality in Hollywood all that counts is the writing all that counts is how successful the message is in a train in in turning to sometimes very very lowly base instincts of the human now we don't want our children to be exposed to this kind of stuff so as we said that children are they're very tender the very delicate we are we are were cultivating and growing something very special that is the personality this this little neshama this little soul that is now developing budding and learning and growing needs to be very very carefully carefully tended and when messages of aggression of violence of immorality of a gross misconduct in all types and types and manner of explicit immoral behavior the child is all the time integrating these things into his delicate little personality now the soul of a person in the shallow of a person is a spiritual entity that absorbs everything records everything everything makes an impact on the soul and the soul in the essence is the it's what the it's called the Plymouth this of a person and that's reflected in the Panama in the external so it's the soul which is the essence and the soul is the most sophisticated and sensitive recording vehicle recording everything recording feelings according certainly sites recording everything all of our senses are which we absorb are recorded in the soul certainly visual so we have to be very careful with what we expose this delicate soul to and therefore today in this world where everybody is exposed in some way or other to various forms of media and it's it's something which is it's an invasion of the privacy of our little private souls so we have to try and immunize the child that he doesn't absorb these to what extent but we certainly have to keep these away from the whole we certainly can't have competing forces within the home which are unscreened we HR are competing for attention so then the the parents message even if they're loving and love fold but they become bland as opposed to the colorful exciting fast-moving well conceived messages that are being beamed from all over the place in in vivid in a vivid fashion so the first thing is we've got to keep our homes absolutely clean and have none of these elements in our home we should have no competing elements in the home the home is is is the personal place for the family parents and children to interact without gross outside invasion into the space so the home must be kept kosher and that's called the kosher home a co xem is not only the kosher kitchen a kosher home is a home that doesn't have unwanted influences inside that home certainly today there's absolutely no discerning today with open internet with open messages flying in from all circles and all sorts of places and little children at a young age being exposed to these these are very dangerous things so that the home has to be absolutely squeaky clean from this now there's no question that the child should not have any access outside of the home also of these influences and therefore parents have to be very very discerning they may keep a great nice clean home a nice kosher home in the broader sense of the word but when the k'tau goes and plays at the next door neighbor and the next door neighbor have screens which are showing all sorts of unsavory material these things can be absolutely destructive so parents today this is possibly one of the greatest challenges of our generation previous generations did not have this parents today have to be extremely discerning keeping away negative influences you