Chinuch Roundtable: Is it worse to talk to girls online or in person?

Heshy Fried from Frumsatire put this question out as a frumsatire take-off of the heilegeh Yated’s “Chinuch Roundtable”. Here’s my answer (Note: There’s some yiddish here):

As part of our chinuch roundtable, we posed this week’s question to Rav Yosef Moshe Horowitz, Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshivas Chofetz Chlayim, a well respected yeshiva in Lakewood, NJ. (Not to be confused with Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim, a farkrumteh, modernishe ’Yeshiva’ in Queens, NY.) Rav Horowitz is a well-known musmach of heintegeh gedolim and a pedagogue par exellance, world-renowned for his brilliant erudition and expert advice on major issues of our dor, from the shidduch crisis to the sheitel crisis. 

The general taivah you’re referring to has nebech been around as long as Jews have lived in America, ubber my talmidim have told me that in the last few months there has been epes a zach called “Chatrooms”, where boys and girls mamesh sit and talk to each other with no busha bichlal. And it’s worse than that. Amul, you had to sneak around friday night to chap a schmooze with girls or get a quick handjob in the shul parking lot and shoyn, ge’endig, that was it. Today, it’s much more dangerous. Bochurim have told me that they’ve had long conversations and developed something called “feelings” for girls. These are very strong  attachments that are mamesh created inside a mensh. Niflaos Haboirei! One bochur described them as similar to kana’us, ubber fakert.

Clearly, this Online Chatting is much more serious than talking to girls in person. In fact, I saw a teshuvah included in the definitive new Chidushei Maran HaGri”z (smackdown edition, 2012), where the Rav is asked, and I’m translating directly from the hebrew, ”Now that you’re in the twilight of your life, having witnessed firsthand the tremendous positive and negative impacts of so many breakthroughs in technology, what are your thoughts on the future of mankind?”, the Rav writes back, ”Assur.”

Gradah, derech agav, in our yeshiva, we’ve set up a service streaming porn 24/7 over wifi to take care of this shreklecheh matziv. Al tiftach peh, but Baruch hashem we haven’t had a single episode of talking to girls this entire year.

Heshy, a groiseh y’shkoiach for making this issue public.

Kol Tuv,

Yossel Meisheh Horowitz (shlit”a)

Here’s my proposed question for next week:

Dear Chinuch Roundtable,

My 4 year old son recently started asking me all kinds of questions about the nature of Hashem. Questions like, “how strong is he?” “How old is he?” When I try to give him an honest answer, like “We dont know exactly”, he counters with “But why?” He has answers, not questions. Unfortunately, due to legal concerns, I cant throw him out of the house yet, and he is still corrupting my other children, ages 1 and 2, with his apikursus. What should I do?

Hmm? What’s your answer?