Halachot and Customs
Is It Permitted to Keep a Television at Home?
Question
Shalom, honored rabbi, is it permitted to keep a television set at home?
Thank you very much
Answer
Shalom uvrakhah,
It is forbidden - and as was written in Yabia Omer, part 6 (Orach Chayim, end of siman 12), that the very bringing of a television into the home is an absolute prohibition for anyone who acknowledges the truth, for in addition to its being a place of scoffers and a waste of Torah study, it is furthermore a root that produces bitterness and wormwood, stirring up the evil inclination itself through sights of affliction in false and misleading scenes, in every path of immorality and evil abominations that Hashem hates. He destroys his own soul by doing this, and he will in the future have to give account. All the great authorities of the generation likewise ruled so, and regarding one who brings it into his home they said, You shall not bring an abomination into your house; all the more so when one has children in the home, for he causes them to stumble and brings them over to the domain of the other side, and he transgresses משום אל תשכן באהלך עולה.
With blessings,
Hillel Meirs
