Lazer Beams

Ralph's Story

Lazer's note: This post is the real deal. Ralph is fighting for his life. We've spoken plenty in the past about cyber addiction and its devistating effects, but Ralph's story tops them all.

Please send a link to this post to anyone you care about who has a computer. Shabbat Shalom, LB

Dear Rav Lazer,

I have no one else to turn to regarding my present situation. I am in alot of trouble and am contemplating suicide as a way out.  I write to you from a position of disgust with myself and potential humiliation for my lovely wife and three daughters. 

I was a successful CPA until I lost my job last January and have not found a means to make a living other than trying to start a business which is having a dismal beginning.  Until I lost my job, I was earning almost $220k per year. You see, I have been addicted to the internet over the last 6 years.  What I mean by addiction is that I was viewing pornography and obsessed with chatting to unknown people. I was also wasting seed due to my addiction and avoiding my marital duties to my wife as a result. I was doing this on a daily basis to the point that I was up all night and often wasting away days at work. Somehow, I carried on the appearance that everything was okay until I was arrested January 25th for chatting to what I thought were grown women and were really undercover police officers posing as minors. I was so addicted that I never paid any attention to details like age since in the fantasy world of the internet, everybody makes stuff up including myself.  Since any facts were not believable, I never acknowledged any information other than what I needed to fulfill my selfish desires. 

In February, things got complicated. After I was arrested, I was extradited to another state where the charges were filed against me. The irony is that the state I am facing charges in, I have never been to in my life nor did I ever contemplate going there. I also never met up with any one I chatted to. I was purely living in a fantasy world that had overtaken my life - a trap that the Yetzer set for me. 

Initially when I was arrested, I was being held in a city jail in the state where I live waiting until I was picked up by the sheriff's department of the state I am facing charges in. I was transported after 15 days in county jail and then spent another 3 days in jail in the state where I am facing criminal prosecution. You can't imagine what suffering this is, for I was with junkies, robbers, rapists - you name it. 

Please help me make teshuva. Help me warn others not to fall into this trap. The internet is like a cancer and what happened when I was extradited is that another county in the same state issued a warrant for my arrest for the exact same charges as the county that extradited me had filed. I am currently facing over 24 felony counts in 2 counties of internet solicitation to a minor and obscenity charges due to the nature of sexual language I was using. I was released on $80,000 bail with a gps monitor on my ankle. I'm now jobless, penniless, and we're soon expecting child #4.

To add insult to injury, I have never been arrested in my life nor do I have any criminal record.  I was a good clean-cut guy with an MBA from the USA's best-known colleges of business. I passed my CPA on the first try. I had my choice of great jobs. It's now blown away. I can't explain what has happened as it all seems like a blur but I was living 2 lives. 

Since I have not been making any income, the community has come to our aid and has supported us along with paying for my legal expenses thus far totalling over 50k. I have 2 lawyers working on my case to handle my criminal matters and potential exposure to my CPA license.  My attorney has been trying to work out a plea deal but thus far has not been successful.  My attorney explained to me this morning that if a plea deal is not achieved then he needs to know my position as to whether he should pursue going to trial. If I go to trial I will be going to trial in 2 jurisdicitions with potential jail time of many years compounded by the number of felonies I am not able to beat. 

Believe it or not, the worst part for me is that I would also be required to register as a sex offender in 2 different states.  You have to know that I have never been interested in minors nor have I have ever considered harming a minor. I am reeling from the shock of how what I thought was a secret life has now become an open book. 

Please intercede in my behalf. I'm sure that your prayers will help my case upstairs, I am now beginning to do everything I read about in your different articles - mikva, Tikkun Klali, guarding my eyes, and doing teshuva during an hour of personal prayer a day. Even so, my marriage has been barely holding together. Please stick with me Rabbi Lazer because I need further guidance. As I said before, I have no income, I currently have no future and my wife is in tears daily. We are desperate and I contemplate suicide as a way to save my family, my children's future and the ability for my wife to remarry a person that is good and can make a living. I could go on for another 10 thousand words, but I haven given you the gist of my present life story. 

Please, Rabbi, tell the world about what happened to me. If I can save at least one person from a similar fate, maybe G-d will have mercy on me. Most sincerely, Ralph in the USA

Profane Speech

Dear Rabbi Brody,
I confess: I'm 17, a junior in religious high school, and I swear a lot. Everyone always goes on and on how using the swearing words are wrong. But why are they? I mean all they are, are a couple words that don't really mean anything, and the only reason I like using them is because when you can't find a word strong enough to describe how you feel, usually one of the swearing words does the job. Whatever, thanks a lot. From Barbara in Long Island somewhere

Dear Barbara,

That was courageous of you to tell me. The soul is surrounded by three garments - thoughts, speech, and deeds. When you use foul language, you surround your soul in stench, kind of like walking around with completely dirty underwear. Sounds gross? Foul words make your soul feel gross, and they chase away Hashem's Divine Presence, which means that a person who uses filthy language loses Divine guidance and protection. That's when real trouble in your life starts.

Please try to break the habit. The best way to do that is to avoid anger. Since anger comes from arrogance, the more modest a person is, the more he or she steers clear of anger. Remember also, a person with a cheap tongue is a cheap person. You certainly don't want people calling you "cheap" behind your back, especially since you're a quality young lady.

People who use foul language are basically no better than pigs. Even if you dress them in in fancy clothes, pigs remain pigs. A person's speech is the showcase of a person's soul.

Barbara, do your soul a favor and weed the four-letter words out of your vocabulary. Elul is the time for all of us to decide to be just a little bit better than what we used to be. With blessings, LB

Emuna News Op-Ed: Strategic Holiness

It doesn't matter whether an American, British, or French soldier acts in an upright manner. For a Jewish soldier, personal holiness is even more important than a well-lubricated rust-free weapon. It's life or death. The Torah demands that the soldiers of Israel not only conduct themselves in a manner of personal holiness, but that also their camp is conducted in holiness. Here's a practical example: if there's a pornographic picture on a wall in an Israeli barracks, then the Divine presence leaves. The barracks is then rendered completely exposed and vulnerable to the enemy. This is no way to win a war.

"For Hashem your G-d walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to deliver your enemies to you, so your camp must be holy, so that He will not see a lewd thing and turn away from you" (Deuteronomy 23:15). Holiness invokes the Divine Presence. No enemy - no matter how superior in men or materiale - can touch a hair on Israel's head as long as Hashem is in our midst. On the other hand, where there's no holiness, there's no Divine Presence. That's bad news.

Better late than never. It's about time that the 32 national religious rabbis woke up to protest the debauchery within the IDF. This is a bigger threat to our national security than Achmedinejad or the Hizbolla. We urge the IDF to maintain modesty and an upright climate anywhere that soldiers are stationed.

We condemn the senseless wagging tongues, both of the army and of the politicians. Rather than doing teshuva and strengthening holiness, military officials announced to the press that they are deploying US-made Patriot missiles near Haifa. Such an announcement, probably intended to calm the fears of a non-emuna public that's worried about Hizbolla's impending revenge of arch-terrorist Mughniyeh's elimination, shows fear rather than strength. It shows not only a lack of emuna, but outright stupidity, especially since the Patriot missiles failed miserably in stopping the barrage of Scud missiles that Sadaam Hussein fired at us in 1991.

Yet, the winner of today's inane speech award is the Prime Minister, who makes demagoguery look like a complimentary word when he praised the 2005 disengagement from Gaza. "Despite the [continuing] Kassam fire, it was a very good move since there are no longer 30,000 soldiers protecting 1,200 citizens," he said. How ridiculous - those soldiers were also protecting the south of Israel, at before the disengagement, Sderot wasn't a ghost town. In the very next sentence, Ollie Folly mentioned Sunday's decision by a ministerial committee he led to approve a budget of NIS 350 million to fortify 3,600 Gaza belt homes against Kassam rockets. He contradicts himself from one moment to the next, for if the soldiers were still there, he wouldn't be spending a third of a billion shekels in iron and concrete.

Jerusalem

Not a day goes by where both Israeli sources and Arab sources claim that negotiations are actively going on that are dissecting our holy city, G-d forbid. Olmert and Livni both deny, but we here at Emuna News wouldn't buy a used car from either of the two.

If Eli Yishai were a Breslever, he'd have to stand before Hashem for an hour a day in personal prayer and explain why Shas still supports a coalition that's carving Jerusalem like a holiday turkey. Just wait and see how the political future of a party that supports an anti-emuna government won't be strutting and gobbling once it loses all of its feathers. Hashem has a sharp sense of humor (see Proverbs 3:34).

You can't fly with eagles if you sit in a government with turkeys.

Guarding the Holy Covenant

Today's 6-minute clip shows how vital holiness is in marital bliss.

Melitzer Rebbe's Erev Shavuot Message to the Web-viewing Public, 5767

This is the first time in cyber history where a major Chassidic Rebbe specially addresses the web-viewing public.

I was 98% sure that the Melitzer Rebbe shlit'a would refuse when I first approached him with the idea that he address the internet public. His agreement to do so, in order to reach those who may never have the opportunity to see or hear a rebbe in their lives, makes me realize that he is even a greater tzaddik than I thought he was, who fears no one other than Hashem.

Emuna Outreach and the Beams is pleased to introduce you to the Melitzer Rebbe Shlit'a, Grand Rabbi Naftali Moscowitz, who bears a personal message and blessing for each of you. The Rebbe has also allowed us to publish his address, so that anyone who wishes can write and ask for whatever blessings or advice that he or she may desire: Grand Rabbi Naftali Moscowitz, Rehov HaTzivoni 7, apt. 14, Ashdod, Israel, 77571.

Welcome, Melitzer Rebbe: