TODAY’S WAR 5781 [#18505]

What did the Rav mean in a recent response that we need to gain a new perspective on what the “main war” is now which we need to be fighting?

In the past, we were mainly fighting outside influences that were coming into the Jewish people, which were either being forced on us, such as various laws of the government that were decrees against religious Jewry, and the issue of the “Erev Rav” (the Israeli government) mixing themselves in to the world of religious Jewry, who were trying to convince the religious world into certain things for their own self-gain, so that they [the government] would gain more money, prestige, and power – all as a means of influencing their views and lifestyle into the religious Torah world. The leaders of our generation have been fighting these influences for several decades already. But from about the year 5760 (2000) and onward, and especially in the last decade, basically all of the tumah (the terrible culture of our world today) has entered from the outside into our own inner circles. (This is a resemblance of how before the sin of Adam, evil only existed outside of man, and after the sin, the evil entered within man, as the Nefesh HaChaim explains). The tumah that entered the Torah world today is mainly through the media in all of its many different forms. And now, the evil of the 50th level within the 50th level of tumah has, Rachmana Litzlan, entered within our own inner circles, into the world of Torah observant Jewry, and even worse, it has entered into the Torah world itself [the bnei Torah and the most religious]. And from this point onward, the war that we face with those who throw away the Torah is no longer our main war that we need to fight today – though it certainly is raging strongly. And our main problems today are not with neighbors or friends who aren’t being so stringent on keeping every last minute detail of halachah who may be a harmful influence on our children, and the like. Rather, the large part of the war we need to be fighting today is within our own homes. Couples are split between their values: One of the spouses is connected with media/internet or at least wants to be connected to it, or parents want media/internet in their lives and their children don’t want it, and vice versa. Or, some of the children want to be connected with media/internet while the other siblings are holding strong not to. This is the realization of the verse, “The enemies of a man are those in his household”.
In many cases, each person as an individual needs to develop his or her own inner world to live in, within his or her very own house, so as not to be influenced by the rest of the household. This is the secret of the “Yechidah” level of the soul, for the Yechidah level of the soul is found in one’s house. And therefore, today the main war we are fighting today is found in our own homes.