Q:
Is there any such thing as a Jewish alcoholic? And can we criticize a Jewish alcoholic if maybe it’s ingrained in his genetic makeup to be an alcoholic?
A:
Now we have to know there is no ingrained reason why anybody should become an alcoholic. There is no reason why anybody should become a criminal. There is nothing in his genes. Don’t believe that stuff. To be immoral is a person’s own choice.
If parents train children properly they can uproot from them all wicked influences. Sometimes you have to use a little chastisement – you have to talk to children, you have to put them in good institutions, you have to watch out against bad friends. But there is no question, however, that people can be made into good decent Jews, and you’re going to have nachas from them. If they drift away into taavos, it’s their own fault—sometimes it’s the fault of the parents—but there is no such thing among Jews as excusing a Jewish alcoholic. No. A Jewish alcoholic is the same as a Jewish criminal. It’s a man who yielded to taavos and therefore he is to blame as if he yielded to any criminal instinct.
April 1993
