Q:
Would watching television be permitted for old women in nursing homes who have no other interests?
A:
The answer is, old women in nursing homes would it be right for them to drink poison if they have nothing else to do?
You have to realize that drinking poison is much more beneficial than watching television – especially for old people. A young person who watches television, so it ruins his mind, it ruins his neshamah. But still there’s some hope left that maybe before he dies he’ll repent and maybe he’ll learn a lot of Mesillas Yesharim and erase from his mind part of what he listened to or what he saw.
But old people just before they die, they have to purify themselves most! And if they’re going to pollute their minds in their last day, that’s how they’ll take it with them in the next world. They’ll take all the arayos, all the wickedness with them in the Next World. Not because they’ll practice it. They’re too old to practice immorality. But they have it in their heads! Immorality in the head of an old man is the very worst thing.
Here’s an old man. He can’t go out in the street. You go to visit him in his house. He’s sitting and looking at the television. Gevald, gevald! His children are murdering him. He should say Tehillim in his last days. He should speak to Hashem in his last days. He should prepare himself. He’s reading something that’s dirty or looking at dirty magazines that his children brought up for the old folks to enjoy before they die so he’s taking all that garbage with him into the next world. Old people especially have to prepare! And that’s why television for old women in the nursing homes is the very worst thing you could do to them.
TAPE # 485 (December 1983)
