QUESTION: You mentioned before that a person loses their Olam Haba (share in the World to Come) by going to the movies. Do you lose it also by watching TV?
ANSWER: Now to make any extreme statements would be out of place here but the truth is that a man can chas veshalom (heaven forbid) lose his Olam Haba even by reading books. I don't want to say what the Gemara says about that – people who learn know. But whatever it is, we have to know that Olam Haba is a very delicate and very easily lost thing and therefore we have to guard it with the utmost care.
Now since this lady mentioned going to the movies, on this account I feel I'm standing on safe ground. The movies today are a place of extreme wickedness and it should be publicized that this is so. As many people as possible you should inform of the great peril – if the person is a Jew – of the great peril to his neshamah (holy soul) of going to movies. Even women should know when they watch movies they're actually selling themselves into Gehinom. And there's a good reason for it.
If even if , reading wicked books can make you lose your Olam Haba – it’s only books – so when you go to a place where it's pictures and they're geared only for low passions there's no question a person is going to end up by being corrupt through and through.
Reprinted from the Parshas Vayakhel 5785 email of Toras Avigdor based on a Thursday night lecture taped in April 1975.
