An Israeli rabbi has composed a prayer to help devout Jews overcome guilt after visiting porn web sites while browsing the Internet.
"Please God, help me cleanse the computer of viruses and evil photographs which disturb and ruin my work..., so that I shall be able to cleanse myself (of sin)," reads the benediction by Shlomo Eliahu, chief rabbi in the northern town of Safed.
Eliahu, quoted by Israel's largest daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, said he had responded to a deluge of queries from Orthodox Jews worried that the lure of Internet sex sites was putting family relationships at risk.
The rabbi recommends that Jews recite the prayer when they log on to the Internet or even programme it to flash up on their computer screens so they are spiritually covered whether they enter a porn site intentionally or by mistake.
This prayer to me seems to place the blame on the computer rather than the individual. I have a problem with that. I think it is fine to pray that the internet will be cleansed of porn if that is your wish and also to pray that you will have the strength and maybe courage to not visit those sites if this is a problem for you. However, I believe it is important to remember that we are all accountable for our own actions. Just because porn is available on the net doesn't mean we need to avail ourselves of it.
The key wording here was that they would be covered whether a porn site was visited intentionally or not. This type of prayer makes it ok to visit porn sites because you are covered and not in sin. Thats a nice hokey way of having your cake and eating it too in my opinion.