Torah against the prevailing culture: What else is new? It has always been so of which the Chanukah struggle against Hellenism is but one example. One of the newer battlefronts of today perhaps more complex than any that went before is the Torah community’s struggle against Internet abuse. Mass meetings exhortations appeals. The battle is a difficult one perhaps because this modern enemy is so subtle and so enticing — and primarily because of its fundamental appeal to our inborn psychological needs.

For the enemy is not the Tablet or the iPad or their numerous incarnations. Rather the enemy is the fact that the new technology meets a profound inner need: the envy of G-d.

Envy of G-d? Yes. From time immemorial man has sought to become like a god. Eve is the first example. What finally persuades her to taste the forbidden fruit is the serpent’s promise that if she does so she will become like a god herself. Ten generations later the Dor HaFlagah decides to build theTower ofBavel high into the heavens in order to replace G-d entirely so that they will be the only power in the universe.

This “G-d envy” this desire to be a Supreme Being continues throughout history: Pharaoh considered himself a deity and challenged Moshe with “Who is this G-d that you claim to speak for?” In our day Emperor Hirohito ofJapan as well as Stalin Hitler and Mao Tse-tung convinced themselves and their followers that they were divine creatures.

The underlying source of this unchanging pathology is that at the bottom we are creatures who rebel against constraints of any kind. We want to run wild and free to be subservient to no one to exercise control and be our own master.

Until our day this aspiration which the poet Shelley called the “desire of the moth for the star” was realized only by a few individuals in each generation. But today it has become endemic fully available to the masses. With our new technology divine power has now been bequeathed to everyone. By the flick of a finger we gain the illusion of total control. Music games news friends celebrities strangers — all are within the grasp of our grubby little hands. Telephone texting pictures searching finding listening tracking people — the entire range of human perception aural visual and tangible — is literally at our fingertips. The Internet is a global delivery system offering power to all.

Not only are we in charge but no one can control what we do or admonish us or curtail our actions. We and not our Creator are the real meimis umechayeh. We can create images and destroy them we can eradicate and then revive.

Such thinking leads to a sense of complete moral independence. Only I exist. There are no brakes on my behavior. My actions revolve only around my desires and appetites. There is no Other above me and no other beside me. The formula for the good life is: Me + Me = Me. It is the veritable Nirvana of narcissism. Finally we become as gods.

This is the fatal attraction of the Internet. It supplies us with our most fundamental need: the need for unlimited power. Conduits to the tawdry and the vulgar have always been readily available but until recently unlimited power was not readily available. Now however those little gadgets make it possible for us to realize the human fantasy of omnipotence. The cunning serpent of Bereishis has reared its ugly head once again offering its tempting wares: illusions of divinity omnipotence and dominion over everything.

The most effective way to confront this subtle enemy is to address corroded attitudes in ourselves and our children. Space does not permit a full discussion but it is clear that some of the fundamentals of Judaism need reemphasis: the idea of servant-hood before G-d; the sensible balance required between bishvili nivra ha’olam and anochi afar va’efer; the delicate calibration between healthful self-esteem and humility; the subservience that is the natural result of ayin roeh v’ozen shomaas; the concepts of reward and punishment and the accounting that we must all eventually give.

If we recognize that our true enemy is the arrogance and moral hubris lurking within us we will realize that our task is not to replace G-d but to imitate Him as in Talmud Shabbos 133b: “Just as He is merciful and long suffering so must we be …” And then those omnipotent little toys will begin to lose their luster as we learn to control them and make them our servant and not our master.