When there is something that we believe to be harmful, immoral, or sinful what is the appropriate way to educate others to stay away from this repulsive behavior or item? Meaning: let us assume that we know Mr. X to be a bad influence and somebody of poor moral quality. However, we know that there is an attractiveness to the way that Mr. X speaks and deals with people. When we want our friends to stay away from Mr. X – do we focus on the negative elements of Mr. X’s behavior or do we paint the entire picture, e.g. “while Mr. X might be fun to be around he is also a bad influence”? Perhaps there is a certain integrity in painting a complete picture and then allowing others to make a fully intellectual decision?

The great Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Yaakov Kamanetzky, understands that this is not the case. In this weeks Torah portion (12:30) Moshe warns the Jewish people about idolatry and tells them to stay away from it for they (idolaters) throw their own children into fire. Rav Yaakov Kamanetzky explains that Moshe knew that there were plenty of beautiful and enticing forms of idolatry, yet – he chose to focus on the most heinous permutation. Why? Moshe clearly understood that in order to distance people from that which is wrong, one needs to highlight the utter darkness of such a path and leave behind any reference that point to the nicer components of the unwanted behavior.