Rav Avigdor Miller on Kosher TV
Q:
Do we gain the maximum benefit by staying to ourselves, separate from the goyim? Wouldn’t it be beneficial for us to gain from what the nations have to offer to us?

A:
When you see an airplane take off for Eretz Yisroel, and inside there are many people going to yeshivos to learn in Eretz Yisroel, that’s an example where we are taking advantage of what the gentiles have to offer us. R’ Akiva Eiger didn’t invent an airplane, and neither did the Vilna Gaon invent the airplane. The goyim invented it. So we say, absolutely; utilize all that we can from the inventions of the goyim. Even the scientific knowledge that the goyim have discovered we use. Make use of everything; whatever we can we take it for ourselves.

We’re like the bee. The bee takes the nectar and turns it into honey. When the bee takes the nectar from the plant, he doesn’t merely take the nectar and let it remain nectar, but he transforms it by enzymes into honey. And we take from the nations of the world whatever they have, and we utilize it for d’varim sh’bikdusha, holy purposes; no question about it. That’s why in all houses today, in frum houses, they don’t have torches or gas light; you have electric lights, don’t you? They sit by electric lamps in yeshiva; they use lights in yeshivos and they learn Torah. By all means, use everything that the goyim have to offer for all good purposes, certainly. It depends, however, who is going to bring these things to us. Because there is a lot of wickedness too by the goyim. And so we have to be careful what we take from them and what we keep far away from. So we say, our leaders are the ones who should introduce us to all the good things of the nations of the world

Now, I think that when Moshiach will come, we’ll still use automobiles; we won’t give up automobiles. It will be עולם כמנהגו נוהג – The world will continue to run like it does today. The gemara says that. And if there will be automobiles, so there will have to be traffic lights too. Traffic lights were invented by the goyim but there will be traffic lights too in the time of Moshiach. On the contrary, there will be halachos, takanos chachomim: If a person passes a red light, he gets ארבעים דרבנן, he’ll get malkos, lashes. No question about it. There will be very severe penalties. That’s very important for us – for safety, piku’ach nefesh.

We’ll make use in Moshiach’s times of all the good takanos. I’m sure they’ll use radio to let people know dinim, halachos, other important information; and people will listen to Torah on the radio. And in those days there will be a kosher TV. Kosher TV means people will sit in their homes and will look at the TV and they will see tzaddikim teaching Torah and explaining things – halachos, and middos tovos, and even halachos of Yom Tov and halachos of Shabbos on TV; and it will be much more effective than merely words or printed pages. I’m sure all the modern inventions will be utilized in the days of Moshiach. Therefore, certainly we want to make use of the benefits the goyim bring to the world