I agree with you. That’s why I think that ideally there should be a non-internet forum in the broader Charedie and Orthodox communities where grass-roots discussions can take place. The forum should be open to a very broad spectrum of opinions.

When I think of powerful and effective tochachah, two famous stories of the Chofetz Chaim come to mind. I’ll just allude to them here, for brevity’s sake, assuming they’re broadly known. The first with the yeshiva bochur in Radin who was caught smoking on Shabbos. The second with the cantonist at the inn. In both cases, the Chofetz Chaim conveyed tremendous ahava, love, to the one to whom he was giving rebuke. Perhaps we, who couldn’t dream of such ahavas Yisrael, might try this in our own small way.

- you are obvisouly right. no one could have ever thought that better behavior would be the outcome. it is clearly about the need, justified or not, of the epithet thrower to do his thing

I’d like to extend the discussion to inter-Orthodox matters. How much ink and how many pixels have been wasted in making stereotype-ridden, nonsensical, even childish points against one another while we collectively face some really daunting threats.

The idea that we can shame someone into better behavior by throwing out crude epithets was probably flawed even in the good old days.

take it a step larger. the decision to perform any action at all should be made within the context of the “end game”; i.e. does it get you closer to your goal, whatever that is. I agree with the poster who said that this piece of common sense is not that common, and that the CI should certainly get credit for stating it. my point is that once we hear something like this that makes good sense, it should become obvious and we should assimilate it as common sense. Then we won’t have to come on to treating it as the “guidance of a godol”, which is not as potent a stimulator to our own behavior as something we ourselves feel in our gut to be true.

In addition, they can also point to the notion that many people feel that vocally protesting a wrong is imperative even if no constructive effect will be achieved, merely for the goal of not allowing oneself to be desensitized to the situation. They feel that one must not remain silent in the face of an anti-torah position or situation, even if their protestations have no effect on the situation.

In debates in the secular world, if a person makes derisive remarks about a person or a position, then they lose points in the audience’s eyes, because it makes their argument look weak, even if it is in fact not. Hella Winston indeed criticized such less than intellectual critiques of heterodox theology in a New York Times Op Ed this past April.

I think that we can do better than just using derision against heterodox movements. Torah is called Toras Emes(Torah of Truth), and its superiority is strong enough to allow us to make intellectually rigorous arguments for it. When showing weaknesses in heterodox theology as well, our arguments can be made without resorting to derision.

This would be a tragic error, since many ignorant Jews think that those groups represent Judaism.

The MALBI”M on Mishle specifically advises the use of ridicule when addressing a purveyor of foolhardy ideas, in order to show the audience that those ideas are not to be taken seriously.

The Chazon is, according to your article, specifically allowed this to be done when “there is a duty to protest.”

And Rashi in Beraishis says HaShem wrote ‘naase…Adam’ even though ovdei avoda zara could indeed claim it was evidence for them. BeDavka.

So. How scared do we have to be of our enemies? I would distinguish between forums. It may be a mistake–not an aveirah!–to tease reform clergy to their faces. But maybe it is okay to make fun of them on our own fora. We can’t be afraid to oppose what we do not believe in just as much as we support what we do believe in.

More, as a parent I must agree as well. How many times do we try to convey important ideas to our children, but accidentally add other ideas or actions that serve to distract from, and weaken, the key message?

In my experience, all speech is a form of chinuch, and the rules that apply to one apply to the other in some measure.

One method to avoid this is to take the Chazon Ish’s dictum to heart and consciously judge the effect of each word on every possible audience on every public occassion (from speaking in the Knesset to commenting in a blog). This is difficult because it makes it impossible to speak spontenously and passionately.

Another method is “Heve Dan Kol Adam Likaf Zchut”, judge everybody favorably. If you assume that people are doing bad things because they are evil, you will naturally be angry and have to fight your evil inclination to avoid expressing this anger. If you assume they are misguided and trying to do their best under mistaken assumptions, you will have a more respectful attitude and be more likely to convince them, or at least people who are neutral.

Of course, this does not apply to clear enemies such as the Hamas or Al Qaeda. However, nobody in the Orthodox camp wants to go “Eliyahu” on Reform Rabbis, complete with a show off on Mt. Carmel and subsequent slaughter (I Kings 18). Opponents deserve a respect that enemies do not.

Then again, being that you are a spokesman for the Agudath Israel, your criticism probably applies to yourself as well

It is also somewhat ironic that it is the Chazon Ish being used as an example of moderation, given his well known praise of kana’us (extremism) and denigration of moderation as a mindset. Perhaps only a Chazon Ish could know when extremist behaviour was called for, which would explain why his acolyte needed to have his speeches vetted, and why this leaderless generation should just stick to common sense.