It’s hard to argue with your second point, but I disagree totally with your first point. Blogging is hardly a harmless pasttime for impressionable teens if it exposes them to “display[s of] utter disregard for essential Jewish ideals like the requirements to shun lashon hora and hotzo’at shem ra, to show honor for Torah and respect for Torah scholars”. It’s challenginging enough for intellectually mature and discriminating adults to avoid being negatively influenced by some of the trash that finds its ways onto blogs. If teens need to let off steam, let them play basketball.

So what were teens doing for the 5760 years before blogs?

Binyamin,
Ah! Now I understand what Churchill meant when he said, “Truth is so precious, it must be protected by a bodyguard of lies.” He was referring to blogs!

That’s a strange thing to say. So every time someone complains about something, that means that they are deep down seeking their approval?

This would mean that the JO is seeking the approval of Western culture!

Ori: Good point, thank you. However, isn’t it true that those publications answer different needs? I assume there are people further on the right that read JO and not cross-currents.com. Also, aren’t there people who personally read here who would rather their elementary school age children get a more consistent message until they’re ready for the real world’s complexity?

This points to the fact that the divisions we talk about are not as clear-cut as we might think.

The internet here contributes by forcing those who are leading to present fully convincing arguments, and to deal with all of the opposing arguments.
Likewise, an open discussion of Daas Torah or related issues forces the relevant parties to think through the issues very carefully, and does not allow quick decisions, and will not allow them to express their opinion without defending them.(I am not saying that Daas Torah is never judicious, but it has been greatly abused because of the freedom it gives the people recognized as having Daas Torah.)

The presence of blogs challenging the fundamental aspects of Judaism will force us to better understand why we believe in it. The blogs which find mitzvos unreasonable will force us to comprehend the reasons for the mitzvos.

And this is why I think the argument here was wrong. The greater evil allowed by the internet is not only accompanied by a greater possibility for good, but it also forces the good the increase its goodness (as it will also force it to drop undefensible and unwanted positions it may have picked up).

The internet is not the only evil thing in the world - would we also argue that the world would be better without Man, because of the evil he is capable of?
And I imagine a discussion in the Heavenly Court debating the creation of the internet -
and Kindness said, let it be created, for it will allow people to help each other better.
and Truth said, let it not be created - it will be used for publicizing lies.
and Rightness said, let it be created, for it will be a tool to correct injustice.
and Peace said, let it not be created, it will be used to create discord and argument.
And God would reject the arguments of Truth, for it is only in this medium that Truth can develop and emerge.

(cf. Bereishis Rabba 8:5)

The JO’s second tightrope is that it needs to satisfy the hashkafic standards of the right of the Torah world, and presentations by even some Charedi writers, which were presumably vetted, have been subject on occasion to pressures from its own right(which represent a very vibrant part of the Torah world and has its own valid needs). Despite the constraints of these two tightropes, the JO’s editors should be given credit for the its excellent articles, and for the discussion those articles generate in Orthodoxy.

Within Orthodoxy as a whole, there is a need for appropriate openness. Dr Shapiro is researching the topic of “Censorship in the Orthodox World”, and as an antidote to this, I think all Orthodox circles need to find appropriate outlets for openness. Similarly, while a specific Torah community may have noble and good reasons in editing a picture in a biography, I think that the effects on wider Orthodoxy should also be considered.

First, animosity becomes animosity(at least in some cases) precisely because feelings are left to fester. While bringing differences in the open has the potential to exacerbate them, there is also the potential for understanding provided that such discussion is done properly.

More importantly, the discussion on this board I think surpasses that in many conventional publications—Centrist or Charedi, and may for certain issues, be at the cutting edge of the Orthodox world(this is not to say that letters to the editor in print publications are not of value). Although blogs may be more open as far as the scope of topics discussed or comments allowed, it is precisely the restraint one finds here, errors notwithstanding, which especially warrants that it be taken seriously.

I also feel that it is vital to notice the JO’s efforts and sensitivity; if one is only looking at the negative, a person will never notice positive where it exists. For example, an Orthodox response to Noah Feldman was, itself, recently critiqued in the JO. The article was careful worded, though, and its author gave the benefit of the doubt while criticizing; this type of sensitivity can, and should, be recognized no matter which Orthodox group one affiliates with.

- excellent observation. It points to the fact that no matter how free thinking we are we still seek the approval of JO-types because deep down we know they are onto something. The current JO-type spokespeople may be narrow in their view and less than charming in their approach but lema’aseh they most directly represent those who hold the keys to our mesorah. we may argue that we are not wandering beyond the pale, but we know that they are safely within it.

Ori: Ignorant outsider question - who appointed JO to be anything beyond a mouthpiece of the people who publish it, same as any other publication? If the editors of JO think you’re beyond the pale, can’t you just ignore them?

Binyomin Eckstein: While many jourals, e.g. Commentary, follow a rather strict editorial line in their articles, they are much more open in their “Letters to the Editor” section. After all, fairness requires that an author whose views have been attacked be given a chance to defend himself, leaving the last word, of course, to the autthor of the original article. This is standard editorial procedure. It is NOT the policy of the JO.

Ori: Well said. Having said that, is a solution possible? At the end of the day, I suspect that blogs and the Orthodox print media serve different needs that cannot be merged. Either you want the debate, in which case you read blogs where Natan Slifkin comments, or you want to read opinions that are approved by the Moetzes of Agudas Israel, in which case you read Jewish Observer.

You are defending the JO based on a particular value system - one that denies the concept of freedom of speech, even within the Torah world. But that wasn’t the value system that Rabbi Shafran used to condemn blogs and the internet. Rabbi Shafran was seeking to capitalize on values shared by all Jews, not merely those who believe that the Moetzes are the sole arbitrators of truth. He didn’t say, “Blogs are evil because they promote freedom of speech, which we are against, because we have a monopoly on the truth.”

In fact, your defense effectively confirms the other point that I was making. If the JO is to be defended on the grounds that they are only bound to present the view of the Moetzes, and any other view (even that of Rav Hirsch etc.) is beyond the pale, then don’t be surprised if a lot of people become very resentful at being written out of Orthodox Judaism! Don’t express wonder and distress at the Internet bringing out the worst in people, when your official publication of Orthodoxy states that there is no validity to anything other than the Moetzes!

Is the Talmud lacking in fairness and truth because it fails to quote the arguments of the Sadducees and heretics in full? They clearly weren’t convinced by the arguments of the Pharisees, were they?

The answer is that the point of the Talmud is not to give voice to all opinions and let the reader decide. It gives voice to all legitimate opinions in a debate - and that is its truth. (Perhaps the Sadducees decried the Talmud as giving their opinions an unfair shake and started the ancient sadtalmud.blogspot.com). You have been rejected by the Moetzes as a bearer of a legitimate opinion, and the point of the JO is to present what the Moetzes perceives to be “the Torah’s clear truths”, not letters by those engaged “distortions and undermining” of said Torah.

“Fairness and truth” would demand that when the JO attacks the RCA statement on evolution, they quote it in full, rather than cutting off a critical sentence in the middle and placing a period instead of an ellipsis.

If that sentence was indeed critical in explaining why the JO’s attack was unjustified, then it was wrong to do so. It could be they went too far in their zeal in attacking opinions that they view to be incompatible with Torah. It’s happened to greater people than the editors of the JO.

It depends whether the “Fairness and truth” would mean that letters critical of the magazine’s stance would be printed.

See my first comment above.

Furthermore, putting my book aside, surely even from a Daas Torah perspective, authorities such as Rav Hirsch and Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffman deserve to have their views properly represented.

OK. But that isn’t the JO’s purpose - it is to present the Moetzes’ views.

Keep in mind, as well, that this topic’s treatment taking place in the JO is after the advent of blogs, and much of it is in reaction to pieces written on blogs and websites, not the other way round.

Such discussion does not take place because the principal media organs are either in the possession of the most extreme elements in the community, or more frequently in the hands of those who are effectively terrorized by those elements. Even in the most “open” media outlets, the so-called Vaad HaRuchahni functions not so much to pass judgment on the fitness of the views expressed from a Torah perspective, but rather to guess what might arouse the ire of the Hebrew Yated or result in wall posters in Meah Shearim. In the absence of an open press, an alternative samzidat press will always develop.

But I would go further and argue that the blogosphere, including Hebrew sites like chadrei chadorim, can perhaps serve a valuable function. (I’m speaking theoretically; I know little of the actual sites.) A system in which even limited freedom of thought and speech does not exist harms not only the “subjects” but the “rulers”. For such a system lacks a feedback mechanism — e.g., a free market or elections — that allow the rulers to know what their subjects are thinking about and what concerns them in their daily lives. However unpleasant and unenlightening much of what appears on the blogosphere may strike us, the medium does at least have the potential for providing such a feedback mechanism where none currently exists.

Ori: Why do they object to the Web? If their objection is to having access to everything in the world, including a host of highly unkosher sites, a competent IT person can configure a network for them that will only allow access to a white-list of approved sites. Then they can participate.

If their objection is that the Web is less hierarchal, and allows people to post their opinions regardless of their level of knowledge or virtues, then I’m not sure there is a way for them to participate. At least, there is no way for them to participate in the kind of discussions we have here. Even a moderated forum will include people like me who are somewhat ignorant and hold heretical views. You can exclude us, but that would also hurt the discussion.

Or maybe they have a different objection, one that I didn’t think about. If so, what is it?

A little heavy on the personal pronoun there, no? This isn’t Bob-Currents… yet.

I understand what you’re looking for, but a critique of the JO or Rabbi Shafran’s use of it as support for his article is not out of place, nor is it an example of the “evil” that Rabbi Shafran is talking about.

If the JO, or the Yated, or the Jewish Week, or the New York Times for that matter, can be shown to suffer for similar maladies, albeit in a more censored version, as the blogs then that goes a long way to undermining Shafran’s thesis. I’m not sure it’s the fairest thing for you to attack those commenters simply because they are not conforming to what your idea of this discussion should be.

That said, I do have a suggestion. Clearly we’ll never get the bulk of religious leaders to participate in this technology. (Nor do I think we’d want to.) What we, the “responsible” denizens of the blogosphere, can do is to selectively print out articles and comments that we believe those religious leaders with whom we have a relationship can benefit from. I’ve done this with my Rav and he does appreciate it.

I’m sure you didn’t intend this, but my idea of Jewish leadership, even if just in the Torah world, extends well beyond the Moetzes.

Reality shows that my argument does “fly”. For instances I know Kiruv professionals who davka look at the worst of the comments on certain blogs to try to learn what’s wrong and what they may be able to do to fix it.

Yes, there’s a lot of background noise out there, but within that background noise there are voices that shouldn’t be ignored. Maybe the JO needs to shut them out for it’s narrow readership but maybe the openness of the blogs should be the place where these voices need to find a home and where wise leaders need to filter out the important information contained therein.

Furthermore, putting my book aside, surely even from a Daas Torah perspective, authorities such as Rav Hirsch and Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffman deserve to have their views properly represented.

I may be on target, but not really the target cvmay identified.

I hope this discussion here can be constructive; if not, it will exemplify the problem of blogging. Casting blame on one Orthodox group or magazine or another is not fair or productive. On some level, we commenters all live in glass houses.

I don’t want Torah leaders who object to the Web as a medium to be left out of the loop in favor of others; the goal is maximum constructive participation. I want some thought to be given to alternative modalities for communication that will work today and be able to draw in our greatest Torah leaders appropriately. No one said it would be easy. To start, let’s check our animosities, even understandable ones, at the door.

> even many responsible blogs allow postings of comments from people with very different value systems.

I was very upset to see that even after moderators had tried to edit open comment sections afterwards, you could find lots of loshon hora and hotza’as shem ra in many comments. When a blog with divrei Torah also has anonymous slander in the comments, I’m not sure how on balance that’s a good thing.