Agudah Deals With Blogs
Announcement of Thursday night at the Agudath Israel of America Convention:
"In recent years, though," the Agudah leader (Rabbi C. D. Zwiebel ) observes, "due to a variety of factors, the authority of daas Torah has been significantly undermined, even within our own chareidi circles. Most troubling has been the proliferation of Internet 'blogs' where misguided individuals feel free to spread every bit of rechilus and loshon hora about rabbonim and roshei yeshiva, all with the intended effect of undermining any semblance of Torah authority in our community. It is most appropriate for an organization like Agudath Israel, whose very essence was built on the recognition of the authority of Torah leaders, to address this issue head on, and formulate concrete plans to reinvigorate public awareness of this essential element of the Torah way of life."
Could it be that blogs were empowered because we failed to formulate a sophisticated and technological approach to the internet and instead tried to scream down progress?
It would make more sense to have Gedolim on a blog than to 'raise our voices' (we have too much of that) in a useless and self deprecating protest. The status of Torah leadership has not been enhanced by the handling of this issue.
Addressing this issue 'head on' means technology and chinuch. 'Public awareness', however, will increase blog readership.
There is something of an inferiority complex in the implied belief that, paraphrasing the immortal words of Rabbi Shlomo Freifeld, Torah will not win in the open marketplace of ideas.
The approach of prohibition is generally used by those who are afraid their ideas will not survive the light of day.
Not the Orthodox Jews, which are constantly succeeding in the face of modernity.
posted by Leapa at 11/03/2006 12:20:00 PM
3 Comments:
"....all with the intended effect of undermining any semblance of Torah authority in our community."
What an arrogant, chutzpadik idea to float. THEY kow why bloggers exist....because we don't agree with their version of Judaism then out efforts must exist solely to undermine the Torah's authority. An astounding overreach. An obnoxious presumption!!!
Look at my comment on the next blog. When Torah leaders posit negative thoughts and concepts to their constituency, this can only result in a negative response. Chazal always were positive, even when instituting issurim. There was always a positive apect to the issur. As many of these blogs here have stated, the answer to internet abuse is education, both a greater degree of actual Torah learning in quantity and quality, as well as explaining that the internet can be a postive tool in one's life. They can grandstand anti-internet assifa after assifa and nothing will help until they realize that assifos with positive concepts promulgating positive use will affect the average Jew.
and in direct answer to "still wonderin"... watch what you say and how you say it when talking about "them". "They" are still Torah giants who, even though may be making a mistake in how they attack a Yiddishkeit problem, are still more pained about it than many others and definitely more Torah knowlegeable than the average blogger. They are Daas Torah and we are plain baalei baatim, no matter how learned we may be. Careful. Your words are the beginning of our downfall, by knocking Gedolei Yisroel.
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