Shaalvim? Are You?

As many of you know in addition to my extensive Blog mastery, I also coordinate a Torah webpage. And, as many of you who have survived a sortie into my home-office know, I print out the contents of the Internet quite frequently. Some may ask 'why print the internet when it is snugly resting amongst the ones and zeroes of the World Wide Web?' I will answer that intriguing yet stupid question by using the example of Yeshivat Shaalvim.

Shaalvim, the "nice-guy" yeshiva (or at least that what we called it in college; Gush guys were arrogant, KBY guys burst into flames when they stepped foot in Princeton New Jersey, and the Shaalvim guys were 'nice.') Anyway, they have lots of good Torah online. Thought provoking, well-researched articles by Rabbi Aaron Weiss and Rabbi Joshua Blank, among others.

Oh, you'll have to take my word for it... because Shaalvim has removed most of the online Torah and replaced it with the WWW equivalent of Folger's crystals... or with nothing... I can't tell. A swift google search for "Aaron Weiss" reveals only my lone Torah website.

There are a number of top-notch Torah websites that swiped away all their Torah in the 8 years since I've run my website(yup, 8 years, holy macaroni).

And, lest you think it is a self-censoring salvo by extra frummie sites, the ones who've dropped off the Web are usually the most intellectual and academic: (1) The Soloveitchik archives from Mail Jewish, (2) Machon Lev, (3) The Chait High School in Seattle, (4) Keren-Kayemet L'Torah.

Shaalvim is in a different category - they have Torah up, but in the past 8 years they have changed their webpage 4+ times and they've swiped away their archives. But, in any case, its less Torah. Now the only source for this stuff seems to be my massive piles of printed paper.

P.S. the "are you" from the message title is a reference to the way my kid looks for lost objects, as in looking for his lost train totem of Thomas: "T'ommas?! Are You?!"