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?!"

The Rav's 10th Yahrzeit

Around the YU-affiliated world, there have been a number of lectures, classes, shiurim, and othersuch related to the 10th yahrzeit of the Rav (who died on the 18th Nisan, 5753). They also trumpet the fact that it would have been the 100th birthday of the Rav - like that number matters in some way. I usually hear of the "how old they would have been" connected to celebrities and rock-stars who were cut short by tragedy (e.g. Elvis, Gandhi) and not to anyone who died at 90. Quick, how old would Rav Moshe Feinstein have been this year? Who knows?!

The 100th Birthday stuff is indicative of a larger googley-eyed hero worship of the Rav which I would find disturbing had I not seen it all the time when I was in RIETS. Its related to the old Hamaveser joke: "Modern Orthodox Rebbe Cards... collect both!"

[Historical note, I am now listening to Tenacious D's "Wonderboy"]

On the plus side, all this Googy-Eyed-Hero-Worship (GEHW) has produced many good works on the Rav, a bona-fide genius whose work *does* merit study and analysis. However, I don't see the open-ended historical and intellectual analysis that is indicative of a healthy idea system. For instance, will we see a biography that is critical of the Rav, especially as it relates to his personality? From what I can tell, I don't think I would have liked being in the Rav's shiur. (Although being there would have injected me with enough cognitive dissonance that I would have ultimately appreciated the experience.)

Will we see an intellectual review of the Rav's work that points out his rigid 19th Century German idea structure (2 concept dialectics as far as the eye can see!) or his turgid writing style? Not likely. We *will* see articles that emulate both lacunae; that recapitulate the "chakiras" and the over-adjectived multi-polysyllabic Tetris like sentences. And these articles won't necessarily be about the Rav! Rather, they will be GEHW mimic pieces that think that if you dress and sound like Elvis you'll be considered one of the King's subjects.

I guess this is standard for disciples of a guru. If I recall correctly, the students of Freud acted this way. [Quick, somebody, write a dissertation comparing Freud and the Rav!]. Another indicator of the Guru-Disciple syndrome is that books and articles are judged by their author's merit - i.e. how close was this author to the Rav. Some of his relatives have tried to cash in on this - making absurd claims in the name of the Rav because they happen to share some similar neucleotides.

What has sparked this recent Styx Screed is a book I bought on Sunday. The Religious Zionistist of America convention was at [my shul] this Sunday and I saw some feller hawking books in our lobby. Naturally, I was drawn to the books like a smack-addict but when I saw that it was a book on the Rav, I was immediately skeptical. However, it is the first book published by the famed Soloveitchik Institute. This should not be confused by the "MeOtzar HoRav" Foundation which has published three Rav books. Yeah, this all reminds me of the death of Alexander.

Anyhoo, the book is a collection of eulogies of the Rav. Memories of a Giant, ed. by Michael A. Bierman. (ISBN 965-7108-50-0, Urim Publications). Which just proves the point, no? The *first* book is about being googy-eyed about the man. More later.