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The Jewish Highway
What would the Chofetz Chaim make of the World Wide Web?
The Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (1838-1933) is one of Judaism's greatest proponents of "guarding your tongue," watching what you say and how you say it. Thanks to blogs and social networking sites, the Internet is rife with debate - some of it by writers who are just being cranky; others by people who say blogs are the best way to shine a light on ills that are plaguing a community.
Who is fair game for criticism in a blog? Rabbi Asher Meir of the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem says it depends on whether the individual has put himself in the public eye. We "have to make a suitable exception in the case of public figures or aspects of a person's life which are intentionally opened to the public... Blogs are not an appropriate forum for mentioning the virtues and foibles of unassuming people we encounter in everyday life. These people don't seek our praise and are justifiably mortified to be criticized in the public square of cyberspace." [http://tinyurl. com/3dgqk2]
Just ask Tod Goldberg's mother. Goldberg is a (somewhat reformed) blogger who has written...