Question

Hello Rabbi. You often write about the shallow level of public discourse (so called through no fault of its own, etc.). Now, your posts, or at least a large portion of them, present completely crushing arguments against views that are widespread among the public. Take for example your argument that the claim that a homosexual is deviant does not belong to the scientific sphere. I have not the slightest doubt that if I sat with at least 80% of the educated public who think that a doctor/psychiatrist can determine that, and I calmly explained your arguments to them, they would be persuaded and admit that they were completely mistaken and that the argument is decisive. The same is true regarding many, many other topics. The problem is that your excellent site is quite a greenhouse for a circle of rational Religious Zionist intellectuals, so you are missing the general public. There will always be foolish people, or those who are unwilling to take an interest in ideas, but it makes no sense that there are so many educated, open-minded, critical people who fail in so many simple ways, just because they haven’t had the chance to browse your site. Therefore, there is no doubt that you ought to work toward getting a regular column in some major newspaper, Israel Hayom, Yedioth, etc. Even if the column would not be long, usually it is possible to establish the idea, and besides, from there people would also come to read things you wrote at much greater length on the blog. Now, words of truth are recognizable, and there is no doubt that people would read your column once and understand that this is a deep and honest public commentator who does not show favoritism to anything. From there they would start reading what you write again and again, and the public level would rise, so that in a year, for example, there would no longer be anyone able to claim that a doctor determined that homosexuality is not a disease, without people laughing at him and saying that he is talking nonsense. I assume you are not enthusiastic about writing in a newspaper format, under certain constraints, etc., but I also know that the level of public discourse matters to you, and this step is very much called for. I personally know people who read newspapers and, had they come across your column even once, would have become regular readers of it. That is exactly what I meant: it makes no sense to keep open-minded people who want to learn from throwing away mistaken views, when it would be so simple to cause them to do so, just because they happened not to come upon this site. I would be glad if you would consider this with the utmost seriousness.