Seemingly, the Rabbi is being consistent with his view that one should judge only what is said, and therefore if sensible things were said there by some ordinary person to explain the ethical issue, that should be enough. And Amir’s approach is that even if we heard one reason, it’s still interesting to hear whether there are other reasons too. There’s also the ad hominem factor, which affects how much empathetic thought one should invest in the matter. I’m also in Amir’s camp and would be interested to hear your orderly formulation of your view.

I did raise it in the comments, but I didn’t see an answer from you, only comments from others, so I posted it here as a separate question—sorry if it looked like I was trying to pester you; that wasn’t my intention.

I wanted your answer. With all due respect to the comments of the other commenters there in the thread, forgive me, but some of what they wrote seemed puzzling to me.

Why would anyone want to be interviewed knowing that the interviewer will do with the interviewee’s words as he pleases?

Again, I’m saying that I asked here again not in order to pester, but because I’d be happy to hear what you have to say, and the talkbacks there, with all due respect, are less interesting to me.

What they answered there is sufficient for me.

Okay—this seems very puzzling to me. Why would a person agree to be interviewed knowing in advance that his words will probably be taken out of context, and on top of that he won’t even have the right to see the written interview and correct it?

I can now better understand people who consistently refuse to be interviewed……….

And what they wrote there in the comments is, forgive me, nonsense—the interview is *also* the interviewee’s. The interviewee is doing the newspaper a favor by agreeing to be interviewed, and there’s a give-and-take here, and he can definitely make demands and expect that no mishap will come out of the interview with him.

According to what “Everyman” and the commenters who responded similarly to him wrote there in the thread, there’s no reason for any sane person to agree to be interviewed.

Truthfully, no rabbi I know gives newspaper interviews, and the very idea of an interview seems pretty strange to me. I can still understand rabbis who answer by SMS, because that’s the medium nowadays. But the phenomenon of rabbis and thinkers who maintain websites, Facebook pages, and the like seems strange to me (although here they can lay out their teachings as they wish). It seems to me like attempts at publicity and accumulating sympathy. I understand that it helps spread ideas that the people publicizing them think are important, but specifically that reminds me of Hasidic courts with lots of public relations. Today, whoever presents himself and knows how to market himself well (through the new media) takes over the discourse. The content and truth of the ideas matter less, and that really bothers me. It’s very intriguing and interesting and allows one to see different opinions, but at least in a newspaper, if it tries to be objective, the public-relations aspect is avoided.

Even when I write here, I sometimes feel like part of the scenery.

Everyman, how is this worse or different from publishing books, giving lectures, and founding yeshivas? The image of Rabbi Aryeh Leib Shteinman comes to mind.

I’m really not sure it’s very different. You’ll agree with me that it’s very different from a generation ago, when a person’s book would be published after his death or with limited circulation and the like. I think one of the severe problems of this generation, and the cheapening of Torah, comes from the mixing of religion and publicity, and this is one of the things that destroys every good patch of ground among the rabbis and great figures of this generation. The fact that everyone gets publicized and immediately has followers (including, in my opinion, on this site too) and influence—that distances us greatly from the truth. (Of course in academia and in the civilian marketplace the problem is even worse; people have grasped that if they are good marketers of themselves or their product, they succeed much more than if they create an actually better product or worldview.) The problem is that this penetrates into the world of holiness and profanes it (perhaps unavoidably).

Were there not famous rabbis in every generation? I don’t understand the claim. In earlier generations too there were books that became known early on (the Shakh, for example, and hundreds more), and rabbis who disseminated responsa to all corners of the world (the Rashba, the Rogatchover, etc.). Each person according to his praise.
What do you mean that everyone becomes famous and immediately has followers? One should say almost no one becomes famous, and it takes a very long time and a lot of effort to gather followers. And usually you can also hear from the followers about the Rebbes—not like a urine test, but like “tell me who your friends are.”
If you’re claiming that the lust for publicity causes people to say unserious things or biases them toward strange opinions, that’s already a different issue (publicity as a sign), which has already been discussed here plenty.