Q&A: On Style
On Style
Question
Hello Michi,
I wanted to ask you a question about column 63. I’m asking here and not in the comments on the column because I don’t know whether you still accept—or read—the comments posted on a column you wrote 4 years ago. There you say that speaking in a cynical, ironic, or sharp way, or being straightforward without dancing around it (I don’t know if that’s how you say it in Hebrew, but lol), expresses closeness and not contempt—which I really one hundred percent agree with. But it seems to me that there were some prominent rabbis, such as the Pri Chadash or the Maharshal, who wrote in a blunt style, or at least sharply, and yet their books were banned—for example, the Pri Chadash’s book during his lifetime in Egypt. So if that’s the case, does that mean we’re mistaken, and that apparently one should speak and write politely?
Answer
You can ask there on that column. I receive every comment and respond to it.
And if they banned them, am I supposed to rule like those who banned them, or like them? After all, to this day people study their words and honor them very, very highly. They are among the greatest halakhic decisors, and no one disputes that.
Beyond that, cynicism and taking people down a peg is an appropriate approach when the other person suffers from glorifying things that are worthless. But not in every case of an argument. I dealt with this exactly in the column that went up today (387). See there the explanation of “mockery regarding idolatry.”