… or why I don’t blog Anon
This is actually my second blog. My first blog was back November 2004 and I did not use my name. The blog was called “Out of town Yid” and constisted of only one posting. The blog was put to sleep after about two days. My ‘post’ was basically about how middos and basic ethical concepts in Yiddishkeit should, in theory, get passed on to one’s children, students, congregants, or receivers of ‘Jewish outreach attempts’. When this doesn’t happen, it’s a disaster. It was not what I would describe as as a “happy go lucky post full of sunshine”. After rereading it I, as mentioned, pulled the plug.
For some, the ability to blog anonymous works to their advantage. For me, it brought out a dark side, that gravitated towards the sarcastic, a place were I might be prone to use my “wit to abuse, not to amuse.”
I know, for myself, that blogging under my name helps to (hopefully) keep me in check and for lack of a better phrase, not do anything foolish. When one puts themselves out in the public, on the web, on You Tube, Facebook, at the grocery store, at work, in shul, or in line somewhere for coffee, we do not only represent ourselves. There is a bigger picture.
That picture, may include our family, spouse, children, or the general category of “Torah observant Judaism”. Chillul Hashem is never a good thing. Rav Yisrael (Lipkin) of Salant (I know it’s not Sunday) said:
When Lashon Hara is spoken in Vilna, the effect will be Chillul Shabbos in Paris.
If, chas v’Shalom, this is true, then the best way to counter such a thing would be for me to remember that the opportunities that I can use for a Kiddush Hashem, or the learning I do, or the davening I do, or the mitzvos I do can have a very global effect. Can a Jew davening in Yerushalyim have an impact on another Jew in Wichita, KS? I like to hope so.
I’m not so global of a thinker tonight, though. I’d rather think more locally, like about my kids sleeping several rooms away. I hope I can affect them positively.
you think blogging non-anonymously will help them sleep better tonight? how?
good point. non-anonymous means you cannot just post anything. I always believed in sending letters to the editor and posting comments non-anonymously. If you cannot put your name to what you are saying, you should not be saying it. Blogging is the same. If you are only willing to say something if it does not have your name on it, it probably should not be said.
And when you say something with your name on it, you have to be careful how you say and who is reading it. I know plenty of times I do not post certain things I wanted to post, just because I know certain people read regularly and it would offend them.
I’m also the same way. There is a least a post a week that I think about and trash only because it might offend someone. There are those who blob Anon and I admire them for not going ‘to the darkside’. Then again, there are those that blog under there own name and I wonder, “how can they even think of writing what they write.”
Come on. I’ve know you for years, friend. We’ve talked about issues that bother us within the current trends in Orthodoxy, why not just list the things that bug you and just don’t allow any comments (like you get any these days, as it is)?