The Battle of the Bans

I've been following the controversy about the banning of Rabbi Slifkin's book and Gil Student's call for a counterban (all relevant material is available at Hirhurim) with a mixture of outrage, bewilderment and bemusement (mostly the latter). I've spent most of my adult life involved in trying to advance a responsible form of modern Orthodoxy. That has often put me on a collision course with various Haredi polemicists. In retrospect, though, I think that a lot of the time I spent in these polemics was a waste. The time could have been put to better use by learning, teaching and (in a positiv way) disseminating my own ideas and those in which I believe.

Apparently, that was the Rambam's position, too. In a letter to his student, R. Yosef b. Yehudah, he admonishes him NOT to get involved in controversies with those who disagree with him (i.e. the Rambam). It's a waste of time, said Maimonides, who then set out a carefully crafted curriculum for R. Yosef to follow. [The text is in the seconf volume of Y. Shailat's Iggerot HaRambam. Unfortunately, I don't have the volume in front of me.]

So, in the matter of R. Slifkin, I suggest that those who support him should read him and push others to do so. To take on the hotheads who would like to crucify him woulkd be a waste of time and of little effect (ibid zeman u-mi'ut ha-to'elet).