Budging a little

From the comments:

I don’t believe you intended to be offensive, but the post was very poorly worded. As im sure you are aware, choice of words and the way writing is organized really makes a difference in the message being delivered. Especially, the opening words and sentence.You lead with “inspiring? why inspiring?” 10 out of 10 reasonable people would come away with the impression that you were doubting whether he was inspiring. If this was not the point of your post, and I know it was not, then it was a terrible choice for opening sentence. Then the very next sentence you acknowledge that he inspired “some” students, making it sound as if youre severely qualifying the extent of his inspiration. If you had just reorganized and started with “I think ‘inspiring’ sells him short” your entire post would have had a more tasteful tone.

anon 04.17.08 - 12:30 pm #

I plead guilty to poor wording and I thank you for your helpful comments. Now, I am waiting for those of you who failed to recognize that the post's criticism was directed not at the Rosh Yeshiva but at the writer who thought "inspiring" was a high compliment to plead guilty to poor reading.

Additionally, Dag has asked me to make it clear that I do not question the legitimacy of Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim. This should go without saying, but I am going to say it anyway because Dag is a friend who asked nicely. I fully support (as if my support was needed) the decision of Rav Dovid Leibowitz to leave Torah Vodass and establish a yeshiva more in line with his own hashkafot.