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Welcome to the Judaism community on Codidact!

Will you help us build our community of learners? Drop into our study hall, ask questions, help others with answers to their questions, share a d'var torah if you're so inclined, invite your friends, and join us in building this community together. Not an ask-the-rabbi service, just people at all levels learning together.

Comments on Divrei Torah Category

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Divrei Torah Category

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It's been previously suggested to create a Divrei Torah category. With Elul coming up I'm sure there's lots that the community has to share — should we create this forum in which people can do so?

The idea, if implemented, is to create a new category, alongside our current Q&A, Challenges, and Meta categories, in which community members could post their own novel Torah thoughts, or share Divrei Torah which they heard and felt should (and could!) be shared.

  1. What types of themes are acceptable to discuss? Should any topic considered in-scope for questions be in-scope for posing Divrei Torah?1
  2. In the previous discussion it was taken for granted that such a Category would be for Articles. Should this be the proper implementation of it, where people could post their own Divrei Torah as Articles, and people can respond in its comments? Or should it be written as a Question-type post, in which people have the option to write counter-Divrei Torah in the Answers to amicably respond to the original piece?
  3. Currently we have the Weekly Topic Challenge ongoing. Should this be extended that the Theme of the Week would encompass both Questions on the topic as well as Divrei Torah thereon?
  4. Should we include a rotation, on a volunteer basis, for people to submit Divrei Torah on the coming Parsha/Yom Tov?
  5. Any other suggestions on how the Category should be set up?
  1. Please note that the CYLOR policy would extend to Divrei Torah as well. Just like we don't accept questions asking for halachic advice, we would not accept posts constructed as platforms for their poster to spread their halachic advice. Discussing others' halachic opinions, however, would be entirely allowed, if the community agrees.

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General comments (6 comments)
General comments
interested‭ wrote over 4 years ago

If you would have such a category I would regulary contribute my own original divrai torah. Most divrai torah depend on a question, so that would not be a problem. I would also like to say some more things. I dont approve of the voting system, which means one can downvote anonymously a question or answer from an established sefer written by a rov. I consider this a chutspah. By all means give your own but dont denigrate others. Also I think some able people should have more than one vote.

Isaac Moses‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@interested This is a community-based resource, and one of the core mechanisms that make it valuable is community-based peer review. If a writer takes on the awesome responsibility of transmitting words of Torah or rabbis, that author takes on the responsibility to do the job well, in a way that will be well-received by readers in the relevant context. Voting is a way we have of letting an author know that improvement is needed, to help fulfill that responsibility.

Isaac Moses‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@interested ... Anyone is welcome to take on the responsibility of transmitting Torah without such assistance by starting a personal blog.

interested‭ wrote over 4 years ago

I cannot agree. Every author of a sefer does the job well and does not need us to ask him to improve it. I am not talking about todays authors but previous gedolai oilam which this site has the chutspa to downvote. If someone asks a question and I can prove it is also asked by well known godol in a sefer you have a chiyuv to stop it being downvoted. I have this on the other site. And I hope this site will have more yiras shomaim and kovod of gedolim.

Isaac Moses‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@interested Essential to productive participation in a community like this is understanding the difference between criticizing a particular community-written post on the internet and criticizing authorities that are cited in such a post. If you don't agree that there's such a distinction, then this community is not a good place for you to share your knowledge, and I sincerely recommend publishing on a personal blog instead.

DonielF‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@interested Have you ever noticed when you open a Sefer that there's page after page of Haskamos at the beginning? You might think of the voting system as akin to the community giving its haskamah, l'havdil. A downvote could mean "this doesn't answer the question," or "this answer misrepresents the source it claims to cite," not just "I don't like this." Likewise on questions: there's more than one way to ask a question, and a downvote on a question might just mean it was presented poorly.