This Blog Stands With Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi

26 Tevet 5776

After reading yet another headline condemning Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi's "Holocaust" remarks, I thought to myself that society today suffers from a deplorable lack of critical thinking skills. People seem to be making instantaneous judgments based on their own emotional reactions to whatever pops up on their screens. Few take the time to investigate and analyze the facts and make a judgment based on truth and fairness. And forget about the halachah that should guide these issues. We don't seem to even get close to that.

I consider myself to be very fortunate to have received an excellent education which included being taught how to be a critical thinker. But, how many people today even know what it means to "think critically"?

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. (Source)

But, apparently, even a critical thinker can be misled if he is not 100% honest in his motives.

Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one’s own, or one's groups’, vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fairmindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use. (Source)

No one who examines the facts honestly and without bias will fail to see the rank injustice being done to Rabbi Mizrachi. But, even aside from that, and despite the blatantly dishonest way this issue was brought to light, Rabbi Mizrachi issued a public apology and correction. Anyone who continues to foment controversy after the fact is in very serious error and I call on them to cease and desist.

Let it  be known to all that this blog stands with Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi. The blog author owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude for all the Torah learned from him during years when his detractors' names were completely unknown.

And so the birur continues and it becomes clearer and clearer who acts leshem shamayim and who has their own private agenda to fulfill!

As King David said to King Saul: "...the Lord shall become a judge, and He shall judge between me and you, and He shall see and plead my cause, and exact justice for me from your hand."