There is a world of difference between lashon hora, evil gossip, and constructive criticism. First and foremost, criticism can help us to improve.
In this week’s reading, Moshe is warned that he spoke badly of Israel — he said that they will not believe him, and this is why G-d makes his hand turn white with Tza’aras, the affliction that came for speaking lashon hora. The Torah also teaches us how important it is not to embarrass another person, comparing a comment that drains the blood from a person’s face to homicide. Yet the Torah is also filled with instances in which G-d and Moshe rebuke the Jewish Nation.
We are turning to you this week with an open invitation for criticism.
As you have almost certainly heard, we are in the process of laying out a series of improvements to our website and entire Internet presence, ones which we hope will dramatically increase our reach and our ability to touch Jewish lives. We want to know what you think is missing.
As Rabbi Dixler put it, instead of “what’s new at Torah.org,” let’s talk about what’s old!
We will be the first to say that our website is outdated. The menus are clumsy and confusing, and don’t necessarily steer you to the content you will most enjoy. There are no social media connections to make it easier to share our content. We could, of course, offer a wider variety of content, and RSS feeds to permit you to subscribe via the web to writers or topics.
This will help inform our transition, and help others to appreciate its importance. If I try to explain to a supporter that our website is outdated, that’s one thing. But if you, the reader, say “I can barely find your excellent content because your menus are so clumsy,” then you’ve both endorsed the importance of what we offer, and explained how and why we need to improve.
So please, have at it! We don’t promise to publish every comment, but we will certainly read them.
We look forward to hearing from you.
I’ve been a subscriber to your classes since it was ONLY “Project Genesis” and I’ve gained a lot from them. Unfortunately, it seems as if a number of the classes “offered” have gone defunct years ago and send out no content, while other classes are in “reruns”, and have been for years. It would be nice to have the defunct classes moved to an online archive, and the classes in reruns marked as such.
Receiving “Project Genesis “is a high light /delight of my day, I say if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. I have been taught much truth of God’s word from you. Thank you, and keep up the good work.
You don’t need to change. Project Genesis Lifeline is a regular part of our Shabbos.
Don’t disable anything! Only add capabilities, and continue and create multiply different ways of doing the same thing..
For instance, don’t discontinue plain text e-mail because you can now connect through social media, or make
it harder to start or manage your subscription.
Don’t exclude people not using social media from anything.