[A short and not particularly accurate history of the last few years]
A long time ago, in a world far, far away, lived a regular guy called GH. GH was not particularly interested in Science and Torah, though some people he knew quite well were. GH had never been a skeptic, nor had he even entertained any skeptical thoughts, except one time in Yeshivah for about two days, but that might have been caused by eating some bad egg salad.
Then one day, while sitting alone at his computer reading DovBear and Hirhurim, GH had a bright idea. Why not start a blog of his own? He figured a couple of friends would read it, plus if he baited some of the existing bloggers maybe they would come too. He dashed off a couple of posts on some random topics and, basing his title on a long forgotten but quite amusing British TV show of the 80s, named his new blog 'Not the Godol Hador'.
Actually, that’s not quite accurate. The blog was originally called 'Godol Hador', with the tag line of 'I am the Godol Hador, you will obey me'; but in the first of what was to be quite a few teshuvah fits, GH renamed it to something more modest.
The audience was small, the comments were few, the posts infrequent. Then one night, whilst lying in bed, a spark of inspiration came to GH, and the famous ‘chas vesholom’ letter began to compose itself in his head, as if by magic (or divine inspiration). GH knew what he had to do. He jumped out of bed, and began feverishly typing. Too afraid to post this piece of letzonus on his own blog, he posted it as a comment on Hirhurim (and possibly DovBear too).
Later, after the letter received critical acclaim, it found a new home on NTGH. The letter was followed by more ‘insanely irreverent’ funny stuff, all hosted by the Godol’s evil twin, The Koton Hador. In short order the consulting firm of Koton & Godol LLP was born, dispensing advice to the Gedolim of our time. Some ridicule also followed, but we don’t talk about that anymore, it was a long time ago, and anyway, none of those people were real Gedolim, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more say no more.
Soon the Godol’s fame grew, as did his outrage at the events surrounding the Science & Torah scandal. The Godol started debating the issues of Science & Torah, and soon gained a sizeable following of RW UOs, LW UOs, RW MOs, LW MOs and plenty more besides. The issues of Science and Torah were debated extensively; more extensively than Hirhurim, more extensively than DovBear, even more extensively than that bastion of sophisticated hashkafic debate, ‘The Avodah Forum’, (but with a lot less nutty theories from various Torontonians).
In fact, the depth and breadth, and more importantly openness and honesty, surpassed anything ever seen before (or since). No comments were ever deleted and no commenters were ever banned (well, not for long, anyway).
The commenters grew in number, and in stature. Mis-nagid, Ford, Satyaman, David G, Y Aharon, you name it, they commented. Jewish Atheist and Lakewood Yid were both inspired to start blogs of their own.
But there was trouble brewing.
GH, being an insanely honest type of guy, too honest for his own good in fact, began to get a sneaking suspicion that maybe he wasn’t being so honest on his blog. Every time he bashed the fundies with some devastating argument, the Skeptics would pounce on him, using the exact same arguments against him. He tried to ignore them, but at the back of his mind he knew: If the arguments he used against the fundies could just as easily be used against him, then something was very wrong with his position. He had to find some middle ground, immune to the irrational faith of the fundies, yet strong enough to withstand the sharp arguments of the skeptics.
So began the search for a rational orthodoxy.
For many months GH debated the skeptics. He fought bravely, often alone. Occasionally Anonymous would lend her expertise on the Documentary Hypothesis, sometimes even the legendary Gil Student would chime in. But mostly GH battled alone, into the dark hours of the night, sparring with Orthoprax, Mis-nagid and Boruch Spinoza, or Mark, Bishel Akum and various other yeshivah Bochrim home from Lakewood for Bein Hazmanim.
But GH just couldn’t understand what was happening. Debating the fundamentalists was simple, he could demolish their arguments without even thinking about it. But the skeptics; well, they were different. Try as he might, he just couldn’t beat them. He tried everything, Science, Hashkafah, appeals to common sense, a sense of tradition, anything and everything. But ultimately GH had to concede, the skeptics had a point. Just what did GH believe and why?
GH turned to people he knew in the kiruv world, but they were no help. He turned to his Rabbeim, but they were no help either. Only the blog world offered sophisticated debate on these issues, it could not be found anywhere else. And the blog world was dominated by the skeptics (except on the blogs which banned them). Why were the arguments of these skeptics so strong? Why could they not be beaten? Just what was going on? Could it be (chas vesholom) that they were right (chas vesholom)? Perish the thought!
Looking for allies, GH turned to his old buddies DovBear and S. But they didn’t seem to have anything to say against the skeptics either. In fact, they even seemed to agree with the skeptics on some key issues. Just what was going on?! Had all the smart people already figured all of this out? Was GH just a dope for only realizing all this stuff at age 36? Surely not!
Then came the clincher. A well known and extremely articulate skeptic blogger moved into the neighborhood. His arguments were persuasive, his demeanor pleasant. He had none of the vitriol of some of the famous skepto-bloggers, just a quiet self-assured manner, he knew his arguments were correct, and that was all there was to it. GH had to admit, the simplistic emunah peshutah of his childhood was gone forever, to be replaced by….
And so the saga continues…
