The Chofetz Chayim Heritage Foundation held its annual Tisha B'Av event yesterday. The leading speaker? Rabbi Mattisyahu Solomon of Lakewood Yeshiva. As noted by GodolHador, a thrust of Rabbai Solomon's talk was the need to speak with someone before judging them. Yet Rabbi Solomon signed the ban against Rabbi Nosson Slifkin without speaking to Rabbi Slifkin. In fact, all the 'gedolim' who signed that ban did the same.
When the Chofetz Chayim published his book on the laws of lashon hara, some gedolim were concerned that the emphasis on the laws of lashon hara without commensurate emphasis on laws of social justice would cause discrimination against the poor and weak by the powerful, rich and well-connected. Mattisyhu Solomon's behavior – in the name of the Chofetz Chayim Heritage Foundation, no less! – is another in a long line of proofs that those gedolim who feared the approach of the Chofetz Chayim were correct.
Do you give money to Lakewood or the Chofetz Chayim Heritage Foundation? If you do, stop giving – and make sure both institutions know why you are no longer funding them. Also make sure to let your synagogue know that you do not appreciate programs from the Chofetz Chayim Heritage Foundation or Lakewood Yeshiva.
Mattisyahu Solomon is promoted as a moral leader. But a leader who lies, who abuses the weak, who uses double standards of justice, cannot be moral. He is by definition immoral and, unless and until he publicly apologizes to Rabbi Slifkin for what he has done, he must not be allowed to lead.