[Avodah] Another View on How to Portray People of the Past

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Nov 09, 2008 at 02:21:32AM -0500, Joseph I. Lauer wrote:
:    How does one "learn from their experience" when only part of the
: experience is related?

R' Hutner (Pachad Yitzchaq, Igeros uKesuvim #128) replied to a talmid
seeking help in his milkhemes hayeitzer that a person should turn
to stories of how role models overcame obstacles and failings to be
inspired from, and if we present the gedolim as pristine and nolad
legedulah mibeten, there are people who should aspire for gedulah who
won't realize tht they are in that ballpark.

And of curse, the elephant in the room is that not everyone agrees on
wht a derogatory story is. And so in practice, this editing has managed
to remove all historical evidence of shitos other than current party
line in the publisher's kehillah. It's this issue, not the one under
discussion, that I believe creates the passion in this discussion.

Obvious examples from Meqor Barukh / My Uncle the Netziv include his
wife's citation of a Y-mi that she learned in the Rosh, the Netziv reading
haskalisher newspapers after Fri night dinner, his attitude toward
Zionism, and his begrudgingly allowing Russian language classes in
Volozhin.  To the publisher, they represent things that will make his
readers think less of the Netziv. To the MO community, the ommissions
mean a loss of their sources from the historical record. (Although the
language classes were begrudging, it does refute the myth that there
never were limuei chol in Volozhin.)

I do not wish to take the conversation in that direction, just to point
out that the emotional weight of the conversation is not actually about
our particular point.

Keeping the discussion to the points already raised, even in cases
where any shomer Torah umitzvos would agree the story is negative, R'
Hutner's argument applies. Besides, describing all greatness at though
it were mibeten actually robs the gadol of much of his accomplishment
by making it a gift from the A-lmighty.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and
micha at aishdas.org        this was a great wonder. But it is much more
http://www.aishdas.org   wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "mensch"!     -Rabbi Israel Salanter