[Avodah] R' Aviner on gadol hador status

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Micha Berger _micha at aishdas.org_ (mailto:micha at aishdas.org) 

RMB:  The  Besht was known as a Baal Shem. The Gra, for his learning in
halakhah. Apples  and oranges.

 


TK:  No, the Besht was known as one of the greatest leaders of Klal  Yisrael 
in the past several centuries, the founder of the Chassidic movement,  and as 
the person who did more to save Eastern European Jewry from shmad and  haskala 
than any other single person in the past three hundred  years.

RMB:  If "Gadol haDor" relates to halachic  leadership.....
 
 
TK:  Stop right there.  "Gadol hador" relates to being the  greatest Torah 
leader, or one of the greatest, of your generation.
 
 
RMB:  However, RnTK's point here is inaccurate.

First, the  Ramchal died 14 years before the Besh"t. He was recognized,
despite dying at  39. He, like the Besh"t, didn't become famous on the
weight of his pesaqim.  But you can't conclude anything from the fact
that today we don't turn to  people for leadership, to even look to see
who is great, until they reach  their 50s.
 
TK:  If somebody becomes famous, fulfills his life's work, and dies --  all 
before the age of fifty -- then in his case, it is not necessary to turn  fifty 
before becoming "the" godol hador, if there is such a thing as "the" godol  
hador. (I don't think that every dor has just one person who so towers over his 
 contemporaries as to leave the question fully settled -- only once in a 
while is  there such a dor, or such a person.)  In most cases, gedolim are only  
recognized as such late in their lives or even posthumously.

RMB:   BTW, is fame, in the form of being known and actually providing
leadership,  part of your definition of a gadol? 
 
TK:  Yes.
 
RMB:  What if the greatest
mind of the generation is sitting in the  back of a tiny beis medrash
somewhere going totally unnoticed?
 
TK:  Then he is not the godol hador.





--Toby Katz
=============
"If you don't read the  newspaper you are uninformed; 
if you do read the newspaper you are  misinformed."
--Mark Twain
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