[Avodah] Sources for "Lonely Man of Faith"

[Micha Berger]

I don't know if RYBS ever applied this idea in the secular realm, but
WRT talmud Torah, he was aware of at times accidentally "borrowing"
earlier Torah.

RYBS started with Yaaqov's pledge to Lavan that in 20 years of working
for him, none of the flock had a stillborn, Yaaqov did not eat a single
ram, he didn't bring Lavan those killed by wild animals and instead
bore the cost himself, "genuvasi yom ugenuvasi laylah".

Why the keifel lashon? How does genuvasi yom differ from genuvasi laylah?

RYBS answered that sometimes someone says a devar Torah not besheim
amero, intentionally stealing credit for the chiddush for himself. That's
"genuvasi yom". Sometimes the theft is so in the dark even the thief
doesn't realize it. The devar Torah I might have heard once many years
ago and forgot. Then later, when I recall the idea I think it's something
I had discovered myself. Genuvasi laylah.

Here, though, I think these are simply ideas so common in various variants
among the neo-Kantian and Existentialist worldviews and thinkers of
those schools that RYBS simply didn't think it necessary to cite. IIUC,
that's what R' Prof Sholom Carmy already wrote, and if so, I'm happy
that was my instinctive answer as well.

Last, I'm reminded of my first attempt to learn Ish haHalakhah. I get
just a few pagest into the book, and I'm totally thrown by the words of
a footnote. What's all this about "the wheel" and how does that wheel
indicate to us philosophical concepts? Then I got a little further,
saw a long word that was obviously a borrowing -- Kierkegaard -- and
realized that "hagal" was supposed to be "Hegel".

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
micha at aishdas.org        G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
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Fax: (270) 514-1507      to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter