[Avodah] Who he could have been

[Micha Berger]

Taking a lead from an Areivim conversation. Two people were discussing
R' Dr Hirschaut, a man recently lauded by the NY Post for his role in
getting cancer research off the ground and keeping it there. Notably, in
his photo for the paper he is sitting in front of a bookcase containing
a Miqra'os Gedolos, Kehati mishnayos, sefarim on medical ethics, etc...

The question was the hypotheticcal -- what would have been had RDYH
had been raised in a home that didn't value limudei chol? Would he
still have fulfilled as great of a role in life? After all, he has the
intellectual abilities of a talmid chakham, the business abilities of
becoming a great ba'al tzedaqah, etc...

All I know is that in that scenario, I would now be dead. Noa would never
have been born (not to mention the generations who be"H will come from
her), and the rest of my children would have been young yesomim these
past 4 years.

We're talking about a man who more than anyone else (and arguably
single-handedly) built the industry of cancer research. All those new,
more effective, forms of treatment factor into *his* cheshbon. Every
dollar given by a survivor, every wedding he made more joyous because
the kallah's mother was able to be there, every word of Torah studied by
thousands impacted though his research and all the children ad olam they
wouldn't have otherwise had... He didn't become a poseiq, but without
his work numerous kehillos from YU to chassididei Bobov would have lost
their rabbeim decades earlier than they did. There is no mitzvah he
didn't play a critical part in enabling.

Even if someone else would have done it had he not stepped in, the time
lost would almost certainly have been the difference between whether
the R-CHOP "cocktail" existed when I needed it, or not.

You ask if "hypotherically speaking, isn't it possible" he would have
accomplished an equal tafqid in life. Possible, yes. Remotely likely?

But this removes any implication from the point. I argued all of the
above because of the specifics of one person's extraordinary contribution
to society. The masses are making more ordinary contributions (by the
definition of the word "ordinary"), ones which we could well imagine
being equalled or surpassed had their lives gone elsewhere.

The Gra writes on Shema that a person must remember three things:
1- I am here to do the tafqid before me
2- I am living now in order to do the tafqid of today
3- I am the only one would could possibly do this tafqid as Hashem
   planned for it to be done.

The question of what R Dr Hirshaut would have been had he been born in
a family the "Torah only" hashkafah would have reached is pointless. Or
who a potential successor is going to be because it did reach their home,
or his mind when he "flipped out" in Israel, equally pointless. The RSO
made whom who he is, and that is not only nature, but also nurture.

Had Einstein ended up in yeshiva, he would have been one of the greatest
lights of that generation. But he wouldn't have been Einstein. He would
have be been a different person, a different soul with a different tafqid.

It is only the person for whom the choice was brought to their nequdas
habechirah in which we can say they contributed this rather than that,
and actually compare the two. Without that moment of asking oneself "im
la'eis kazos higat lamalkhus", one is asking about the opportunities
given, not what the person did with them. Might as well ask what he
could have bcome had Hashem blessed him with wealthy parents or granted
even greater intellect. Or, for that matter, had he been blessed with
a father who didn't die of cancer when he was young,

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is complex.
micha at aishdas.org                Decisions are complex.
http://www.aishdas.org               The Torah is complex.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                                - R' Binyamin Hecht