[Avodah] Telling All of the Truth About Great Men

[Prof. Levine]

It has become increasing common to "sanitize" 
things in certain circles. Many "gedolim books" 
leave out aspects of the lives of these great 
men, because they do not fit what some consider 
to be the appropriate behavior of a gadol. For 
example, there is no mention of the fact that Rav 
Pam, ZT"L, attended college and earned a master's 
degree in mathematics in the biography of Rav 
Pam. Someone once told me that he even taught 
math at one time in the high school of YTV, but I 
have not verified this. In any case, he did 
attend college and earned two secular degrees.

Is it really the Torah approach to "cover up" 
things that do not fit with the conceptions that 
some of how a gadol is supposed to be? I think 
that the answer is a resounding "No!"  The 
following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 
12:10 - 13. (It is not Rav Hirsch's entire 
commentary on these pesukim, and I urge those who 
are interested to read his entire commentary on these pesukim.)

10 There was a famine in the land, and Avram went 
down into Egypt to sojourn there, because the famine was severe in the land.

11 When he was close to entering Egypt, he said 
to Sarai, his wife: Look, I do know that you are a beautiful woman.

12 So when the Egyptians see you, they will say: 
She is his wife, and they will kill me, but you they will keep alive.

13 Please say that you are my sister, so that 
they will deal well with me to get to you through 
me, and so that, through you, I will remain
alive.

10–13 Vayehi  ra'av ba'aretz .With these words we 
come to a story that at first glance
seems more than a little strange. Avraham left the Land that had been
promised to him; he did not rely on God, Who knows how to provide
even in a wilderness; and it appears at first glance that he compromised
the moral welfare of his wife in order to save himself!

Yet, even if we were incapable of explaining the strange events in
this story; even if we were forced to conclude as the RAMBAN concludes —
  “Our father Avraham inadvertently committed
a grave sin by placing his virtuous wife before a stumbling block
of iniquity because of his fear of being killed . . . His leaving the Land,
about which he had been commanded, because of the famine was another
sin he committed ” — nevertheless, none of this
would perplex us. The Torah does not seek to portray our great men
as perfectly ideal figures; it deifies no man. It says of no one: “Here you
have the ideal; in this man the Divine assumes human form!” It does
not set before us the life of any one person as the model from which
we might learn what is good and right, what we must do and what we
must refrain from doing. When the Torah wishes to put before us a
model to emulate, it does not present a man, who is born of dust.
Rather, God presents Himself as the model, saying: “Look upon Me!
Emulate Me! Walk in My ways!” We are never to say: “This must be
good and right, because so-and-so did it.” The Torah is not an “anthology
of good deeds.” It relates events not because they are necessarily
worthy of emulation, but because they took place.

The Torah does not hide from us the faults, errors, and weaknesses
of our great men, and this is precisely what gives its stories credibility.
The knowledge given us of their faults and weaknesses does not detract
from the stature of our great men; on the contrary, it adds to their
stature and makes their life stories even more instructive. Had they
been portrayed to us as shining models of perfection, flawless and
unblemished, we would have assumed that they had been endowed
with a higher nature, not given to us to attain. Had they been portrayed
free of passions and inner conflicts, their virtues would have seemed
to us as merely the consequence of their loftier nature, not acquired
by personal merit, and certainly no model we could ever hope to
emulate.

Take, for example, the Anavah (humility) of Moshe. Had we not known
that he was capable also of flying into a rage, we would have assumed
that his humility was an inborn trait not within our capacity to emulate.
It is precisely his outburst (Bemidbar 20:10) that
lends his humility its true greatness: We thus infer that he acquired
humility through hard work, self-control, and self-refinement, and that
we are all obligated to emulate him, since it is within our capacity to
do so.

Also, the Torah relates no sin or error without telling us of its consequences.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20101014/02275c53/attachment.htm>