[Avodah] Are "Gedolim Stories" Good for Chinuch?

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 11:02:49PM +0200, Akiva Blum wrote:
: I don't know. When I read this story, I see that Rav Yisroel felt that the
: feelings of others take precedence over personal tshuvah and torah. The
: story teaches us what a godol knows to be the correct approach. Perhaps we
: may feel, or have felt otherwise, but that is exactly what the story does
: teach us.

I see RYS as teaching over his lifetime that the guarding the feelings
of others is the epitome of personal teshuvah and Torah. It can't "take
precedence" unless you see them as being in conflict. RYS certainly
didn't.

My belief is that when people within Tenu'as haMussar repeated the story,
that was the original point of the maaseh as well.

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 02:52:48PM -0500, Yosef Skolnick wrote:
: Anyway, the torah here is not referring to "torah" in the overall sense of
: the word but I would assume limud hatorah. "life and death, tshuvah" all
: fall into the category of torah as well.

Naniach teshuvah, but life and death are metzi'us. Although, just to confuse
matters, concern for other's feelings is also part of teshuvah...

In any case, we don't need to guess on intent. The person who adapted the
story from RDKatz's "Tenu'as haMussar" gave me an email "shkoiach!" for
the comment -- which was approved and appended to the web page.
http://www.revach.net/stories/gadlus/Rav-Yisroel-Salanter039s-Thoughts-As-Death-Loomed-Near/4875

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
micha at aishdas.org        you are,  or what you are doing,  that makes you
http://www.aishdas.org   happy or unhappy. It's what you think about.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Dale Carnegie