[Avodah] history

[Eli Turkel]

:> What ethical purpose is served by preserving a realistic historic
:> picture? Nothing but the satisfaction of curiosity. We should tell
:> ourselves and our children the good memories of the good people, their
:> unshakable faith, their staunch defense of tradition, their life of
:> truth, their impeccable honesty, their boundless charity and their
:> great reverence for Torah and Torah sages. What is gained by pointing
:> out their inadequacies and their contradictions? We want to be inspired
:> by their example and learn from their experience...

There is a basic flaw in this argument. If the only censorship was
that of a gadol doing an explicit sin, R. Schwab has a point (with the
opposing view of Rav Hutner). However, in reality most of the censorship
is about things the gadol did knowingly. However, today our standards
are different and so eliminate it from their biographies (eg reading
secular books or newspapers).

He essence we are saying that we know more than this gadol and so change
the facts. If RSZA held a high opinion of RAYK and we don't share that
viewpoint we simply decide that we know more than RSZA and so change
history. This has nothing to do with being inspired by their example. In
fact we are not interested in their examples when it differs from our
haskafa.

-- 
Eli Turkel