Holy amnesia: remembering religious sages as super humans or as simply human

University of Portsmouth reprints by Yohai Hakak (2009)

 Abstract

The last decade has witnessed a wave of Haredi literature dealing with the education of children and youth in particular. A common question raised in this literature is that of the proper way to describe the Torah sages of previous generations, i.e., what needs to be remembered and what should be forgotten about them. Many of the writers criticize the ways of writing customary up to our time, which tended to describe Torah sages as superhuman and as lacking any weaknesses or failings; raising educational concerns, they call for a change in these ways of portrayal. In this article, I apply Mary Douglas’s theoretical model of ‘‘enclave culture’’ to the current social circumstances of the Haredi community, in an attempt to explain both the origins of this trend as well as the sources of opposition to these new ways of writing history within the Haredi community.

In 2002 , Rabbi Nathan Kamenetsky’s book Making of a Godol was published. The title of the book suggests the writer’s intention to demonstrate that even the greatest Torah sages did not come into the world with all the attributes of greatness, but rather went through a long process of struggle with human difficulties and weaknesses. The book raised a storm and within a short time was banned. The great Torah sages of Israel, headed by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, demanded that the author cease its distribution.

In a letter banning the book, signed by the greatest Lithuanian rabbis in Israel, the book is described thus:

It is full of grave humiliations, flippancies, and mockeries and creates a bad name for some of our greatest rabbis who are the holiest of the luminaries of Israel of the last generations. For they are the ‘ancients [who are] like angels’ and from their words all Israel lives [...] and the greatness of their honour and holiness is rooted in the heart of every God-fearing Jew. And this book seeks to abolish this through slander, disgrace and humiliation of their glorified honour, which is also the honour of our blessed God and our holy Torah.
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Rabbi Hutner’s comments continued to make waves. Rabbi Yechiel Ya’acob-amongst the most prominent Haredi educators, also referred to this issue. In his lectures, he would often proclaim that ‘‘one should remove the Torah sages from the Burial Society,’’ when hinting at the fact that their current description in Haredi biographies causes children and youth to despair and in fact ‘‘buries’’ them alive. Rabbi Ya’acobson claims in his lectures that ‘‘one cannot educate through lies’’ and mentions that the Bible and the Talmud are replete with uncomplimentary descriptions about the nation’s illustrious figures.

Another educator to relate to the subject was Rabbi Yitzhak Hershkowitz,35 in his book She’ifot(‘‘Strivings’’) (2003 p. c) he devotes the 14 pages of the introduction to his voluminous book to shattering the delusion regarding the path of the Torah sages. As part of this effort,he introduces tales that testify to Torah sages’ struggles with the evil inclination andto the immense effort they had to invest in in order to become renowned in Torah.Thus, for example, he offers comments made by the Vilna Gaon to his student, the Magid MiDubnow, who asked to be bestowed with his evil inclination. In reply to the request, Hershkowitz quotes the Vilna Gaon as saying (2003, p. 3): ‘‘My child, may the Lord protect you from my evil inclination; it burns in me like fire!’’ On page 6, under the heading ‘‘Most Torah Sages Did Not Have Talent’’ he describes the tremendous efforts that befell whoever became a Torah sage and the travail that was the lot of those achieving this status...