The Power of a Gadol

So you think the “power of a gadol” is that he can look at a list of names and see whose time has run out?

Nope, they are human just like you or I. They have ammassed insane amounts of Torah knowledge and can apply it to their halachic rulings but there is no crystal ball that allows them to see the future.

Could just be that the Gadol was familiar with the situation vis a vi the persons family coming to him and sharing details which might not have been know to your friend who gave you the request.

#rationalistsmackdown

crisis of the week is an understatement. you are crisis of you life. you need a little emunas chachomim. bh there are those that still have it. look at yesterdays daf. kol hayodea lechasheiv tekufos umazolos look ay Rashi hakodosh. that it means seeing the future.

If “Emunas Chachomim” means believing ordinary human beings have super powers then no thank you.

zdad – right. my friend is male. Was it harder to believe that my friend was male than to believe I was telling the truth? interesting.

ZD wrote “does not mean i would trust a Gadol to perform brain surgery on me.”

Does that mean that you ZD, are going to stop writing anti-Torah posts? I hope so. And I hope some others will also stop posting anti -Torah posts.

interjection-“That my friend, is kefira.”

How is that kefira exactly? Does that violate one of the principles of the Rambam?

Interjection: That is not at all K’fira. What makes it K’fira?

ZD The point is YOU should not perform your brain surgery on everyone else, with your constant anti – Jewish posts.

Get a job. You are living off the blood of Jewish people.

“So you think the “power of a gadol” is that he can look at a list of names and see whose time has run out? Nope, they are human just like you or I.”

“That my friend, is kefira.”

It’s not kefira, it’s close-mindedness. There are plenty of eyewitnesses, including myself, who have seen gedolim do and say things which can’t be explained naturally. Unfortunately when it goes counter to crisis’ (and others) beliefs and world view, they would prefer to believe that me, uneeq, and all the other witnesses are blatant liars rather than entertain the notion they may be wrong.

So they’re either close-minded, or they feel so threatened (not sure why) that they prefer to put their fingers in their ears and shout “NANANA -I CAN’T HEAR YOU”.

WIY +1

Well said! I really hope crisisoftheweek and zahavasdad reads and rereads that post.

These stories of “miracles” happen on a bell curve. WE tend to only pay heed to the ones where the results are “spooky” and indicative of some super natural ability.

I will admit that the dedication it takes to study Torah that in depth will give the person better control of some cognative process I do not believe that all of the sudden their brain gains the ability to see anything via the supernatural.

Oh and to label me a “kofer” because I dont believe that the Baba Sali could shoot lasers out of his eyes or that Rav Elyashiv could predict this that and the next thing tells me that papal infallibility is alive and well in our community.

Just for the record I am not saying you shouldnt ask a Gadol for advice or a Bracha. Of course you should, but in non-Halachic areas you are not required to follow and you should seek as many people you can for proper guidence who might have relavent information.

If C’V you need Brain Surgery seek several opinions from experts in the field then seek the Rav for a Bracha.

It is a sad indictment of our generation that we ascribe papal infallibilty to our gedolim. It was never like that. Emunas chachomim has nothing to do with believing blindly in every saying of a godol. Can they give berochos? Absolutely. Can you tell us about very unusual stories of gedolim? certainly. but this does not mean that every word, every utterance should be followed. That is idolatry.

There was a famous case about 20 years ago of a Chassidic woman in Brooklyn with issues, The issues were known to the community . The Rebbe told the parents to have more children and she eventually killed one of her kids.

Rebbes are hereditary, and have no additional anything because of who their great-great grandfather was. A “Rebbe” can easily be a Hedyot.

ZD,

Thanks for your reply. However, it was and still is not a valid argument, because, as WIY said, a true gadol will not offer advice about something which he is not equipped to.

There are two aspects to attributing expertise to a gadol. One works on a very practical level. Through the intensive learning of Torah, Hashem’s wisdom, he becomes sharper, wiser, and his character refined to the point that his advice is unbiased, without personal motivation.

Also, because of the responsibility of his leadership position, he researches the issues that come up frequently, and often does become an expert.

There is another aspect, the supernatural. Call it ruach hakodesh, call it siyata dishmaya, but throughout history, and there’s evidence that it still exists today, Hashem has allowed gedolim to see beyond what we would expect through natural means. Chasidim tend to stress this aspect, “litvaks” tend to stress the first aspect, but there’s truth to both.

This does not mean that gedolim are infallible. It does mean, though, that you’ve got a good chance of getting a wise, informed, caring answer from a gadol, with some siyata dishmaya.

Examples of times that gedolim were “proven wrong” do not negate this fact, just as a doctor occasionally missing a diagnosis does not mean he’s a horrible doctor, or that a patient is better off self diagnosing.

rabbiofberlin: “but this does not mean that every word, every utterance should be followed. That is idolatry.”

I may not be the most popular figure here these days (until some brave entity declares so), but we that the holy Tana, Rabban Gamliel, even when ousted, still joined in.

I beg to disagree. Every statement of a Talmid Chacham must be weighed, analysed, considered. ????? ???? ????? ?? ?”? ?????? ?????. And the concept of ????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ????.

GAW said “Rebbes are hereditary, and have no additional anything because of who their great-great grandfather was. A “Rebbe” can easily be a Hedyot.”

I heard that Rebbes are usually groomed for their position. It gives me the impression that any of us can achieve our own gadlus if we really tried. I feel that I’m a gadol in mediocrity.

I will IY”H explain the super-rationalist position on the “power of Gedolim”. Many things in Judaism are reactionary. We see throughout history that Minhagim and G’zeiros came around as reactions to issues affecting Judaism. Most recently, the Kollel lifestyle was a reaction necessary to save Torah learning post-WWII and before that the Mussar and Chassidic movements were reactions to the Haskala.

A lot of the super-rationalists see places where Chassidus influenced or changed standard Jewish thought and are attempting to go even more rational than Jewish thought was in the first place to counter that. The concepts of “Daas Torah” and “Emunas Chachamim”, which are now spoken of as Ikkarei Emunah by some here, just didn’t exist in even close to the same manner (if at all) 500 years ago. People always went to a Rav or Rosh Yeshivah for advice, but they never treated their words (nor did the Rav himself treat his words) as Halachos L’moshe Misinai. It is very clear that Jewish thought in this area has been influenced by Chassidism (I wonder if a Bar Ilan search would even show up the phrases “Daas Torah” and “Emunas Chachamim” if you went Rishonim and earlier) and some are reacting to the extreme to that to try and say that that is not part of what they feel is authentic Judaism.

The Vilna Gaon considered Chassidus Kefira

“I will IY”H explain the super-rationalist position”

Sam, very interesting post. If what you write is correct, the ironic outcome is that the super-rationalists are actually abandoning logic and common sense in order to further their rationalist agenda.

Learn a bit of history. There was nowhere to go during or prior to the war. A handful of visas were available here and there, some due to the work of heroes like Sugihara and Wallenberg (HY”D). The US did not even raise its quotas during the war and those quotas went unfulfilled. The whole argument is moot; the Shoah was a gezera and part of that gezera is that no one wanted to stop it by providing a refuge for Jews.

(And no, our lesson is not that we need a medine. There is only ONE place in the world where a maniac can kill millions of Jews again – and a regime of maniacs in Teheran is developing a way to do just that in one fell swoop. I suspect that before such a thing happens, the US will turn its back on the medine to save itself and save its access to Gulf oil, and that will bring about Reb Yoilish’s prediction of a peaceful end to the failed experiment that has cost so many lives, physically and spiritually.)

As for the calumny about the leadership saving itself – just think what Yiddishkeit would look like had a handful of leaders, some of whom were actually in the concentration camps, not made it to the free world. It was only one rov who could be accused of saving himself or being saved by reshoim in any event, and the accusation is not true at all. His escape was paid for with funds from the Torah-true community and not by those who ran the train.

Hashem has His ways. The churban is something we will never understand.