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Who are the Gedolim of the world
UJM is my Gadol.
Everyone on the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudas Yisroel in America, the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudas Yisroel in Eretz Yisroel, the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Degel HaTorah, the Moetzes Chachmei HaTorah of of Shas plus others.
The renowned gedolim in the US are the ones on the Moetzes, the Vaad Roshei Hayeshiva of TU, including gedolim of the likes of Maran Hagaon Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky shlit’a, Hagaon Rav Ahron Feldman shlit’a, Hagaon Rav Ahron Shechter shlit’a, Hagaon Rav Malkiel Kotler Shlit’a, Hagaon Rav Elya Brudny shlit’a and others whom have become the voices of daas torah in america.
The poskei hadar of America include the Lakewood Poskim bifrat Hagaon Rav Yaakov Forscheimer shlit’a.
As far as gedolei roshei hayeshiva in the US, besides the above mentioned, there’s also Hagaon Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel shlit’a who has frequently been crowned ‘Raban shel Bnei Hayeshivos’. Also, many lesser known roshei hayeshivos such as Hagaon Rav Kalman Epstein shlit’a who, like his father Maran Hagaon Rav Zelik ztvk”l before him, has some of the greatest gedolim of our dor seeking his great insightful practical eitzos.
There are many other anashim gedolim who just never took up a shteller and unfortunately klal yisreol at large is not zoche to know to well.I’ll volunteer
One Rav after making Aliya was immediately asked – which party he is for (at the time when several hareidi parties were budding). He replied – party of Moshe Rabeinu.
There are lots of Gedolim all over the world to help and support our needs in klal yisroel but the best way to get help is to turn directly to our loving father Hashem the king of kings ruler of the entire world.
Hashem is always waiting and reading to help his loving children in their time of need and is just waiting for us to call out to him WHOLEHEARTEDLY from our hearts
The Godol of the CR is GolodHatorah, the chief rabbi of the CR is Reb E
Who decides who is and isn’t s Gadol?
Google Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah for a list in wikipedia.
Who decides who is and isn’t s Gadol?
Good question. I’ve always wondered about that.
Yabia > Who decides who is and isn’t s Gadol?
You do: you ask a shaila of your Rav, and your Rav when he is not sure asks another Rav; people at the top of this shailararchy are the poskim. You are always free to ask a different Rav, or your Rav can ask a different one.
Note that your questions also determine the subject that the poskim are writing about – l’havdil the same way as the topic author in CR determines what the rest are kibittzing about
Part of knowing who to follow is to know who is greater. Godol mimenu b’chochma ubaminyan is an assessment that it legitimately made. And as Rav Shach writes – if you dont know who to follow, follow whoever is greater – and, he adds, you can of course tell who is greater.
If you yourself dont know, then thats fine – not everyone can know the answer to all questions they encounter – but why in the world would you say nobody else can know?
And it’s an error in logic, too, because they themselves compared “levels” of other people! i.e.: “Rav Ovadia Yosef is the leading Sefardi posek of our times.” And how would they know this if you cannot compare him to other sefardi poskim?
And how can one know whether “any of us are on the madreiga of assessing the ‘levels’ of other people” unless you assessed the levels of all those other people who said arent “on the “madgreigah” to do that?
If i were to ask you who is greater – Rav Ovadiah or Rabi Avika — would you say you cannot compare people? Rav Ovadiah or the Rambam? Avraham Avinu?
So clearly, we can compare “levels”, its just that to some, certain comparisons are “obvious” and others are not. Well, to other people, perhaps who are more knowledgable and skilled in assessing these kinds of values, other comparisons are also obvious.
The Chief Rabbi of the Coffee Room our beloved Reb E is one of the gedolim
Isn’t it Gaiva to think that one knows who is and isn’t a Gadol? Who are we to assess? Who is anybody?
There seems to be a common misconception that we are unable to comparatively assess the level of various Gedolim. We can compare “levels” – in fact, we need to in order to judge who is an authority in the first place! If you can’t compare levels then how are you to know that someone is a godol? The fact that he is “accepted” as a godol only means that many people have judged his “level” to be that of a godol. But if you cannot compare levels, then these people have no right to accept him as a godol in the first place.
And the same common sense that tells you so-and-so stands out among his peers making him an authority, tells you that certain so-and-so’s stand out even more.
Or less.
It is only arrogance when you are sure that you can never be wrong. Unless you think your a god, there is always that probably.
It says, if the our predecessors are considered like malachim, angels, then we are considered like human beings but it they are considered like human beings then we are considered like donkeys and not like the one of Pinchas ben Yair. The explanation is that we cannot compare ourselves to previous generations. The closer they were to Kabolas Hatorah, the greater they were. Whereas by the goyim, who believe that we came from monkeys, the closer they are to the creation the lesser they are.
The editor of the “gedolilm pages” of the yated and Hamodia determine who are the gedolim today
Your assessment is a vote in an indirect election system. One vote can be wrong, but overall will of people will be better: if they are not neviim, they are bnei neviim
The Haflaah explains הכהן אשר יהי’ בימים ההם – שמואל בדורו כיפתח בדורו, go to the leader for the current generation. Shmuel was the leader for his generation as Yiftach for his generation. We cannot compare generations. Every generation is provided a leader according to its requirements. When Chanoch separated himself from the people, he was taken away. He would only hurt them through comparison.
The above Haflaah in Panim Yafos says כי ראוי לשמוע אל השופט לפי הזמן ולפי הדור we should listen to the judge according to the times and generation כן מזמינים לו מן השמים like that it is assigned to him from the heavens.
RebE, indeed Yiftach is your answer: it is not who learns the most, or runs a bigger tisch, but who can solve the problems of that generation
So here in the Parshah of Gedolim questions like these arise.
I don’t know the real answer myself, if there even is an answer.
But I can tell you that the Agudah board decides who is a Gadol, as if they have any right to put checks & x’s over people.And it really depends, because some people consider a gadol to be somebody who does a lot of chesed and learns Torah and is “a giant of a man”.
Some say it’s Roshei Yeshiva, which I’m not really maskim too this pshat, because who gets to chose which Yeshiva is prominent enough to have their Rosh yeshiva be called a gadol? The yated or the moetzes?
P.s. Maybe I said something possibly controversial in the latter statement, but please, you know who you are, don’t rip on me for it.
The Moetzes itself chooses which new Rabbonim to invite into it. It isn’t the lay board making any such decisions.
> Moetzes itself chooses which new Rabbonim to invite i
Moetzes selects moetzes, but they are gedolim because they have followers. Moetzes does not have a mechanism to enforce their opinions other than moral authority.
Yiftach wasn’t chosen because he could solve klal yisroels problems. He had a lev tov and was full of zeal for torah and klal yisroel. He was not a “gadol”, as he was unlearned.
He represented how even the lowest among the people – an outcast who was born to an unwed mother, grew up among warriors and rough men – had superb character that eclipsed the best of the goyim.
When seeking the best, say, orthopedic doctor in your area, whom do you consult? The local taxi drivers? Hardware store owners? The local shoemakers? Perhaps students in the local medical school? Of course, non of the above. The other orthopedic doctors know who among them is the most knowledgeable. I.e., the best orthopedic doctor among them.
So, who is a Gadol b’Torah? The experts in the field know who, among them, is the greatest expert.americanyerushalmi,
I agree.
I have heard somebody say on the coffee room numerous times that his rebbi didn’t ‘consider’ a chassidishe rebbe a ‘gadol’.My problem with that is that who is he to decide what he is and isn’t? This rebbi never even met him, he doesn’t know his level of learning, his gadlus, or his impact.
The point needs to be made clear: People aren’t gedolim because they are ‘considered’ gedolim and it goes the other way too. It is whether they actually ARE, not by how others judge them.
TS – nice try making it seem like a general problem. The lubavitcher rebbe is a very specific situation. And saying that “he doesn’t even know him” is outrages since most of you don’t either.
Gadol is not an abstract name, if your madreiga is that hard to assess without a farher even tho you wrote sfarim then that says a lotIt says יהללוך זר ולא פיך others should praise you and not yourself. They should realize from the behavior of the individual that he is gadol. One’s behavior should teach us halachas. שמעון הצדיק ‘הוא’ הי’ אומר Shimon the Pious said it with his being. Some interpret this pasuk that others should praise you and if not, yourself, praise yourself.
syag, let’s not turn this into a big chakira.
The rebbe doesn’t need to be farhered to know his status.
I am just really bothered that somebody can decide something (which has effects, because he has talmidim, who now share his opinion) when he hasn’t even looked into it deeply to say such a statement. Many do not know much about the Rebbe, which we can talk about a different time. I’m not getting into it.
When you think of seforim maybe you think, “oh nice, a 3-volume set on nice chiddushei torah.
That’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about 3 massive sets of works which are not smaller than 30-40 Seforim in EACH set.
Tora Menachem is 90+ volumes which they didn’t even finish publishing. That’s not even all of his works.We are talking about somebody who sent out 6,000+ (and more coming) shluchim around the entire globe to bring Yidden closer to yiddishkeit. Billions of mitzvos came as a resut of his work. He is not some small rebbe or talmid chacham, your dealing with big things here.
The satmar rebbe is considered by this rosh yeshiva of somebody on the CR one of the gedolei hador. I DON’T want to start getting into details, or arguments, and I’m not coming to refute the satmar rebbe.
What I’m saying is that if he considers the satmar rebbe such a gadol, then how can you just dismiss The Lubavticher Rebbe like that? How? Because the lubavitcher rebbe didn’t do what lakewood did? Because he didn’t build his own lakewood? In fact, He built lubavitch in every continent (they even have chabad.org in antartica, a jewish scientist there uses it for shiurim and other stuff).
I understand that the litvishe derech is to stay learning in kollel your whole life, or at least stay in the velt, not to go and be mekarev people, for the most part.
But that isn’t a deciding factor.
Just be honest with yourself, you can’t just dismiss it as “shkoyach, I don’t ‘see’ that as helping world. It’s ‘nothing’ special.”I started this conversation, so I will take achrayos and end it. Just after the post above. (:
You have proven that you are taught very little about the Torah world outside of chabad, and you are very clueless about what we know, think or assume about you or anything else. If you’re bothered that you think people are speaking without knowing, I say you are suffering from the same virus.
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