The Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York jointly paid a record price for a copy of a medieval religious text by Rabbi Moshe Maimonides (Rambam).

The 15th-century Mishneh Torah was purchased from businessman and philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, Sotheby’s said Monday. The auction house did not divulge the exact purchasing price, but said it exceeded $2.9 million.

”The acquisition of this remarkable manuscript by the Israel Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art is poetic given [my wife] Judy’s and my longstanding involvement with both institutions,” Steinhardt said in a statement, adding that it is “particularly meaningful that this event marks the first significant collaboration between the two museums.”

According to Sotheby’s this copy of The Mishneh Torah is one of the finest illuminated Hebrew manuscripts ever created. The text is a synthesis of Jewish law and arguably the most important halachic work in Jewish history since the completion of the Babylonian Talmud..

The sold manuscript, with its superbly-penned text and magnificent illustrations, was originally conceived in two volumes. The first part, now in the Vatican (MS. Ross.498), comprises books I-V, and this volume consists of books VII-XIV. It features six splendid nearly full-page illuminated illustrations as well as forty-one initial word panels, images and marginal illuminations and is by far the most profusely illustrated manuscript of the Mishneh Torah ever made.

The copy of the Mishneh Torah was completed in northern Italy in 1457. The rest of Steinhardt’s prized Judaica collection has gone on sale on Monday.

According to Sotheby’s, “the exceptional and rare objects comprising the Michael and Judy Steinhardt Judaica Collection illustrate the grand sweep of Jewish history, from antiquity through the 20th century, across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. These manuscripts, silver and decorative objects, textiles and fine art touch every aspect of Jewish life, and represent the dual worlds of observance and cultural heritage at home and in the synagogue.”

JTA content was used in this report.

The Netanyahu government is going “politically correct” and will make sure the next serious of Israel shekel bills will feature a Sephardi Jew following last year’s four new banknotes that featured only Ashkenazi Jews.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he personally prefers that the “Sephardi shekel bill” feature poet Rabbi Yehuda HaLevy, calling his poetry “genius.”

Knesset Member Aryeh Deri of the Shas Sephardi religious party sharply criticized the monopoly of Ashkenazi Jews on the most recent series.

“Money adorned with an image of a Mizrahi figure is not worth less,” he said.

The Rambam, Moses Maimonides, was featured on a banknote in 1980 but is only widely-known Sephardic to be seen on Israel money.

The ultimate Jewish response to the Holocaust is summarized by the verse: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says God. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9), which Maimonides relies on in his Laws of Repent (5:5): “Man is incapable of perceiving the Creator’s ideas, as the prophet said, “for My thoughts are not your thoughts nor your ways My ways.”

Nevertheless, we accept the notion that God does not base His world on chance. The hand of God is involved in history. No one is claiming to be thinking God’s thoughts and conducting the divine bookkeeping, but we were brought up believing that troubles don’t befall a person by accident, even when they don’t understand it. Everything is a sign from Heaven, including the worst state of “hester panim,” the obscuring of God’s face, in total chaos, in the trampling of Jewish honor and the humiliation of the Torah of Israel.

It would be extremely difficult to suggest that the catastrophe that befell our entire nation – Ashkenazim and Sephardim; Eastern and Western Europeans and North Africans; Torah scholars, sworn heretics and the completely assimilated; Hasidim and Misnagdim; day old babies and the elderly; Capitalists and Communists; the educated and the ignorant – absolutely every strata of the nation – was an accident.

In extremely Haredi circles, those madmen who travel to Tehran to embrace the enemy Ahmajinedad, there are no doubts regarding God’s message: the Holocaust happened because of the creation and the existence of the Zionist movement, whose heavy sin is the breaking of the “three vows.”

According to tractate Ketubot 111a, when the Jews went into the second exile, in the year 70, three vows were taken by them and by God: the Jews would not conquer the land of Israel by force, they would not rebel against the nations of the world, and the non­Jews would not oppress the Jews too much (yoter midai).

That was the view of the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum (who, ironically enough, was saved from death in the Holocaust by Hungarian Zionist official Rudolph Kastner, who made a deal with a deputy of Adolf Eichmann)

In his book, “Va’Yoel Moshe,” Rabbi Teitelbaum argues that even if all the citizens of Israel were adhering to all the commandments, totally righteous, if all the government ministers wore shtreimlach, settling the land of Israel would still constitute the breaking of those vows.

WRITTEN IN AN ATTIC

It’s easy to write such delusional things when you’re sitting in New York City, which protects even the rights of crackpots. It was much harder to comment on the same topic from the darkness of a hiding place in an attic in Budapest, Hungary, while Nazi thugs were hunting down the last remaining hidden Jews of the city.

Rabbi Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal (1885-1945), an extremist Haredi who was close to the Satmar circles, was watching the Gestapo hunters through a narrow crack in his hidden attic, and, through a spiritual and physical review of his terrifyingly lowly reality, reached a brave conclusion: it was the erroneous concept typical of his Haredi pals regarding the resettlement of Eretz Israel that had brought on us those cruel tortures and grotesque deaths.

Rabbi Teichtal began his rabbinic path with an adherence to the philosophy that was common to most Hungarian rabbis: everything new was forbidden by the Torah, including aliyah to Eretz Israel, and certainly coalescing with the secular Zionists to rebuild the land. But following the horrors his eyes had seen, he changed his views 180 degrees. After reexamining his own beliefs, he investigated the issues regarding resettling the land of Israel and natural redemption (“geula b’derech ha’teva), and reached the conclusion that the reason for the Holocaust was that the nation of Israel was called by God to ascend to Eretz Israel, but because it had fallen in love with life in the diaspora it turned its back on Eretz Israel.

He wrote his conclusions while in hiding in his dark attic in Budapest. His books were not with him, and so he had to cite from memory thousands of Torah sources supporting his new position. Unfortunately, the brutes finally reached him, too, and sent him to his death. He was murdered on a transport train during the final days of World War II. But his writing became the monumental, 500-page sefer Eim HaBanim Semeichah – Eretz Yisrael, Redemption and Unity.

He wrote:

The Purpose of our Affliction Is to Arouse Us to Return to Eretz Yisrael

…The sole purpose of all the afflictions that smite us in our exile is to arouse us to return to our Holy Land. This can be inferred from the story of King David and the plague. During the plague, God sent him Gad the prophet. And God came to david…and said to him, “Go up and establish an altar to the Lord” (II Samuel 24:18). The Misrash explains:

This can be likened to a father who beat his son, but the son did not know why he was being punished. After the beating, the father said, “For several days I have been commanding you to do something and you have ignored me. Now go and do it.” So, too, the thousands who fell at the time of David died only because they did not demand the building of the beit haMikdash. From this we can derive a kal vachomer (an a fortiori inference). If they, in whose days the Beit HaMikdash was neither built nor destroyed, were punished for not having demanded its construction; then we, in whose days the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed … certainly [deserve punishment], for we do not mourn nor supplicate (Midrash Tehillim 17).

Rashi on Hoshea (3:5) cites the following:

R. Shimon ben Menassiya said: “The Jewish people will not be shown a good sign until they once again request the kingdom of Heaven, the kingdom of the House of David, and the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash. It is thus written, Afterwards, the Children of Israel will return and seek out the Lord their God and David their king (Hoshea 3:5).

Behold, our desire to return to Eretz Israel encompasses these three elements. Firstly, “He who dwells in Eretz Israel is like one who has a God” (Ketubot 110b). Also, the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash will occur (with God’s help) when we assemble in Eretz Israel, as explained in Megillah 17b-18a. Afterwards, Mashiach, who represents the kingdom of the House of David, will arrive, as I will demonstrate in this volume. First and foremost, though, we must strive to return to Eretz Israel and then, with God’s help, we will attain these three objectives.

Rabbi Teichtal wrote his piercing words literally during the Holocaust. But he was preceded by many gedolim, who warned of the approaching Holocaust, years before it began. The great Meir Simcha Ha’Cohen of Dvinsk (1843–1926), author of the Ohr Somayach, ruled that the “three vows” were nullified by the San Remo Conference of 1920, empowering Great Britain to put into effect the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

The latter warned, 25 years before the Holocaust, that the day would come, in which “the Israelite [in diaspora] will forget his origins and be counted as citizen [of the world]… Will think that Berlin is Jerusalem… Then a stormy wind will come, uproot him and subject him before a faraway gentile nation.” (Meshech Chochma, Vayikra 26).

The nation of Israel preferred, sadly, life in diaspora over the promised land, and paid for it an unbearable price. This excessive affection for diaspora was expressed in this popular Jewish joke: One day a Jewish villager comes home and tells his wife that the Rabbi in shul was saying that when Moshiach comes, he will lead all the Jews to Eretz Israel. So his wife becomes very upset, asking what would they do with all their barnyard animals.

We’ll leave them to the Cossacks, says her husband.

Well, if God likes us so much, he should let us stay here and take the Cossacks to Eretz Israel, says his wife.

Much like those two fools, the nation of Israel chose to remain spread among the nations, for which we were sentenced to a reeducation camp the likes of which we will never forget.

Rabbi Dovid Bloch is the official spokesman for the Nahal Haredi, the Netzah Yehuda IDF battalion, was among its founders, and is the spiritual guide (mashgiach ruchani) of its recruits. This part of his record is impeccable, as far as secular Israelis are concerned. Rabbi Bloch studied at Yeshivat Ponivez and for many years served as Rosh Yeshiva of the Midrashia in Pardes Hanah. He currently is a Ram (Rosh Metivta) in Nahora Yeshiva High School and a Rosh Kollel in Jerusalem. That makes his record impeccable for Haredim. This means that his opinion carries a great deal of weight in both camps, and that should give all of us reason to hope for a good resolution of the Equal Burden issue which has been troubling coalition talks these past three weeks.

Now, I ask the reader not to take away from the following text the position that the Haredim are the only ones to blame for the severe gap on so many levels between the two societies inside Israel. But it’s refreshing to read a respected Haredi source with a clear eyed view of the Haredi contribution to the problem.

In an article titled “Maybe the Secular Are Right?” that was published this winter in the Haredi Kikar Hashabbat, Rabbi Bloch asks: “Why is it so common for Haredi pundits and public figures to pin the motives for secular hatred against Haredim only on the formers’ bad qualities, their emptiness, anti-Semitism and the ignorant man’s hatred for the scholar? And another question we should ask ourselves is whether, in some cases, the value benefits from this conduct or another are worth the consequent heavy price of hilul Hashem (desecration of the Holy Name).

Rabbi Bloch then poses 12 questions which he encourages his Haredi readers to ponder.

1. We’ve chosen, for understandable educational reasons, to withdraw and live in exclusively Haredi cities and neighborhoods, avoiding as much as possible any social contact with the secular.

This is legitimate and understandable, but as a result they don’t really know us, amd so they naturally view us as bizarre, in our manner of dress, our behavior, and our language. This creates aversion and alienation. Why, then, we are angry at them for treating us this way?

2. We chose, for educational reasons—although some of us really believe it—to teach our children that all secular Israelis are sinners, vacuous, with no values, and corrupt.

This could possibly be a legitimate view, but, then, why are we shocked when the secular, in return, teach their own children that the Haredim are all primitive, with outdated and despicable values?

3. We have chosen, for the sake of the preservation of Torah in Israel, to prevent our sons from participating in carrying the heavy burden of security, and instead tasked them with learning Torah.

Of course we could not give that up, but why are we outraged and offended when the secular, who do not recognize nor understand this need—or rather most of them are familiar with the issue, but argue that there should be quotas—see us as immoral, and some despise us as a result?

4. We chose for our sons who do not belong, by their personal inclination or learning skills to the group of Torah scholars (Yeshiva bums and worse), to also evade enlistment—including into perfectly kosher army units. And when it comes to the individuals who have joined the Haredi Nahal, we do not praise them, but despise them instead, and we certainly show them no gratitude, while the Haredi press ignores them—in the best case.

Why, then, are we outraged when the secular don’t believe our argument, that the purpose of keeping yeshiva students from enlisting, is to maintain Torah study and not simply the Haredim’s unwillingness to bear the burden?

5. We chose to teach our children not to work for a living, and to devote all their time to Torah study. Clear enough, but, then, why are we shocked when the secular—who do not consider Torah study an all encompassing value—feel that we are an economic burden on their necks, as a mere 38% of us take part in the labor force, and they hate us for it.

6. We chose not to teach our children any labor skills, and we condemn those who do pursue a profession. As a result our kolelim include all of those who do not belong among the scholars and still prefer not to work for a living.

Editor’s Note: The following sermon was delivered by Rabbi Lamm on October 15, 1960. What’s truly astonishing is how relevant his remarks remain more than 52 years later; indeed, had we not just noted the date on which the speech originally was given, readers likely would have assumed it to be of very recent vintage.

This and 34 other lectures and speeches given by Rabbi Lamm between 1952 and 1976, while he served as a congregational rabbi in New York and Massachusetts, appear in a new anthology, “Drashot Ledorot: A Commentary for the Ages,” published by Maggid, a division of Koren.

The concept of man’s creation betzelem Elokim, in the image of God, is one of the most sublime ideas that man possesses, and is decisive in the Jewish concept of man.

What does it mean when we say that man was created in the image of God?

Varying interpretations have been offered, each reflecting the general ideological orientation of the interpreter.

The philosophers of Judaism, the fathers of our rationalist tradition, maintain that the image of God is expressed, in man, by his intellect.

Thus, Saadia Gaon and Maimonides maintain that sechel, reason, which separates man from animal, is the element of uniqueness that is in essence a divine quality. The intellectual function is thus what characterizes man as tzelem Elokim.

However, the ethical tradition of Judaism does not agree with that interpretation.

Thus, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, in his Mesilat Yesharim, does not accept reason as the essence of the divine image. A man can, by exercise of his intellect, know what is good but fail to act upon it. Also, the restriction of tzelem Elokim to reason means that only geniuses can truly qualify as being created in the image of God.

Hence, Luzzatto offers an alternative and perhaps more profound definition. The tzelem Elokim in which man was created is that of ratzon – the freedom of will. The fact that man has a choice between good and evil, between right and wrong, between obedience and disobedience to God, is what expresses the image of God in which he was born. An animal has no freedom to act; a man does. That ethical freedom makes man unique in the creation.

But how does the freedom of the human will express itself? A man does not assert his freedom by merely saying “yes” to all that is presented to him. Each of us finds himself born into a society which is far from perfect. We are all born with a set of animal drives, instincts, and intuitions. If we merely nod our heads in assent to all those forces which seem more powerful than us, then we are merely being passive, plastic, and devoid of personality. We are then not being free, and we are not executing our divine right of choice.

* * * * *

Freedom, the image of God, is expressed in the word “no.” When we negate that which is indecent, evil, ungodly; when we have the courage, the power, and the might to rise and announce with resolve that we shall not submit to the pressures to conform to that which is cheap, that which is evil, that which is indecent and immoral – then we are being free men and responding to the inner divine image in which we are created.

The late Rabbi Aaron Levine, the renowned Reszher Rav, interpreted, in this manner, the famous verse from Ecclesiastes (3:19) which we recite every morning as part of our preliminary prayers. Solomon tells us, “Umotar haadam min habehema ayin,” which is usually translated as “And the preeminence of man over beast is naught.”

Rabbi Levine, however, prefers to give the verse an interpretation other than the pessimistic, gloomy apparent meaning. He says: “And the preeminence of man over beast is ayin, ‘no.’ ”

What is it that gives man his distinction? What is it that makes man different from the rest of creation, superior to the rest of the natural world? It is his capacity to say ayin, his capacity to face the world and announce that he will not submit to it, that he will accept the challenge and respond “no.”

I first heard the term “gadolatry” attributed to the late professor Arthur Hertzberg. A portmanteau of “gadol” and “idolatry,” the word “gadolatry” refers to a perceived phenomenon in Orthodox Judaism where select rabbinic leaders are treated with a degree of deference or reverence, bordering on worshipping the person of the rabbi himself. That Dr. Hertzberg would coin such an inflammatory term is not surprising given his personality, such that reactions offense or outrage are as intentional as they are predictable. However, it has been my experience that those strong passions on either side have turned the reasonable question of the role of the gadol in Judaism into the single greatest impediment to intelligent religious discourse in the Orthodox Jewish community.

While I have no expectations of resolving this divisive issue, I do hope to explicate the rationales implied when one invokes a gadol, and why others may find such an argument unconvincing.

In order to participate in an intelligible or meaningful debate, opposing sides must accept certain mutually agreed upon assumptions or premises relevant to the discussion at hand. This prerequisite can be particularly challenging in religious debates where the logical foundations are not based in empirical fact as much as one’s subjective faith, though such statements of faith are often presented as fact. Thus if only one side assumes an idea as a religious truism, the conversation will quickly deteriorate into personal attacks on the other’s religious integrity.

To illustrate this distinction between “fact” and “faith,” consider an instance where one cites a passage in the Talmud to support a halakhic or theological position. Whether or not the passage appears in the Talmud is a matter of “fact” which one can easily verify by looking up the citation in the Talmud. However the significance of that passage – i.e. the degree to which it is determines normative Jewish thought or practice – is a subjective matter of “faith” Often based on one’s tradition. For example, according to Maimonides the Talmud is final authority in determining the universally obligatory or prohibited laws for all halakhic process (Introduction to Mishnah Torah). For others popular practice takes an equal if not superior role in determining halakha, as demonstrated in the idiom “the custom of Israel is Torah” (Ramban Commentary to Pesachim 7b). Today it is not uncommon to hear from Orthodox rabbis, “we don’t pasken from the gemara.” To some degree the fact/faith dichotomy is at the core of any argument in which one invokes a “gadol” to support a position in an argument.

The term “gadol” means “great one” or more specifically a “great rabbi,” whose opinions because of his greatness, are treated not only as superior to those of ordinary rabbis (let alone common Jews) but may also be considered to be the definitive religious position on any given subject. Similarly, its plural form “gedolim” refers to a collective of great rabbis, which in addition to the implication of rabbinic greatness, also conveys the perception of consensus among the religious elite. Thus, when one invokes a gadol or attributes a stated position to a gadol or the gedolim, he is not only appealing to the higher authority in support of a position as much as arguing that the gadol’s affirmation itself determines the correct Jewish position. Conversely, any position which contradicts or criticizes a gadol or the gedolim on matters of halakha, theology, or even public policy is inherently illegitimate if not an outright heretical affront to the Jewish religion or even God’s will. In either case, any position contrary to that of a gadol is summarily dismissed purely on the authority of the elite rabbinic persona.

Appeals to a gadol and gedolim are primarily predicated on two categorical assumptions of faith.¹ The first set of assumptions are ontological, in that there does in fact exist within Judaism an elite class with the final authority over legal, theological, and public policy questions to which all Jews must adhere and all lesser rabbis must defer. It is important to distinguish this elite class from the Sanhedrin which was a formal judicial and legislative body with its own qualifications, procedures, and regulations. Even if the other party in the argument agrees that certain rabbis are greater in some way than others, he may not necessarily bestow upon those rabbis the superior authority implied by the designation of “gadol.”

The primary obstacle with this assumption is that it is nearly impossible to verify or reject without similar assumptions of faith regarding the source(s) of religious authority in Judaism. Were one to support the existence of such an authoritative informal institution, one must provide some basis to justify that position. One such option would be to find supporting (or opposing) sources in Jewish texts such as the Bible or Talmud. However, even if these sources are considered part of the religious canon, their respective authority may be disputed and their meanings reinterpreted. In the Talmud itself we find differing opinions relating to the legal normativity of the books of the Prophets,² and the Rabbinic sages often reinterpreted Biblical verses outside of their literal meaning – the most famous example of which being Ex. 21:24 “an eye for an eye” to mean a monetary penalty (B. Bava Kamma 83b-84a). Finally, as noted above, even the normative role of the Talmud is disputed among Orthodox traditions, not to mention the authority of interpreting Talmudic sources.

In other words, the very question of religious authority in Judaism requires a priori assumptions of faith regarding the very sources of religious authority with which to justify one’s position. After all, rabbinic authority is defined by the Rabbis, and the gadol’s authority would only be validated through the authority of other great rabbis, even those of an earlier era. The authority of any institution must come from some place outside of itself, and unless that source of validation is agreed upon a priori, the question of any authority is never answered, only deferred. Therefore, arguments for the existance of an authoritative gadol class through Jewish texts will not result in definitive conclusions.

And yet, if the existence and authority of an elite rabbinic class is granted, the second set of assumptions which need to be addressed relate to its membership. In particular, two questions which must be answered are 1. who is considered to be a gadol or among the gedolim and 2. what is the criteria by which one makes those determinations. Rarely (if ever) will an individual rabbi declare himself to be a gadol – such a declaration would be not only the mark of arrogance but blatantly self serving. Thus membership in the gadol class must come from an outside source.

Given the elite status of the gadol one may suspect that only one who has attained this elite status could in turn bestow it upon others. Rabbis can only be ordained by other Rabbis, members of the Sanhedrin appoint their own colleagues. To attain a high rank, one suspects the authority must derive from an equal or higher authority. However, there is no such formal mechanism of meritocracy for gedolim. There is no formal election, recognition, or proclamation indicating when a rabbi has achieved greatness. Thus, despite the magnified importance and authority attributed to the gedolim, there is no objective criteria to identify or define them.³

None of this is to argue that great rabbis do not exist. Every field of knowledge has it experts, and indeed, some may argue that similar to other areas of knowledge the gedolim are the recognized authorities in their field such that their opinions ought to carry greater significance. In other words, even if deference to gedolim is not mandated by Jewish texts it should still be expected by dint of the gedolim‘s superior expertise.

However, there are three important differences between the expertise of secular scholars and gedolim and the expectations in relating to that expertise. First, there are important differences in how such expertise is determined. Usually this is measured in terms of the academic output of publications or contributions to a field, except that each field has its own criteria for evaluating the quality of another’s work. Works in the sciences or social sciences must include a section on methodology – how is data collected and why were those conditions valid (if not optimal) for collecting data. In the humanities where there is more subjectivity, scholars not only justify the veracity of their claims or interpretation, but in many cases must justify the very existence of their scholarship. After all, who needs another essay on Hamlet.

As noted above, there no objective criteria by which to similarly evaluate the expertise and contributions of gedolim. In fact I would argue that this is by design. Secular experts seek to convince others of the validity and importance of their research, and so much meet certain formalistic requirements evaluated by peer review. But gedolim by definition of their elite status could only be properly vetted by other gedolim. Gedolim have no need to convince others of the correctness of their positions when those others lack the stature to use their own judgements.

Along these lines, the second difference between secular experts and gedolim is the expectation of obedience. Unless one is a university student dependant on GPA or a PhD advisor’s approval, there are no practical negative consequences for rejecting any expert’s theory. Even an expert’s devotees cannot expect to attract followers if they simply demand obsequiousness to their chosen mentor. On the other hand, a gadol is responsible for determining Jewish law, in which case his word becomes the law itself – which all Orthodox Jews must ostensibly follow. Due to this religious authority, it is not surprising for gedolim to attract a cult like following who will in turn attempt to get others to follow the gadol’s authority because after all, the religion commands it.

The third difference between secular experts and gedolim is also perhaps the source of the most of the controversies in Judaism. Specifically, what are the expectations when one speaks beyond their respective fields of expertise? Secular experts rarely venture beyond their training if they have not done appropriate research, and if they do, there are usually well defined rules of engagement for making a persuasive case. But gedolim frequently issue proclamations affecting public policies of economics, bioethics,⁴ criminology, or international and local politics. Instead of acknowledging that perhaps a gadol may contradict actual experts, supporters may argue epistemologically that all knowledge is encoded in the Torah, such that an expert in Torah is automatically an expert in all fields of knowledge. But this too is ultimately an assumption of faith, not fact.

One final point which must be mentioned is that not all references to gedolim follow this pattern. It is difficult to discuss contemporary Jewish law without at least consulting with the works of R. Moshe Feinstein or R. Ovadia Yosef, both of whom are considered gedolim even beyond their immediate constituency. Yet, not everyone who cites these undeniably influential sages does so with the expectation that their positions must be normative law binding on all Jews. The distinction between citing an invoking a gadol is in the expectation of unquestioning deference to the gadol’s position.

In conclusion, despite any pretense of a logical rational argument, most appeals to gedolim in religious arguments are not intended to advance a discussion but to end it through the imposition of one’s faith, or at least several components thereof. And as with most arguments of faith, it is usually a pointless exercise to counter argue on those terms. In this regard Dr. Hertzberg was correct in coining the term “gadolatry” – not in the sense that those who follow gedolim are idolaters, but in the minds of a non-trival segment of the Jewish population, when one disputes the sacred authority of a gadol, he might as well argue with God himself.

1. There are of course factual assumptions as well, such as if the person is accurately representing the gadol or gedolim’s position. Sometimes these representations are based on hearsay and on occasion may contradict a rabbi’s published position. In such cases the correct attribution of a position to the gadol is itself a matter of “faith” as well, but since in most instances it is empirically verifiable, for the purposes of this essay I will treat them as facts.

2. For one example, R. Elazar and R. Nachman Bar Yitzchak cites Hosea 2:1 as source that one who counts Jews violates one or two, ostensibly Biblical, prohibitions (B. Yoma 22b), yet B. Chagigah 10b rejects a legal argument based on Amos 5:25 staying, “divrei Torah medivrei kabbalah la yalpinan” – we do not derive words of Torah (i.e. law) from words of tradition. Space does not permit a full treatment of the legal sources of the Prophets, but for the purposes of my argument it does demonstrate at least two approaches codified in the Talmud.

3. Based on my own observations, it seems to me that the designation of “gadol” is more of the result of populism, that there is some communal recognition that someone has attained this rank. Even if other gedolim deem someone worthy, it is still dependent on a community to accept that person as such. And despite the deference one ought to bestow upon gedolim, in rare instances a community can turn against a gadol when he takes certain controversial positions. One such example is R. Saul Lieberman, who upon accepting a position at the Jewish Theological Seminary became went from being respected to reviled in the Orthodox community. See Marc Shapiro’s wonderful monograph, Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox

4. R. Moshe Tendler, a PhD in biology, once complained in shiur about having to argue brain death with people who never went to college.