Rischa D'Araisa Season 2 Episode 23:
Doctoring the Truth: Why Rabbi Dr. Avraham Yehoshua Heschel Twerski did not share the front cover with the other departed Gedolim - Rav Dovid Soloveichick and Rav Yitzchak Scheiner
Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer הרב יוסף גבריאל בקהופר
Yawn
ReplyDeleteI am not sure one needs to focus on his medical degree.
ReplyDeleteIn our world -- including the Modern Yeshivish version of Mod-O -- a "gadol" is a rosh yeshiva who is a poseiq. Other forms of greatness aren't recognized the same. At best, they get an acknowledgement that they don't feel the same shouldn't be; a declaration that "XYZ really is a gadol" which for a poseiq RY it wouldn't be something you would bother justifying.
But R Twerski ends up in Teaneck. Do you think people in Teaneck's right wing thought the gedolim of the era were (until last week) RHSchachter, RMWillig, R Asher Weiss, and R Twerski? That's not because of his doctorate. It's because the people doing the assessment were raised to believe that the ideal Jewish male is one who learns. The narrow definition of a good bachur / young man shapes the narrow definition of gedulah.
What may be more along the lines of your thesis was their totally unawareness of the petirah of a rosh yeshiva (retired) that same weekend, because that yeshiva was Poalei Agudah -- Rav Avraham Avidan of Shaalvim.
(I was choked up by the mental image of R Yisrael's greeting of R/Dr AYH Twersi. He lost me when he got to making it "more than".)
Seriously? I get your larger point but do you realize what geonim the two Rosh Yeshivas were? Not to C"V belittle R Twersky ZTL (of whom I've always been a big fan) but were his hasmada and Torah knowledge in the same universe as the other two?
ReplyDeleteYes, as Rabbi Burger pointed out, Torah learning has and will always be royalty in the yeshiva world. The yeshiva world has held many great askanim in great regard, but they are never considered remotely on the same plane as the great talmidei chachamim (even if the askanim were "yeshivish") Whether one feels that these are proper values or not, is irrelevant. It's the very deeply rooted reality of the yeshivish world and any other analysis has the appearance of utter cluelessness about the entire yeshivish society.