Who decides who will be the biggest Gedolim?

amother

Hotpink

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 1:43 am

How did Rabbi Elyashiv and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef become the biggest Gedolim of our generation? How did the people know that they are the biggest Gedolim and how did they become who they are? I am so interested.

Iymnok

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 2:35 am

To answer the op, they do. They learn a lot, have a clear way of learning, and paskening...
Rav Elyashiv spent nearly the entire day learning alone in the beis medrash for more than 70 years. That's a lot of hars work.
Rav Ovadia also spent all his time that was not public work learning. He also had a photographic memory and a quick mind.

There is no committee. Rav Moshe Feinstein was actually asked this. He said you learn a lot, someone asks you a question and likes the answer, then someelse does, and so on.
I may be telling it over wrong, but that's the idea.

I think the formula is lots and lots of torah, Ahavas Yisroel and humility. Also Hashem pushing the talmid chocham into the public eye.

amother

Aqua

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 3:19 am

Iymnok wrote:

Also Hashem pushing the talmid chocham into the public eye.

This was very tactfully expressed. The fact is that over the generations, there have been great, underappreciated talmidei chachamim. But for various reasons ( geography, personality, politics, etc) some of the great minds are appreciated and some aren't.

Also, just because you think someone is a gadol doesn't mean that he's universally considered an authority. Someone who is Ashkenazi dati leumi may have profound respect for the learning and midos of Rav Elyashiv and Rav Ovadia, but neither one is relevant to his life, and he won't see either as an authority to be followed.

sourstix

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 3:51 am

Some people deserve to gedolei hador yet they despise kavod, so they remain out of the limelight. I know plenty that are so intent no one should know about them that they go unnoticed

Iymnok

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 4:34 am

sourstix wrote:

Some people deserve to gedolei hador yet they despise kavod, so they remain out of the limelight. I know plenty that are so intent no one should know about them that they go unnoticed

The Charon Ish was virtually unknown until the last ten years of his life.

PinkFridge

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 9:02 am

A few things:
I was going to say the Rav Moshe story, but nothing to add, really.
And a lot of gedolim stayed under the radar till elderly. It could be because of communications that people are "outed".
I heard Rabbi Warren Goldstein talk about leadership, and how it works in various cultures. In Africa, there are leaders who will listen to all around them, and take that into consideration. You could say, from the bottom up. (I don't remember what he called it.) There's traditional leadership, from the top - the leader - down. In Judaism, it works inside out. First we control ourselves, then we can impact (note I say impact, not control) others.

He based this on a fascinating thought, on the famous mishnah "Aizehu chacham, etc." If you look at each of these traits, the way the mishnah describes them in their true form is totally objective. Normally we think of wisdom, wealth, strength, and happiness as relative - we rate them according to other people, I.e. is one smarter, richer, stronger, or happier than others? But the mishnah's definitions are completely objective; other people are irrelevant.

tichellady

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 3:38 pm

I would say that the major gedolim of each era strive to answer all the questions of the generation, big questions like about Ivf and abortion and stem cells and smaller questions like how to cut a birthday cake on shabbos, how to celebrate the birth of a baby girl, etc

Although I guess that assumes gadol= posek and I'm not sure that's true. I would say Rav soloveitchik and Rav Lichtenstein were Gedolim but I'm not sure they were really so known because of their piskei halakha specifically

tigerwife

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 4:19 pm

amother wrote:

These are the gedolim in the charedi / black hat world, not the entire Jewish world.

Who would you give as an example as a gadol from the entire Jewish world?

zaq

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 5:04 pm

sequoia wrote:

The Rambam

Yet he was reviled as a heretic and his books burned by communities in Ashkenaz(France and Germany ) who objected to his appreciation of elements of Greek philosophy. His teshuvot were accepted by communities that we now call Sephardi or Edot HaMizrach, not by Ashkenazi communities.

sequoia

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 6:30 pm

zaq wrote:

My point exactly. No one is universally respected in his or her lifetime.

Shuly

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 6:50 pm

Out of curiosity, do some MO/Dati Leumi people believe that someone who makes a siyum on "kol hatorah kulah" every year is NOT a Gadol, just because he (Rav Chaim Kanievsky) wears a black hat?

Viewing someone as a Gadol means respecting that they have much more Torah knowledge than most people. It does not mean you follow everything he says.

Rav Chaim Kanievsky holds that wrist watches are beged isha and men cannot wear them. He also holds that it is assur for men to shave, even with a shaver.
He also holds that men must have peyos in front of their ears and cannot put them behind their ears.
My family does none of the above. Yet we still view Rav Chaim Kanievsky as a Gadol because of his wealth of Torah knowledge (and if we asked him a question directly, we would abide by his psak.)

amother

Jetblack

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 8:30 pm

tigerwife wrote:

Who would you give as an example as a gadol from the entire Jewish world?

My father always gets nervous from talk of THE gadol hador. Every sect has their own. Judaism is not Catholicism and we don't have a Pope. That said though, he says the Chofetz Chaim probably came the closest to being a respected as a Gadol from all different sects of Orthodox Jewry in his lifetime.

amother

Aqua

Thu, Mar 23 2017, 9:03 pm

Shuly wrote:

You can respect someone's learning but what does it mean to acknowledge him as the gadol hador if you don't follow his piskei halacha and you don't take his advice on matters outside of halacha?

Growing

Fri, Mar 24 2017, 1:48 am

To the OP

There is no formula to follow to become the gadol hador

It is something which evolves, and interestingly enough, the more popular a person is the more controversy is stirred up around him.

That said, most Jewish people across the spectrum respect a person who exhibits extensive Torah knowledge, very high levels of patience, extraordinary humility and ahavas yisroel, and it helps if the person can write, speak, advise or otherwise reach the masses. Such a person is usually sought after and if he avails himself to the community selflessly and people flock to him...well then..things happen.

One becomes a gadol hador when majority of the dor holds them in high regard

Last edited by Growing on Fri, Mar 24 2017, 12:28 pm; edited 1 time in total