One of my favorite Charedim is Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein. I may have mentioned this before. (Although I wonder if he would characterize himself as Charedi. But I digress).
He is what I would call a moderate Charedi. His views therefore are very
similar to what I would call right wing Modern Orthodoxy. They are not
identical or course, but similar enough so that our lifestyles and values are
virtually indistinguishable. And our Hashkafic differences are respected.
Rabbi Adlerstein has posted an interesting defense of
rabbinic leaders in Cross Curents . He did not mention any names, but I surmise that he refers mostly to rabbinic leaders of the Charedi variety found on
the Agudah Moetzes or as Roshei Yeshiva, Mashgichim and senior Rebbeim in
places like Lakewood.
His point strangely enough is something I have been
saying here for a long time. Without using the word, he has basically said they are fallible
and actually make mistakes. But that the fault lies not with their fallibility
but with those who consider them virtually infallible. This is how he puts it:
We ask of them, expect of them, more than most mortals can
possibly deliver.
We would be naïve if we tried ignoring or denying the
murmurings in the tents of many yerei’im u-shleimim in the Orthodox world.
Cross-Currents is one of the minority of blogs whose authors remain committed
to the ideals of emunas chachamim and taking counsel with gedolei Yisrael. Yet
even among our readership, it is clear that many people – if only anonymously –
sometimes express disappointment with this or that gadol, or with the general
manner of leadership of the Torah community.
There may be room for criticism, but we should ask ourselves
many questions before we criticize too publicly or too vocally. One of those
questions should be whether we ask the impossible of our Gedolim...
Not only do we expect of them all… but we demand that they
provide the right answers without any of the support system. To the contrary, almost all of them have
immediate responsibilities to their talmidim, boards of directors, alumni,
members of their immediate communities, etc. These duties alone could take up
every waking minute – but we still believe that they should be able to serve up
insight and leadership…
I am not arguing that all is perfect, or that it is
heretical to look for ways to improve the system. But we ought to be able to
cut our gedolim a bit more slack than some of us do.
Yes, these rabbinic leaders are human. And they are often ill-equipped
to deal properly with any given issue. One does not have to go back too far to
see that mistakes have been made in the past; some rabbinic leaders actually
admitting those mistakes.
The problem for many of us outside the sphere of the Charedi
influence is not that we do not realize that they are fallible. To most of us,
that is a given. But that there seems to be a degree of certitude in the pronouncement on the part of some of them that on occasion borders on arrogance - unintentional though it may be. In framing
their responses as Daas Torah it telegraphs an aura of infallibility to the
Charedi public they serve. And their public does perceive it that way.
This
despite the fact that - as Rabbi Adlerstein points out - there is no support
system and they are busy people. By
this he means that they often do not have the resources or time to fully examine the
details of things they are asked about. This leaves little room to properly
evaluate the issues upon which they make pronouncements.
I do not mean to say that these leaders aren’t trying. They
do the best they can given what they are handed. I am convinced that their every action and pronouncement is fully L’Shem Shomayim.
But they must know that often they are not fully informed and yet they act on sometimes
faulty information or missing pieces of it that would change their view.
Why do they act on incomplete information? They may very
well feel that even though they are not fully informed - they must still act because
not doing so leaves a void that is even worse than erring in a pronouncement.
Kind of a shoot first and ask questions later attitude.
I therefore realize that they can and sometimes do make
mistakes and I do cut them some slack. Erring does not lessen my respect for
them.But I am not Charedi. For some Charedim it is near sacrilege to even
suggest the possibility that a rabbinic pronouncement is wrong. The attitude
is: They are Gedolim. They know more Torah than anyone else. Who better to listen
too? And what right do we mere mortals have to question God’s spokesmen?
Of course not every Charedi thinks this way. Although the
hard core Charedim do, many of the more moderate Charedim realize, as does
Rabbi Adlerstein, that even with the best of intentions a pronouncement may be
given in error. And we know what road that often takes us down.
Which is why I question the wisdom of the upcoming Asifa.
Although it is being promoted full bore by some of the biggest rabbinic leaders of our time, I feel it is ill considered and based on incomplete information
about the subject at hand – the internet.
