Apologetics and Great People Messing Up - Putting Gedolim on a Pedestal

There are many stories in Tanach about great people making big mistakes, some of them even committing aveiras. The Torah and the Nevi'im do not tell us these stories for our entertainment. They tell us these stories to teach us powerful lessons. Unfortunately, these lessons are lost when apologetics are applied to the actions of these great people, thus destroying the lessons we are supposed to learn. I would like to concentrate on three examples, as well a story I recently heard about Reb Moshe Feinstein to illustrate what I am talking about.

1. Yehuda and Tamar. Yehuda marries off his oldest son, Eir, to Tamar. Eir is so infatuated with Tamar's beauty that he refuses to get her pregnant, preferring instead to be Mashchis Zera. God doesn't like this, so God kills Eir. Yehuda then gives Tamar to Onan to keep alive the name of his brother, Eir, in a process called Yibum. Onan is just as infatuated with her beauty and figure and makes the same mistake Eir had made. God doesn't like Onan's actions any more than he liked Eir's, so God kills of Onan as well. Yehuda then tells Tamar to return to her parents' home and wait for Sheila to come of age so she can marry him. By now, however, Yehuda believes Tamar has some bad mojo and has no intention of allowing Sheila to marry her. Tamar waits, but no Sheila.

Comes along sheep sheering time. Yehuda takes the trip to his flock. Tamar hears of this, dresses up as a prostitute, and waits for Yehuda by the side of the road. Yehuda propositions her, they sleep together, he has no cash, so he gives her his seal and walking stick as collateral and promises payment on his way back from the sheep sheering. Tamar returns home. When Yehuda goes looking for the "prostitute," he can't find her.

Cut to about three months later. Yehuda is notified that Tamar is pregnant! Yehuda pronounces judgement: Take her out to be burned. Tamar sends Yehuda his seal and walking stick with a message: The man to whom these objects belong is the man from whom I have become pregnant. Yehuda recognizes his objects and instead of covering his mistake and killing Tamar, actually says "Tzadka Mimeni." She was right, he was wrong. Yehuda marries her, they have twins, etc, etc.

The lesson: Own up to your mistakes, take responsibility, and if you have to end up with egg on your face, then so be it. Yehuda did exactly that.

2. The Jews wandering in the desert were really thirsty after Miriam passed away and the well following them in her zechus dried up. The Jews complained, as they are sometimes want to do. God tells Moshe: Go talk to the rock and ask it to produce water. Moshe goes, but gets really P.O.ed and instead of talking, hits the rock, which produces water. God says, Moshe, ya messed up. You don't get to go into Eretz Yisrael. Did Moshe say: "But God, it was their fault!"? No. Moshe accepts his punishment, realizing he did not perform the Kiddush Shem Shamayim he was supposed to perform, and accepts his punishment. He does ask God to retract the punishment many times, but God says no, Moshe accepts, and dies on Har Nevo.

The lesson: Same as before. Own up to your mistakes and live with the consequences.

3. Dovid Hamelech and Bas-Sheva - Wow! This is a doozy! Dovid Hamelech is up on the roof of his palace, sees Bas-Sheva bathing, lusts after her, and even after being told she was married, still seduces her and gets her pregnant. He invites Uria, Bas-Sheva's husband to wine and dine and spend "time" with his wife to cover up his mistakes, but Uria, being a man of integrity, refuses when there are battles being fought. So, Dovid sends Uria to the front lines to guarantee Uria's demise, thus allowing Dovid to marry Bas-Sheva and figuring no one knows what happens. Except that God does and sends Nosson Hanavi to give Dovid some tender-loving mussar, and informs Dovid the child will die. Dovid begs for his son's life, to no avail, and the kid dies when he is but seven days old. Dovid accepts the punishment and does Teshuva for his rather grievous aveira.

Wow! What a lesson! Even Dovid Hamelech was human and prone to human failings. The Gemara informs us that Dovid had not done a sin. The Yeshivish world likes to pretend that whatever he did was L'Shem Shamayim and there was no aveira there. If there was no aveira, why was there punishement?! Well, I asked a rav I know about this.

I discussed at lenght with this rav how I feel about these apologetics. I told him these stories mean so much more when taken at face value: Someone messed up, got punished, did Teshuva. What a lesson! These people weren't infallible angels! They are humans who sometimes fail and have to pick themselves and the pieces up, live with the consequences, and keep going! And you know what? They are still great people! From Yehuda came Bais Dovid, Moshe was still the greatest Navi who ever lived and who ever spoke to God "face to face." Dovid was still Dovid Hamelech, who wrote Tehillim and died a Tzadik. From him will come Moshiach! But they were human! I told him it really bothers me that there are apologetics for these great people that mitigate their actions. This lessens the impact of what we are supposed to learn from these stories.

Well, this rav leaned back and told me something I didn't know before. He told these apologetics, which he agrees absolutely lessen, if not destroy the lesson we are supposed to learn from these stories, are wrong. Unfortunately, the Yeshivish world, which has a tendency to place all Gedolim on a pedestal of infallibility, especially people from Tanach, Mishna, and Gemara, does just that. They can't imagine that these great people messed up, so there must be some other explanation. When the Gemara says Dovid did not commit and aveira, it doesn't mean that what Dovid did wasn't wrong. It means there is one aspect of what he did, said this rav, for which we can find a technicality that will show Dovid did not actually sleep with a married woman. It was a time of war. In those days, a married soldier would write his wife a Get, a divorce decree, that would go into effect retroactively to the moment he gives her that Get, should the soldier get killed or go missing. Well, since Uria died in battle, the get technically went into effect from the moment he gave it to Bas-Sheva, and thus, Dovid did not actually sleep with a married woman. That's it. No apologetics. Dovid still did the wrong thing. Absolutely, 100%. Even sleeping with a married woman, and he took care of that technicality by having Uria killed on the front lines. But Dovid did Teshuva, said the rav, and continued to be Dovid Hamelech.

The problem with the Yeshivish/Chareidi approach is this, continued the rav. It's that when you put someone on a pedestal of infallibility, there is no way to aspire to be like that person. How can someone become a Malach? How can someone aspire to be infallible?

The Netziv, he told me, was not some genius child. He was not exceptional in any way. But he worked hard and became the Netziv. He was a human being who overcame some difficulties to become the great talmid chacham he became.

Putting people on a pedestal is the perfect set-up for a crash. Gedolim, past and present, are not infallible and they are not perfect. In the story of Kamtza/bar-Kamtza, everyone, including the chachamim sitting at the seuda, and Rabbi Zecharya for not allowing a korban from the emperor with a blemish on it to be sacrificed in the Bais Hamikdash because of appearances, all messed up. There is no way around it. The only person who didn't mess up in the story was the Roman general sent to lay siege to Yerushalayim. He realized this isn't something with in which he should be involved and became Jewish instead. He learned the lesson the Egyptians didn't: Just because a tragedy is decreed upon the Jewish people, doesn't mean you have to be the one to carry out the sentence. Let someone else take that responsibility.

This rav ended by telling me a story about Reb Moshe Feinstein. The story is related in the Artscroll biography on Reb Moshe, but it is related wrong. In the Artscroll biography, it tells the story of Reb Moshe preparing to get into a cab. The cabbie accidentally slammed the door on Reb Moshe's hand and Reb Moshe, in great pain said nothing and allowed the door his hand to remain in stuck in the duck for the duration of the ride. The Artscroll biography here tries to show the middos of Reb Moshe that he did not want to embarrass the cabbie.

Here's the story, as related to my rav, by a close relative of Reb Moshe. Reb Moshe did not keep his hand in the door, and the cabbie was aware of what had happened and immediately opened the door to release Reb Moshe's hand. When Reb Moshe arrived at the yeshiva and people saw he was in pain, he said he had accidentally closed the door on his own hand, thus deflecting blame from the cabbie and avoiding the cabbie being embarrassed or yelled at.

In the first version, Reb Moshe is not human! No one would have been able to stand that kind of pain for so long. What lesson is learned here?

In the true version, look what a great man Reb Moshe was! He made sure the cabbie would not be blamed, yelled at, or worse. He took the blame himself. After all, everything that happens is from Hashem! Why should the cabbie take the blame for that?

Instead of putting Gedolim under some kind of halo of perfection, perhaps, if we see them as the humans they were and are, we could learn so much more from them! Nobody but God is perfect, and we can learn from the imperfections of the gedolim how conduct ourselves.

See follow-ups on this article here (Part II) and here (Part III).