More on the Subject of Apologetics and the "Perfection" of Gedolim...

Rabbi Harry Maryles posted this about an interview with Rabbi Nosson Scherman, the editor-in-chief of ArtScroll publications. Now, I happen to have my own issues with ArtScroll, specifically when it comes to their grammar, which is atrocious, and their translations, which at times are just plain wrong (did anyone here ever read the ArtScroll translation of Shir HaShirim?). But I'll leave that for my next post, perhaps. I would like to focus, as Rabbi Maryles did, on ArtScroll artful whitewashing of Gedolim.

In this interview, Rabbi Scherman makes a very troubling statement:

JP: How do you respond to critics who accuse ArtScroll biographies of whitewashing history by characterizing great rabbis as saints without faults?

RNS: Our goal is to increase Torah learning and yiras shamayim. If somebody can be inspired by a gadol b’yisrael, then let him be inspired. Is it necessary to say that he had shortcomings? Does that help you become a better person? What about lashon hara? You know in today’s world, lashon hara is a mitzvah. Character assassination sells papers. That’s not what Klal Yisrael is all about.

JP: Isn’t it a form of sheker (falsehood), though, to write a biography and knowingly exclude material?

RNS: Why is it sheker to omit lashon hara? It’s not. People say, "Well, why don’t you say that this or that gadol had certain serious character flaws?" So you’re not saying it. Is that sheker? It’s not sheker. Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky once said in a "shmuess" that if you go over to somebody and say, "You know you have a long ugly nose," that doesn’t make you an ish emes [man of truth]. That makes you a rasha [wicked person].

Many people have said to me it's not true that the meforshim, when trying to explain away a troubling incident involving a figure in Tanach, find ways to "prove" that person did not actually commit a sin or make a mistake. I have disagreed vehemently with this. It is true. Was then, is now. And ArtScroll, in the form of Rabbi Nosson Scherman confirms it.

Now, I'm not saying one should publish Loshon Hara about a person. But ArtScroll should also stop deifying these Gedolim. What they should do is make them human, so we can learn from them. When a Gadol is portrayed as a human being rather that as an angel or a perfect being, that portrayal shows us we can strive to be like that person. When shown as a perfect being, how can strive for that? There is no such thing as a perfect human being, no matter how great that person was. Even Moshe Rabbeinu made mistakes, and he paid for them.

Once again, the Chareidi world, this time in the form of ArtScroll, misses the point entirely. Instead of deifying "Gedolim," perhaps they should humanize them, show them as people who lived, loved, and made mistakes as well. A person is someone we can live up to; an angel isn't.

I'll leave you with this: One out shabbos in yeshiva, when there were only about 20 of us in yeshiva for that shabbos, the Rosh Yeshiva decided to pay us the honor of having Seudah Shlisheet with us. During this wonderful hour with the Rosh Yeshiva, when he wasn't being pestered by sycophants, he showed us human side. He regaled us with memories of his youth and sang comletely secular songs he remembered as a child. I truly believe his point was this, and it wasn't a point he could make in front of the entire yeshiva: "I'm human," he was telling us. "Don't treat me like an angel, and don't deify me." He was teaching us how to learn from him, as a human being.

Do you think this story will make it into his biography after 120 years? No. You know why? It's too human. The point, once again, will have been missed entirely.