When Reverence Becomes Pseudo-Idolatry: The Phenomenon of Gadol Worship, with Rav Yitzchak Shurin (213)

Orthodox Conundrum

For the past two thousand years, Torah observant Jews have acknowledged that our greatest scholars deserve respect, and have an extraordinarily deep and broad understanding of the vast sea of the Torah sheba’al peh, the Oral Law. In recent times, however, proper respect for talmidei chachamim has often morphed into a pseudo-idolatry of gedolim, where they are seen not just as great experts in Torah, but also as oracles who are, for all intents and purposes, close to infallible.

There’s no question that most people who ascribe to this kind of “gadol worship” would deny that these scholars are infallible, or that the term gadol worship is appropriate, or that their attitudes towards gedolim are new. But to many of us, it seems apparent that this is an historical anomaly, and a huge change from the way that things used to be - and the consequences are potentially dire.

Rav Yitzchak Shurin had a very close relationship with a gadol of the last century - his revered grandfather, Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky zt"l. Rav Shurin has had strong personal relationships with other gedolei Torah as well, and has also witnessed how things have changed over the past half century. There are few people more well-equipped to discuss the phenomenon of over-the-top reverence of gedolim than Rav Shurin, and Scott was honored that he agreed to share his perspectives on today’s podcast.

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