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What we talk about when we talk about the Gedolim

Necessary and Absolute Truth in Rabbinic Hagiography
jrosenfeld@lss.org

1. Alon Goshen-Gottstein, The Sinner and the Amnesiac: The Rabbinic Invention of
Elisha ben Abuya and Eleazar ben Arach (Contraversions: Jews and Other
Differences) [Stanford: 2000]; Introduction, pp. 10-13

2. R. Abraham & R. Judah Leib Kraemer, Introduction to the Commentary of the Gaon
Elijah of Vilna to the Shulkhan Arukh; s.v. kama

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How much did he strive and self sacrifice in distancing himself from the company of his household, his sons and
daughters. He just sought Gods presence with the purity of the fear of God, to dwell in His midst. Up to the point in
which he never asked his sons or daughters about their livelihood or their personal well being. He never wrote to
them letters inquiring as to their well being....

3. Eliyahu Stern, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism [New
Haven: 2013]; p. 255 fn. 6

4. R. Moshe Shternbuch, Taam ve-Daat: peshatim, biurim, ve-divre hizzuk

she-neemru be-sihot al parshat ha-shavua be-Johannesburg [Johannesburg: 1962];
vol. 1, pp. 244-5

When Jacob went down into Egypt to see Joseph, it was only to see his spiritual level, and not to see his
face or inquire of his physical well being, and that is why when Jacob saw Joseph he did not ask about his
physical well being at all

5. Marc Shapiro, Of Books and Bans; The Edah Journal, 3:2 (2003); p. 8

6. David Roskies, The Jewish Search for a Usable Past [Bloomington: 1999]; p. 1

7. R. J. J. Schacter, Facing the Truths of History; The Torah u-Madda Journal 8

(1998-1999), pp. 233-34

8. Hazon Ish, Kovez Iggerot (Bnai Berak: 1956), vol. 2, 121-22, no. 133 [cited, idem]

9. R. Yitzhak Hutner, Pahad Yitzhak: Iggerot u-Ketavim; no. 128

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