The decline of generations, right?

שו”ת › Category: philosophy › The decline of generations, right?

asked 2 years ago

I would like to ask about the concept of ‘greatness’ and its relationship between greatness in Torah and greatness in science or talent. Do you think that for the same reason that people consider the rabbis of the past, people consider the players and scientists of the past? I believe that this line of thinking is also valid in other fields. For example, many consider Michael Jordan to be the greatest basketball player, but in my opinion, players like Durant, Embiid, and Curry surpass him in various ways. Similarly, Einstein became the name of the world’s expert, even though I don’t have the understanding of physics like you to compare the depth of his wisdom.
Is it that the accepted opinion about the greatness of a certain person stems from the status we cherish and attribute to the past, as a kind of nostalgic prestige and the decline of generations, and is this a form of cultural thinking that is not necessarily related to the Beit Midrash. And if it is indeed accepted human thinking that we all agree is fundamentally wrong, why do we think this way? What is the meaning of the “failure” (if indeed it is a failure) of this thinking?
thanks

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מיכי Staff answered 2 years ago

I don’t know. There is a tendency for a person to value his predecessors because he learned from them or from them, and then he was young and less skilled and naturally they seemed very wise to him. When he grows up he doesn’t always make the adjustments (like our view of our parents, at least when they were young). I think in the Torah world it is more extreme because this principle has become a core belief. Both because everything that was once established here has become a core belief about not doing wrong and also because the leadership has an interest in preserving the Torah framework, and it is easier to do so if we portray our predecessors as ministering angels.

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מתן replied 2 years ago

In your opinion, do statements such as the greatness of the first temple compared to the second or the face of Moses as the face of the sun stem from this principle that prevented the Sages from seeing the inconsistencies and irrelevance in comparing the first temple and Moses to those who came after them? The Sages were not aware of this principle without wrongdoing, leadership interest does not seem to belong here.

מיכי Staff replied 2 years ago

As mentioned, I don't know. It's possible that the first house was actually bigger (miracles were performed in it, etc.). And Moses was the greatest of the prophets. But that doesn't necessarily have to do with the perception that everything is monotonously descending all the time.

מתן replied 2 years ago

Miracles are the motif that opens the Babylonian issue of the descent of generations, and therefore I am not so sure about the necessity of miracles. Moses was also the greatest of the prophets, but besides this, the sages have already compared R” Akiva and Ezra to him, is it not unlikely that from his time to the present day someone has arisen who is at least as great as him, and not in the sense of a dwarf on top of a giant. Maimonides makes this the main point, but of course only for those who are not wise enough to understand it.

מתן replied 2 years ago

I am not so sure about the necessity of miracles - because I do not believe in them, at least not as much as the Maimonides writes at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah.