What about the Ramchal, the author of Pele Yoetz, who died young, or figures like Rashi, Maimonides, and others who did not reach an especially advanced age and were greater than everyone you mentioned. There are also religious figures from other religions who lived long lives, including Christian saints.
There are also studies showing that ascetic lives, eating little, and lives free of worry because of trust in God prolong life.

“And you who cleave to the Lord your God are all alive today.”

“The righteous, even in their death, are called alive, and the wicked, even in their lifetime, are called dead” — so what relevance does biological age have?

A response to Michi.

Let me begin by saying that my intention is to check averages, not necessarily to claim that every great leader of the generation must live much longer.

1. As I wrote, in my humble opinion it was clear in all the examples I gave that these were great leaders of the generation even before they reached the average age of death (better to read my whole post before responding).
Can you give an example of a great leader of the generation where it was not already clear, before the average age of death, that he was such a figure?

2 + 3. So let’s compare. For example, to the following populations: professors and doctors. These are people who also get approached probably at very advanced ages.
Although this comparison isn’t really fair (to the rabbis), because you can bet that professors and doctors are also physically active at older ages, and probably sleep more than 2–3–4 hours a night. But fine, let’s go with it.
And another thing: what is this parameter of “people turn to you”?
Do you have any source that this can help extend life?
Is a mechanic who keeps running a busy garage also supposed to live longer?

4. You wrote about “many such people” who were marked as great leaders of the generation and died. That can be added to the stats, but we’d also need reliable information about the average age of death in the year they died. You’re welcome to mention names here.

Meanwhile, more rabbis that can be added to the calculation (in favor of my theory):
Rabbi Yaakov Edelstein, of blessed and holy memory, Rabbi Kaduri, of blessed and holy memory, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of blessed and holy memory, Rabbi Steinman, of blessed and holy memory, Rabbi Avraham Shapira, of blessed and holy memory, Rabbi Soloveitchik, of blessed and holy memory, Rabbi Wosner, of blessed and holy memory, Rabbi Aryeh Levin, of blessed and holy memory.
Of course, names also come to mind of people who died at an average age (more or less):
Rabbi Eliyahu, of blessed and holy memory, Rabbi Goren, of blessed and holy memory.

A response to A:
A. Rashi and Maimonides, as best I remember, died after age 60. I don’t know whether there is data on mortality in those years, but it may be that this was even above the average age of death.

B. As for the Ramchal and Pele Yoetz (and you can also include Rabbi Nachman) — if you have data on the average age of death in the years they died, they can be included in the calculation. Of course there is no shortage of examples of those who lived long lives in earlier periods as well.

C. There are studies showing that belief in God and lives without worry prolong life, true (and maybe that too is divine providence?), but according to the data I threw out, the rabbis’ age is really very old, not just “above average.”
But let’s wait for an orderly check.

Life expectancy in the past was low mainly because of infant mortality and epidemics. In those days people could also reach ages 80 and 90, and this is documented.

You’re taking the ones who reached advanced ages and ignoring those who didn’t. Lately I’ve been browsing a Haredi news site. Every two days there was an article there about a kollel student who died young. Think how many of them could have become great leaders of the generation.
That is, those who are the great leaders of the generation today are the ones who reached old age.
Likewise, there are also major rabbis in our day who died young.

Another problem is that according to this theory one could conclude that rabbis who live longer are more righteous than those who don’t. For example, mystics tend to live longer. Rabbi Isaac of Acre reached age 94. Much older than Maimonides. Does that mean he is necessarily more correct? More righteous? Under greater providence?

I don’t see this as providence necessarily. Religious Christians also live long lives; Christian saints lived no less long than great Torah leaders. Does that mean there is providence over them, and that it proves Christianity is true?
An objective person, just as he would not see this as proving Christianity, would not see it as proving any other religion either.

Nazi criminals also generally live long lives. Does that mean they are righteous? Of course you’ll say they receive reward here so that they will suffer above. But that’s already an escape, because
1. The same could be claimed about rabbis: that because they rejected Jesus/Muhammad they get rewarded here in order to go to hell.
2. There were also Nazi criminals who died young (for example Reinhard Heydrich).

A life with faith leads to a life with fewer worries, and such people live longer. In my opinion that also explains the fact that war criminals live longer. Psychopathic people who don’t feel emotions live calmer lives.
To me that is a more plausible explanation, because it explains and predicts things that providence over one specific religion does not predict — for example, that other religions also prolong life.

I just searched for a few Christian saints. They all lived past 90. Some of them lived in the first centuries of the Common Era in dreadful poverty. This proves nothing; it’s cherry-picking, similar to your selective choice.

Anthony the Great, founder of monasticism, died at 105
Macarius the Egyptian died at 91
Paul of Thebes died at 90
Francis of Paola, 91.

There are of course others who lived long lives whom I didn’t list, and of course there were those who didn’t live long; some were executed cruelly in persecutions, some died young, some died old but not at an especially advanced age. I deliberately brought only those who reached at least age 90.

A,

I’m not claiming that I know how divine providence works. That is unlike Michi, who thinks he has the formula that supposedly should have existed because “we should have seen it.”
I can’t say why Nazi criminals reach very advanced ages, and why righteous kollel students die young. I have no idea.
As for believing Gentiles, it may very well be that believing Gentiles merit very serious divine providence. I don’t know.

As for what you wrote about people in the past reaching ages 80–90: it’s true that they did, but one can guess that life expectancy was not higher than in the 1970s here in the country (say), that the average age of death was 70 (and I’m being very generous to you here), and that was not only because of infant mortality, but simply because medicine was far more primitive than today.

As for your claim that I made a selective choice — that’s a legitimate argument.
I’m asking both you and Michi to show me great leaders of the generation who died young. I think that with all the great leaders of the generation I mentioned, it was clear from a young age for most of them (and maybe even all of them) that these were giants among giants. It’s not that they were only decided to be great leaders of the generation once they reached age 70 or something like that.

I asked for only one simple thing —
to examine the age of death of rabbis whom all of us would agree are “great leaders of the generation” (that is, the greatest righteous people) against the average age of death. That’s my proposal.

An example of another great leader of the generation: the Baba Sali, of blessed and holy memory.

Have a good week

*It’s not that they were only decided to be great leaders of the generation once they reached age 70 or something like that.

What I meant, of course, was:

It was *not* only decided that they were great leaders of the generation once they reached age 70 or something like that.

On further thought, I noticed that simple believers or mystics lived longer than rational thinkers, religious philosophers, or intellectuals.
I don’t have statistical data, but at first glance that’s how it seems.

The saints who lived long lives were monks or devout believers, not deep theologians. Among Jews, these were usually mystics or simple believers.
Maimonides, for example, did not live especially long relatively speaking. There are of course exceptions, like the Ramchal and the author of Pele Yoetz, but they died of illness.
I’ve heard of Buddhists too who lived long lives despite poverty. There it’s hard to claim providence.

In my opinion there is a simple natural explanation for this: a life without worries and trust in God (as in the Western religions), or an understanding that everything is temporary (as in Eastern religions) and there is no need to worry about anything.

I’m not claiming there is no providence at all, but it is hard to bring proof from the argument that religious people live long lives. In my opinion such a strong claim requires very strong evidence.
The natural explanation is much more plausible.

I don’t understand why you’re still asking me to bring a great leader of the generation who died young. I brought some of the greatest figures who did not live especially long lives and even died young, and almost everyone agrees on their greatness.
Likewise, people mainly become great leaders of the generation when they are older; few are declared such in their 20s, for example (unless they are exceptionally brilliant, and how many of those are there? There are hardly any revolutionary scientists in their 20s and 30s either, so does that guarantee that scientists will live past those ages? Also, religious society in general and Jewish society in particular places great importance on older religious leaders, and so these are the ones who get slotted in as “greats”).
Also in Christianity, saints who did not live long lives either died as martyrs or were exceptionally righteous.

I haven’t conducted a survey of the average age of the great rabbis, but when you go through them one by one you see quite a few who did not reach an especially advanced age. Sometimes you also see ones who reached an advanced age, but they too are exceptions.
And as I said, I do not rule out the possibility that the average life expectancy of believers and religious people is higher than that of the general public. In my opinion they do live longer than the average person, but again the question is whether there is absolute statistical significance here, and even if there is, whether there isn’t a natural explanation. And as I wrote earlier, the natural explanation seems more plausible to me. A supernatural explanation requires much stronger evidence than what you brought.

There are also prodigies today who could become great leaders of the generation. By browsing Kikar or Behadrei Haredim, every so often you can find an article about a kollel student considered a prodigy who died young. Someone like that definitely has the potential to become a great leader of the generation. But he didn’t get there.
It’s not far-fetched to argue that a person who is a prodigy and stays alive over time will probably become one of the great leaders of the generation.

In every field, when a person is considered a prodigy, a great future is expected for him. He just needs to persevere and stay alive. Once that happens, he fulfills the potential.

Hello A,

I don’t want to deal with data on rabbis’ ages from years for which we have no data on life expectancy in that country.
Therefore I won’t put the Ramchal and Rabbi Nachman into the equation, but neither will I include Nachmanides or the Vilna Gaon (who lived relatively many years).

I really don’t understand you. How exactly are you determining who is “great”? Isn’t Maimonides great? Isn’t the Ramchal great? These are accepted by everyone (maybe not every detail of their approach, but certainly in general).
You’re deciding in advance who counts as great, and it’s whoever reached an advanced age. To me that looks like begging the question using the “No true Scotsman” fallacy.
Is Rabbi Kanievsky greater than Maimonides or the Ramchal? I find that hard to believe. Even among learned Haredim he wasn’t regarded as the prodigy that Rabbi Elyashiv or Rabbi Edelstein were. And even they are certainly not as great as those I mentioned, as they themselves would surely admit (the decline of the generations).

I can also decide that all Christian saints lived past 100. Are there saints who didn’t reach that age? Then they aren’t real saints.
Same thing with atheists in Siberia, and thus in effect I could claim that they live longer than religious people in a Western country. It’s absurd.

By the way, in Okinawa, Sardinia, and another Greek island whose name I forgot, life expectancy is the highest in the world, and most people there live past 90 and a large portion even past 100. Does that prove anything? Some researchers claim that because of the folk Christianity in those areas there is a custom of fasting on several days a year, and this is one of the reasons for the high life expectancy.
Other reasons they mentioned: organic food produced by traditional methods, strong community and family life, walking miles every day, physical labor in the fields or at sea, lives free of worry, religious faith.
And again, in my opinion the natural explanation is more plausible.

There is another explanation. Most of the great leaders of the generation grew up and lived most of their years on the brink of hunger. Even after the establishment of the State, they lived with severe physical deprivation. There are studies on how the body adapts to conditions of hunger and in return gains longevity. Mice that were consistently starved in the lab lived relatively longer than mice that were fattened up. It is reasonable to assume that in the next generation of great Torah leaders, who in their youth lived in relatively greater economic comfort than the previous generation, we will see a decline in life expectancy.

A,

It’s not only me deciding.
There’s a Wikipedia entry called “Great Leaders of the Generation.”
There are rabbis whom the Jewish people at large agree are great leaders of the generation. A very, very limited number.
There are very old rabbis who do not enter that category.
I did not write that Maimonides and the Ramchal are not great leaders of the generation — of course they are. We simply have no way of including them in the stats, because there is no data on general life expectancy in their lifetimes.
I proposed what to check; you can of course raise objections or offer your own suggestions about Christian saints or whatever you like.

Y.D.
Did the great leaders of the generation in our day (those regarding whom we can examine what I suggested) live lives on the brink of hunger?
Even if so, it is still worth checking the age of the great leaders of the generation against average life expectancy, and comparing that to the research on starved mice.
Suppose we find that a great leader of the generation lived 10 years longer than the average person, and that is after using the control Michi suggested — people who keep themselves alive because people turn to them, like doctors or elderly mechanics who run a garage even at a very old age, or business owners who are extremely wealthy.
Did the mice that survived hunger survive by an order of magnitude compared to the fattened mice, like the great leaders of the generation compared to the average person?

[In the biography of Rabbi Ovadia called “Knight of the Shepherds,” it is told about his poverty that on Fridays (apparently then there were no study sessions in yeshiva) he would study all day in a synagogue and take one banana with him]

According to Wikipedia, there is no agreement at all on what “great leader of the generation” means. In Haredi terminology, “great leader of the generation” is itself an invention of recent decades. In earlier periods the meaning was different, and even in Haredi society there is no agreement on who counts as a great leader of the generation; each faction chooses its own great leaders selectively.
In many cases they are chosen because they are old or the eldest of the rabbis (like Rabbi Kanievsky, who received the title “Prince of Torah” because he was not an especially significant rosh yeshiva or halakhic decisor).

In my opinion, as A wrote, one should factor in the life expectancy of rabbis considered great by defined criteria, and certainly not let them be chosen selectively.

It’s also not true that there is no data on life expectancy in those periods. There is information on life expectancy already from the period of the Roman Empire. It is of course less precise than today, but the estimates still give a good approximation.

A, as a joke I would suggest that one could define the great leader of the generation as a 119-year-old Japanese woman.
But seriously, it would be interesting whether there were rabbis or religious figures from other religions who were the oldest people of their time. Because in recent years most of the oldest people were not theologians or religious functionaries, though among them were some devoutly religious people, mainly Christians.

As those above me wrote, who counts as a great leader of the generation is not agreed on by everyone. And why should there be a difference between a great rabbi and a great leader of the generation? Why restrict providence only to “great leaders of the generation” chosen mostly in an arbitrary way?

In any case, I decided to check this by your method. I went into Wikipedia and checked rabbis who appear there.
Some reached advanced ages. But there were several who did not live long and still appear there.

Among them:
Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach (he did not die young, but he did not reach a particularly impressive age for our time), Rabbi Gestetner, Rabbi Chaim Grodzinski, Rabbi Dov Weidenfeld, Rabbi Aharon Rokeach, the Chazon Ish. So there are also great leaders of the generation (by your method) who did not merit exceptional longevity.
And again I remind you that they were chosen to be such at an older age, so they had already gone a significant way in life by the time they became great leaders of the generation. People already mentioned above the example of Rabbi Kanievsky, who was chosen at an advanced age, when throughout his life he was not considered an extraordinary prodigy nor recognized as the halakhic decisor of the generation or as a rosh yeshiva. Others too were chosen at a relatively advanced age. The fact that they lived to a very old age is impressive, but apparently not all of them did.

I don’t have a detailed sample, but from the few mentioned on Wikipedia, a very significant portion did not reach an advanced age.

As for earlier generations, there is data on life expectancy in those periods. Some of it is estimated, some from periods where the data is more orderly, but one should remember that infant mortality, epidemics, and wars shortened life expectancy. Still, one who survived and took care of himself could reach old age just as people do today.

Avner,

A. If “great leaders of the generation” is an invention of recent years, then maybe it really is worth checking only the recent years.

B. There are great leaders of the generation accepted by the Jewish people at large. The fact that there are extreme factions (mainly abroad) that perhaps do not recognize them is not relevant. Rabbi Ovadia, Rabbi Shach, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, may the memory of the righteous be a blessing, are examples of this.

C. As I answered A, to the best of my understanding the entire list of great leaders of the generation that I brought (a bit more than 10) were classified as such long, long before they reached extreme old age.

D. Although I tried to explain that my choice is not really selective, I understand there is still criticism. You are welcome to suggest other parameters.

E. In order to shorten the process, I suggested ignoring earlier periods. But you say there is sufficiently reliable data on life expectancy in much earlier periods, so one can include major rabbis (or great leaders of the generation) from every period for which there is sufficiently reliable documentation of life expectancy.

A,

In my humble opinion, you do not notice that you are bringing data that agrees with my proposal.

Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, Rabbi Gestetner, Rabbi Chaim Grodzinski, Rabbi Dov Weidenfeld, Rabbi Aharon Rokeach, the Chazon Ish.

In my opinion most of them died at an age much higher on average than the age at which people in their time would die (perhaps except for Rabbi Natan Gestetner). You are welcome to verify this.

I repeat: I am not suggesting checking the age of death in an absolute sense, but relative to the known life expectancy when they died.

I checked life expectancy in the Land of Israel in those years. Most of those great leaders of the generation you mentioned exceed it only by a few years. One should remember that life expectancy also included the Arab population and was affected by Israel’s wars. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s life expectancy was 72–76 and included the Arab population. In the Jewish population I would estimate it was around 75–79. For men it is a bit lower, but one should remember that men take more risks and generally live less healthily than women.
A person who lives a life without risks has no reason not to live longer than average. It’s like someone who is 1.80 meters tall in Israel is above average, but not especially tall.

Notice that the discussion here is about people who live exceptionally long lives, not people who only slightly exceed the average. Otherwise a very significant portion gets providence like these great leaders of the generation.

In any case, as long as there is no way to check how that providence works and decides, and why one certain rabbi reached an advanced age while another died relatively young, this is pointless. You can always bring excuses or find reasons, and there is no way to check objectively when the natural explanation is much more plausible.
And in general I want to know how you intend to check whether there is providence here or whether there are natural explanations. After all, whatever argument people bring, one can always flee into the realms of apologetics and justify the claim that there is providence here.
You need stronger evidence than the age of a group of people about whom there is no agreement regarding who is included, who were chosen as such at an older age (at least 60–70 and usually even more than that, sometimes without unusual wisdom or sharpness, since among the Hasidim there is the model of the righteous man rather than the wise man), and who live lives free of worry. I really want to know what method you propose for testing this.

In my opinion, high life expectancy of an entire group is more significant, and here the Haredi population is not there. What are there are Catholics from Sardinia, Orthodox Christians on the Greek islands, Buddhists/pagans/atheists from Okinawa, and a village of Muslims in the Caucasus.
Likewise, the great leaders of the generation who reached advanced ages were not the oldest people who ever lived.
Those people too can claim providence, and they have stronger arguments.

A,

I intend to take all the great leaders of the generation (whatever is agreed upon, let’s say), including those who lived less than the average in that year (for example, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who in my opinion is among the great leaders of the generation and lived a year less than average).
I do not intend to choose deliberately only those who necessarily lived past age 100+ or 90+, but everyone we agree on as a “great leader of the generation,” and to check the average.

As I explained, the great leaders of the generation I chose were, in my humble opinion, classified as supreme giants before age 60–70.
That is true regarding Rabbi Kaduri, Rabbi Ovadia, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Shach, Rabbi Elyashiv, Rabbi Steinman, the Baba Sali, Rabbi Wosner, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, Rabbi Eliyahu, and in my opinion the others as well (at least most of them). If there is someone you think was classified as such only at age 60–70, you are welcome to say who.

As for other populations that merited long lives, that is also an interesting topic to examine.
As someone who believes in divine providence, it is possible that there are also Gentiles who merit long life because of providence (whether over a whole population or over individuals), but it may also be a natural matter.
Likewise, even in the case of the rabbis who died, it may be a natural matter; I have no idea.

In short: “great leader of the generation” is the Haredi equivalent of the tribal elder, so it is no wonder that the “great ones” live long lives. If we take a list of Hasidic rebbes who inherit the leadership, we will find a fairly standard life expectancy:
https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%92%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94:%D7%90%D7%93%D7%9E%D7%95%22%D7%A8%D7%99_%D7%92%D7%95%D7%A8