What’s especially irritating is the approach of claiming that so-and-so is a genius in Talmudic learning, except that he hides it. Especially when the person making the claim is probably also hiding himself.

To Tirgitz,
The irritation is yours alone. It definitely could be true. Not that he’s hiding it — he simply doesn’t give classes on that because there’s someone else who does: Rabbi Mordechai Sternberg. He simply, according to his own approach, deals with what he thinks no one else is dealing with, and maybe with what he thinks his greatest strength is. I heard that once he gave an in-depth Talmud class for six hours. Not that this says anything about the level of the class, but it does show that the topic interests him. In short, it’s reasonable that he isn’t some loser of Jewish thought and outlook. And I’m the last person you could call a follower of Rabbi Tau.
And Rabbi Aviner isn’t hiding anything about himself. He really does call himself “I, the small one,” and not out of fake humility — at least that’s how it seems to me — but out of knowing his place. He really isn’t among the greatest Torah scholars of the generation, and that’s fine. It doesn’t diminish his honor.

Maybe he’s an ordinary Torah scholar (and not occupied only with thought and outlook, which is pretty obvious), but it’s unlikely that he’s an exceptional Torah scholar. You don’t agree?

Rabbi Zvi Yehuda asked Rabbi Tau to teach in-depth Talmud study in the yeshiva; he did indeed teach for several weeks and then stopped.
The comparison to Rabbi Sternberg is not a good one and not accurate. About the latter, people know; and anyone who doesn’t can listen to recordings or read his classes. About Rabbi Tau, people don’t know. So from that to claim that he’s a world-class genius in Talmud who conceals himself? Come on. We know plenty of Jews over age 60 who studied at Merkaz HaRav while Rabbi Zvi was there, and I haven’t found one who claimed he was a global genius in the Talmud.
Of course, that says nothing about his character traits, his righteousness, his philosophical depth, or his mastery of Rabbi Kook’s writings.
It’s just unnecessary to invent things or speculate.

And regarding Rabbi Aviner, obviously he isn’t hiding. I meant that the weight of such testimony (assuming he isn’t speaking based on mere impression) is based on the stature of the one testifying — and that isn’t there.

Rabbi Aryeh Bina claimed in his day that Rabbi Zvi Yehuda was not a Torah scholar (or at least not a lamdan, a sharp Talmudic analyst). This had consequences when Rabbi David Stav arrived at Merkaz HaRav and raised this claim, causing an uproar. It didn’t affect Rabbi Zvi Yehuda’s standing, but when Rabbi Zvi Yehuda died, Rav Avraham Shapira used this claim to prevent Rabbi Tau from receiving any standing at all — which ultimately led to the split in the yeshiva and the founding of Har HaMor.
As for Rabbi Aviner, for years I read various writings of his and never came across anything particularly analytical from him. All kinds of text-message rulings, yes; sermons, yes; ideas, yes; even a book examining pseudo-scientific superstitions — but something analytically Talmudic, no. Maybe I missed something. I haven’t seen clear analytical learning among his students either. Rabbi Avi Ronzki was not an analyst, and Rabbi Karim too, in the responsa book he published on the army, clung devotedly to the Mishnah Berurah (only in volume 3 did he broaden out a bit). The only thing I accepted that may have come from him was the claim that opening a Sabbath hot-water tank that was heated before the Sabbath does not cause the incoming cold water to be cooked, because the tank is built in such a way that there is a layer of lukewarm water between the cold and the boiling water, preventing the cold water from cooking. But that really is a matter of engineering (and Rabbi Aviner really is an engineer), not necessarily of being a rabbi.

To Tirgitz,
I don’t agree at all that he’s an ordinary Torah scholar. And all the testimony says the opposite. This is just classic Haredi contempt (with no basis). Don’t forget that Rabbi Aviner presumably also heard Rabbi Sternberg give a class, and so did the same person from whom I heard the testimony. They also heard classes from other Torah scholars and understood both him and them, so they have the ability to compare greater and lesser figures (maybe not great to great). This is testimony from yeshiva students who presumably know how to distinguish. I’ve never heard him myself, and I only read a little of an article of his about his opposition to rabbinical ordination institutes in yeshivot, and that opposition is classic Haredi opposition. I really can’t stand Haredi self-righteousness, but on the other hand don’t forget that he foresaw Bennett’s deceit years before everyone else, even when Rabbi Aviner still supported him. And the weight of Rabbi Aviner’s testimony based on the stature of the witness is not relevant when it comes to distinguishing between a lesser and a greater scholar. What does depend on the stature of the witness is only distinguishing between one great scholar and another. Don’t forget that the greatness of a Torah scholar is not only talent for learning, not even genius alone (which is super rare; Rabbi Soloveitchik was a genius, and so was his grandfather Rabbi Chaim of Brisk). It also requires a certain greatness of personality, which is also very rare. Usually people with a great personality don’t so much highlight their analytical side. Usually that kind of self-highlighting comes from smaller people. Dry intellectualism is a characteristic of autism and low social intelligence (that’s a better term than the ridiculous name “emotional intelligence” — in short, understanding people), of people who lack inward reflection on themselves, who lack self-awareness. And that is a necessary condition for the greatness of a Torah scholar. You can’t be a great Torah scholar and a small person. A Torah scholar is not a mathematician (most of them are stuck at age 8).

By the way, regarding concealment (or not emphasizing one’s analytical ability), I can give you the example of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. His giftedness in learning wasn’t highlighted, and the main focus of his public image was his leadership and his teachings of Hasidism, but I think he also studied the writings of the Rogatchover and examined them extensively (and he also knew the teachings of Rabbi Chaim of Brisk), and he had his own method of learning as well (I don’t remember where I read that).

Immanuel,
There is no doubt that Rabbi Tau is a thinker of significant stature, and even a Torah scholar, but that doesn’t make him a distinctly analytical Talmudist (in contrast to Rabbi Mordechai Sternberg, who could have been a Lithuanian-style rosh yeshiva in any Lithuanian yeshiva). And unlike Rabbi Michi, I don’t think he’s abnormal. From what I hear from people, given his status as the leader of an ideological approach, he has remained very normal both in his personal life and in public life. After he was widowed, he went and married another woman and didn’t play the role of some ascetic figure. When his divorced son invited him to a barbecue with friends on Independence Day, he came and celebrated with them without acting superior and without criticizing. He just celebrated Independence Day with his son like all the Jewish people.
As an ideological figure, he is somewhat extreme, but first of all many, many people share his views about the Supreme Court. Today it’s already hard to distinguish him from an average Bibi-ist. In addition, I think that some of his extremism is deliberate, and is mainly directed against what he identifies as the Religious Zionist tendency to nullify itself before majority secular opinion. Sometimes religious people don’t understand how much the fact that they are a minority causes them to defer to secular people. The majority has tremendous power over the minority. The French thinker Tocqueville called this “the tyranny of the majority” — the situation in which, in the face of majority opinion, it is difficult even to imagine a different intellectual or spiritual position. And so there are those who slip the kippah into their pocket in order to remain popular. There are those who keep the kippah on, but their positions steadily shift toward whatever is accepted by the makers of public opinion, etc. etc. Rabbi Tau identifies this, and as a counterweight deliberately places himself at an extreme point in the opposite direction. He pays a price for this — and he is aware of the price he pays — but it matters to him in order to prevent a total slide into surrender to secularism.

Immanuel, I’m not sure we even disagree about the extent of Rabbi Tau’s analytical greatness, and even if we do, we don’t have the tools to clarify that here and now. Besides that, I have all kinds of views on the subject (for example, what the importance of analytical greatness is, and what a “great personality” is), and on another occasion I’ll try to sort them out.

To Y.D.,
My views on the legal system, and especially the High Court of Justice, are exactly like Rabbi Tau’s. I think that as part of the priesthood of the progressive religion, they are the greatest enemy of the Jewish people. Not Iran and not anything else.

And likewise regarding the self-nullification of the religious public in relation to secular people. I admit I didn’t appreciate how pathetic and spineless the liberal religious public that I’m part of is (even the liberal Torah public — graduates of Gush Yeshiva and the like, not to mention the half-baked crowd) in relation to the secular Ashkenazi public, especially the left-wing one. It’s really a character trait they absorb with their mother’s milk. I’m not Haredi and not Hardali at all, but on this I agree with him one hundred percent. I’m actually ashamed to be part of this public.

Just to note, someone by the name of Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, in his article on Rabbi Kook in Personalities and Methods, mentions Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, his modesty, and the fact that he was a Torah scholar.

Regardless of the argument,
one who studies only one field and not others does not deserve to be called an analyst.
And likewise,
one who is wise in one thing and foolish in other things does not deserve to be called a Torah scholar.

Maybe you can call him a geek of the Babylonian Talmud.

To Mr. Y.D.: Are you claiming that Rabbi David Stav arrived at Merkaz HaRav at age 18 and claimed that the rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, was not a Torah scholar?!
Also regarding Rabbi Aviner — if you look into the general lectures he delivered in his yeshiva, you’ll see that he is a much greater analyst than most roshei yeshiva.
Regarding Rabbi Tau — Rabbi Mordechai Sternberg said that he was less of an analyst than him in Talmudic passages. Even if you say he was exaggerating, that is still very far from your claims.

That’s what the rumor says. I heard from Rabbi Stav himself the claim that Rabbi Zvi Yehuda was not an analyst (he holds that to this day). The part about him saying it at age 18 I heard from other people, who claimed that Rav Avraham used it against Rabbi Tau.

“Rumor… I heard…” True, the opinions of great rabbis about his innovative rulings are well known, but to say that he behaved with such brazenness in the yeshiva where he began studying in his youth still sounds exaggerated. In any case, at the moment the genius who authored Mareh Makom on the Talmud prefers to use Rabbi Zvi Yehuda’s conceptual distinctions despite the fact that he was a Zionist… You’re invited to look as well at his notes on his father’s responsa and see for yourself.