Q&A: Is the Decline of the Generations Really So?
Is the Decline of the Generations Really So?
Question
I would like to ask about the concept of “greatness,” and about the relationship between a great Torah scholar and someone who is great in science or talent. In your opinion, is it for the same reason that people esteem rabbis of the past that people also esteem athletes and scientists of the past? I believe this way of thinking applies in other fields as well. For example, many consider Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player ever, but in my opinion players like Durant, Embiid, and Curry surpass him in various ways. Similarly, Einstein became the universal name of the expert, even though I don’t understand physics as you do well enough to compare the depth of his wisdom.
Is it that the accepted view about so-and-so’s greatness stems from the status we cherish and attribute to the past, as a kind of nostalgic prestige and “decline of the generations”? And is this a cultural way of thinking not necessarily connected to the study hall? And if this is indeed a common human pattern of thought that we all agree is fundamentally mistaken, why do we think this way? What is the meaning of this “failure,” if it is in fact a failure, of thought?
Thank you
Answer
I don’t know. A person does tend to value his predecessors because he studied with them or learned from them, and at that time he was younger and less skilled, so naturally they seemed very wise to him. When he grows up, he doesn’t always make the necessary adjustments, much like how we look at our parents, at least when we ourselves were young.
I think that in the Torah world this is more extreme, because this principle has turned into an article of faith. Partly because anything that was established there in the past becomes an article of faith for no good reason, and partly because the leadership has an interest in preserving the Torah framework, and it is easier to do that if our predecessors are portrayed as ministering angels.
Discussion on Answer
As I said, I don’t know. It is possible that the First Temple really was greater (miracles took place there, etc.). And Moses our teacher was the greatest of the prophets. But that is not necessarily connected to the notion that everything declines monotonically all the time.
The miracles motif is what opens the Talmudic passage in the Babylonian Talmud about the decline of the generations, so I’m not so sure the miracles are really necessary. Moses, too, was the greatest of the prophets, but aside from the fact that the Sages already compared Rabbi Akiva and Ezra to him, isn’t it plausible that from his time until today someone has arisen who was at least as great as he was—and not in the sense of a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant? Maimonides made this an article of faith, but of course only for those who are not wise enough to understand it.
I’m not so sure the miracles are really necessary—because I don’t believe in them, at least not as a foundational principle, as Maimonides writes in the introduction to the Mishneh Torah.
In your opinion, do statements like the greatness of the First Temple as compared to the Second, or “the face of Moses was like the face of the sun,” stem from this principle that kept the Sages from seeing the lack of fit and lack of relevance in comparing the First Temple and Moses to those who came after them? The Sages were not aware of this principle through no fault of their own, and a leadership interest does not seem relevant here.