Monthly Archives: November 2007

Rav Kook on the end of hatred

All matters of hatred, and all of the letters of the law
which apply to them, these were only stated in cases where we already knew that
the precept of reproof had been administered to someone. And since we don’t
have in this generation, nor have we had for several previous generations, as
Rabbi Akiva testifies, someone who knows how to deliver reproof, therefore,
they are not longer applicable, all of the laws referring to ill feelings and
the hatred of brothers have become like the case of the rebellious son, a
banished city, and a contaminated house, according to the one who says there
were never such case, and never be in the future…”

Letters of HaRav Avraham Yitzhak HaCoheen Kook Part 1, 305 (Torat Eretz Yisrael pg 82)

Interesting Interview with Rav Herschel Schachter

See here for an interesting interview with Rav Herschel Schachter:

The whole article is fascinating, however this one paragraph sticks out in my mind:

Rabbi Soloveitchik was not a towering baki. He couldn’t tell you on which daf one would find a particular din. He couldn’t even tell you what amud; rather, he would remember the progression of topics in the order in which they appear in the Gemara. People would be surprised. How could he not even remember if it’s amud aleph or amud beis? The truth is that he didn’t have that kind of bekius. He would often introduce a shiur
by quoting a completely different Gemara in order to expose its
underlying principle, which would then shed light on the Gemara at hand. The
shiur would thus have a bekius background in order to set the stage for further inquiry.

 I think this can be seen as a proof that to be a gaon in
Torah, one does not necessarily need a photographic memory, but rather a
structured and orderly understanding of the concepts.