Respect, Reverence and Idolatry

My parents raised us to be conscious of and to practice good manners. This went beyond just saying please and thank you. We were taught that one speaks to people considerably older than ourselves in a more "serious" fashion than we would if speaking to someone our own age. We were taught to be respectful of those who have attained more than general knowledge, both secular and knowledge of limudei kodesh. We were taught to speak with respect to the rabbi of our shul. We were taught to speak with respect about those on the higher rungs of rabbanus, the gedolei ha'doar. Full truth? We were taught to speak to everyone respectfully, regardless of their status or position in the world.

We were also taught the posuk that begins "Anochi Elokim--I am the Lord thy God. Thou shall have no other gods before me." That one my parents stressed. They carefully pointed out that there is a real difference between respect and reverence for one on a higher level of learning and idolatry. I believe that today those lines have become exceedingly blurry. In point of fact, there are any number of practitioners of Judaism who idolize their leaders, and not in any positive sense of the word.

Nowhere in any of our writings have we ever been shown a "perfect" human being to model ourselves after. Every one of those written about in Tanach was clearly human, with human fallabilities. My parents would point out to us that one thing we must learn is that even the greatest among us has to keep a strict vigilance over their words and actions, precisely because they are human beings and subject to human error. In fact, they must be even stricter than most of the rest of us, because their words and actions are looked at as being on a higher level. Their words and actions affect not only themselves but the rest of us, who look to them as examples, who look to them for guidance.

When we get into the my rabbi/rebbi/rosh yeshiva/godol is better than yours slanging matches we have gone from reverence to indulging in a form of idolatry. When we refuse to believe that anyone but our chosen godol can possibly have any of the answers we need, we are heading towards idolatry. When we refuse to recognize that anyone else but our chosen godol can see what needs to be done in any and all given situations, we are on the way to idolatry.

In the secular world we would scoff at anyone who claimed expertise in all fields based on their expertise in one field. Look at those anointed to greatness in the general scientific fields. Just because a doctor found a breakthrough in epidemiology would you go to that doctor to have your fractured hip fixed? Rational people don't go to their dentist for heart problems, nor to their heart doctor for dental problems. We recognize the brilliance of each in their field, but we also recognize their limitations. Respect yes, reverence yes, but idolatry no.

But leave the scientific arena and the idea remains the same. I don't call my plumber for accounting advice, nor my accountant to fix a clogged drain; each has their area of expertise, and those areas do not overlap. Even in the accounting and plumbing areas there are sub-divisions and sub-specialties--as there are in most other fields as well. Not every accountant, not every plumber, not every one in any profession you can think of is super well-versed in every area of their field. We recognize this as truth in the secular world, but things break down when we move from the secular to the religious.

Years back we had a question of halacha relating to a medical/scientific problem. We asked our local rabbi for a referral to a rav who would have the knowledge to paskin on that particular issue. We were given the name of someone high in the hierarchy who was absolutely the rav to go to. We didn't question that statement. We went, asked, were given a psak and followed it. The result was almost catastrophic, as a family member almost lost his/her life. The problem wasn't this Rav's ability to understand what the words of the halacha were; the problem was the Rav's lack of total information about the medical problem, and his inability to see/know all that was medically involved. He did not say to us, "I will have to consult with medical specialists to get all the information I might need to give you a psak." He paskened based on what he already knew, and he didn't know enough.

This experience didn't send us off the derech nor destroy our belief that rabbanim high in the hierarchy are learned people. What it did do was point out a basic fact of life that applies today: no one person can know everything about everything. The vastness of the knowledge and information available to us today, information that is expanding even as I write this, precludes any one person from being an expert in everything, and certainly would preclude any one Rav from being "the" Rav to whom all is known.

There is a very fine line between respecting/revering a Rav and idolizing that Rav. Respect says that the Rav has a great deal of knowledge, and sufficient humility to know what he doesn't know and go to others, many others if need be, to gain further knowledge before giving out a psak or admitting that he can't give out a psak because he doesn't know enough to do so. Idolatry places a Rav in the category of "all-knowing," a patent impossibility today.

In the internecine warfare that categorizes so many of the sub-groupings of frum Klal, idolatry has taken a front seat, and it is more than time that it be banished as forbidden. I will respect and revere a Rav for the knowledge he does have; I refuse, however, to practice idolatry and mistakenly infuse that Rav with knowledge and/or characteristics that would make him an "ultra being," outside of the parameters of what is possible for a human being.