One of my daughters is doing a school report on Eretz Yisrael which involves writing about some of the mekomos hakedoshim, some of the mitzvos teluyos ba'aretz, and selecting two "gedolim" who lived in Eretz Yisrael to write about. One of my daughter's choices of a gadol to write about is R' Arye Levin (the other, at my suggestion, is Rav Kook.) She has yet to read the R' Ayre Levin bio (A Tzadik in Our Time by Simcha Raz), but last night asked me what R' Arye Levin's favorite color was. She explained that if someone were to write a bio about her she would want it to include her favorite color, so of course R' Arye Levin must have a favorite color included in his bio as well. My daughter clearly has a long way to go on this project : )
Seriously, there is a real mussar haskel here to think about. When we evaluate a gadol's life, do we project our standards about what is important or significant onto them, fitting them into our preconceived framework, or do we change our thinking about what is important and significant in response to what we learn about their life?
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