Romach

Monday, October 17, 2005

(Jewish) Papal Infallibility

The Slifkin Debacle has given the Jewish blogosphere a "great" boost. Hirhurim, Godol, Lamedzayin, OntheMainLine, and dozens of blogs have written about it. Rabbis, hitherto immune from any criticism, find themselves eviscerated on the Internet by frum Jews, placed on par with clowns. Defenses of these rabbis are so weak that its (sometimes) a waste of time debunking them.

An outside third party, looking in, would think that "Rabbis" of the "Big Yeshivas" are fools, laying claim to expertise in every area which they haven't studied. After all, anyone without a college degree and who pushes for meager secular and english education, is an expert on biology, chemistry, and physics. PhDs and years of intensive research and schooling mean nothing when you have someone who has never thought about why an apple falls from a tree.

To the other 6 billion people in the world, our loud, famous, vocal leaders are stuck in the 17th century. Christians realized Gallileo was right. For the most part they've gotten over the initial clash between scientific study and relgiion. They realize their leaders can be wrong.

We haven't. Or rather, they aren't our leaders.

Which is worse?