Did Rav Ahron Kotler destroy Daas Torah? (albeit unwillingly and unknowingly)

RAK (left) with the Kopycznitzer Rebbe, zt"l, in Fleischmann's

(Well, I guess in America, is what we're talking about here. In Eretz Yisroel the dynamics are so different that we cannot compare nor discuss it here. Meaning, that RAK is responsible for the situation in the US, even if the piece you're about to read may focus on Israel in the first part... Just read on, you'll see the point eventually.)

Anshel Pfeffer, in his recent "Ha'aretz" op-ed piece, speaks about the situation in which Daas Torah in Eretz Yisroel finds itself today, with HaRav Elyashiv being in a virtual jail - not allowed to see the general public - and proclamations coming out in his name that he has very little idea about. What I assume prompted the article was the bickering between Mishpacha and the Israeli Yated, where the Yated people, apparently hurting because of Mishpacha's popularity, managed to procure an issur from Rav Elyashiv against the Mishpacha magazine, which is a joke, because he probably never even saw the letter that he supposedly issued, nor has he ever read the Mishpacha magazine.  Pfeffer implicates everybody in his piece; Lubavitch, the Elyashivites and Shachites, and Vizhnitz too, so I'm not thumping my chest just yet. Like a good Liberal he blames modern medicine for keeping old people alive their productive stage, but he makes one interesting point - or tries to. He basically says that by empowering every individual - by sending them to Yeshiva and then to Kolel for the rest of his life - that there is no consensus anymore as far as "Who is a Gadol." Any proclamation can be argued with and nothing is certain. You can argue on anything. People have begun to see how these Daas Torah meetings and letters work and they longer believe anything anymore. The fact that every מאנטאג און דאנערשטאג something else is banned also doesn't help.

I'm not sure if Pfeffer is 100% correct, but he seems to be trying to make a somewhat-educated point here. What caused this rift is the fact that everybody is a בר דעה now. We all learned in Yeshivos and we all learned in Kolel, and you won't tell me what to do or say! RYSE may be the Posek HaDor, but we have the Gaon HaDor, the Z'kan Roshei Yehivos, or the Z'kan HaMekubolim/Admorim on our side. So we don't need to listen to what you say. I realize it's a bit of a stretch. Ok, a very BIG stretch, but a simpleton wouldn't dare open his mouth against a Rov or Rebbe in the old days, no matter who the man was. That was because he realized that this Rov/Rebbe is much more learned than he is. He knew that Torah knowledge is the ultimate accomplishment in this world, and since he hasn't accomplished it, and this man has, then he needs to keep quiet, even if he thinks he understands better than the Rov/Rebbe. I know what some of you are saying or thinking, that the Chassidic Rebbe should not be associated with Torah. Ha, Ha. Very cute. But the fact remains that a Rebbe was respected and obeyed just the same if not more.

But truth be told; this has been going on for centuries already, nothing really to do with the dawn of the great Yeshivos and Kolelim. I was just reading about the Yeshiva Eitz Chaim and what happened in the 1860s in Yerushalayim with a new head of the school who had recently come from di Lita and decided to implement some changes to the system. (Rav Nissen Tikutchinski, son of Rav Michel and head of Eitz Chaim in J'lem, just passed away last week.) I believe he wanted to be able to raise money independently from the Kolel system that existed, and wanted to have donors give donations directly to the cheder/yeshivah. Rav Shmuel Salant, the undisputed leader of Jerusalem Jewry at that time - or so we thought - was adamantly opposed to any change in the system, but they basically thumbed their very noses at him. They were very determined, and they used the press of the day - periodicals like Chavatzelet, to make their point. Even Reb Shmuel did not have the last word. True, they used Reb Nissan Bak's publication to publicize their opinions, and maybe the fact that he was a chossid and RSS a non-Chossid had something to do with them not respecting RSS, but that's not entirely true, since the man who wanted to change the system was a non-Chossid from ראדישקעוויץ, so he was surely "supposed to respect RSS. Can you imagine that happening at all? We always assumed that the only ones to defy RSS were the Maskilim and the irreligious, but not frum Jews! And ultimately Eitz Chaim got what it wanted, and the Kolel system of Chalukos was irreversibly damaged, and remains so until today.

What's ironic about all this is that davka in אר"י has it become so that they have at least succeeded to form some kind of authority that people listen to. They succeeded when it came to Kosher phones and Mehadrin buses. In America there is none! And if think they can create one by making an Ichud HaKehillos they're sorely mistaken. So despite the fact that in the US people work and earn a living still we see that they have little respect for Daas Torah. So I guess blaming RAK would simply be unfair. So the answer to the question posed in the title of this post is "no." Maybe it's the וישמן ישורון ויבעט that did us in. We're too rich so we kick away DT. איי, we have a hard time paying tuition, utilities, mortgage, camp, seminaries, wedding, bar mitzvas, sheitel for the wife, etc. - that doesn't to matter. We're still too rich. But we're not too rich to be ignored when it comes to supporting those houses of learning. So I guess, what I'm trying to say is that if we give credit to RAK for "building Torah in America," then doesn't he have to "take the blame" as well? If this is what the building of Torah created then he who created gets the credit/blame. {after all, the Satmar Rov created Shtreimlach and Cholov Yisroel drinkers and Tznius'dike women, but he doesn't take credit for building Torah, so we can't pin this on him...}