I wanted to address the issue of the new and active phenomenon of "wonder-rabbis" for a couple of days, mostly after reading the extensive report about R. Yoshiyahu Pinto. The publishing of the feature coincided with the murder of the well-respected Elazar Abuhatzeira by a mentally troubled man unhappy with the counsel he got for his marital problems.
The phenomenon isn't new in the Jewish world and if the latest patterns are manifesting mostly within the Sephardi world, the beginning belongs to the Eastern European shtetls and the hassidims' exotic - sometimes - courts.
In times of economic and spiritual instability, people are driven to find advice and daily orientation from people considered as the owners of a special knowledge and spiritual powers. But the danger of idolatry is high and we need counter-weights and our own reasoning and critical thinking. But we need to he wise enough and modest enough to realize what our limits are and where we should prefer the silence to the facile answers.
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