Gadol or godol (גדול, plural: gedolimגדולים) (literally "big" or "great" in Hebrew) is used by religious Jews to refer to the most revered rabbis of the generation.
The term gadol hador refers to the "great/est (one of) the generation" denoting one rabbi who is presumed to be even greater than the others. Other variations of the term are Gadol Yisrael or a Gadol BeYisrael (plural: Gedolei Yisrael), meaning "great one of the Jewish people".
A similar title is Rashkebahag, which is an acronym for "Rabbon shel kol bnei hagolah" (The sage and teacher of the entire Jewish diaspora). Another term is Manhig Yisroel (plural: Manhigei Yisroel), literally "leader of Israel".
The title gadol hador is usually only given to one Jewish Sage at a time, while the title "Rashkebahag" can be given to a few, and the term Gedolei Yisrael collectively refers to all leading rabbis in the Haredi community.
The term is generally applied to rabbinic leaders since World War I. Major rabbis from earlier generations are known as Rishonim or Achronim.
Often, a gadol functions as a rosh yeshiva (the head of a yeshiva Talmudical school), and/or can be a Hasidic Rebbe. A gadol is quite often also a posek (a decisor of Halakha - Jewish law) and may be the author of rabbinic literature and responsa.
Adherents of Haredi Judaism often presume that a gadol has some degree of ruach hakodesh ("divine spirit"); the gadol's teachings and statements therefore become the crux of Daas Torah.
According to Rabbi Nota Greenblatt, posek and rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva of Memphis, a true gadol is far more than a great Talmid Chakham ; he is someone that has wisdom, concern for others, and has fully developed his middos . [1]
Rabbi Chaim Epstein has been quoted as saying:
We do not vote for gedolim. We know someone is a gadol if he is accepted by the Torah world, if he is accepted by the lomdei Torah . [2]
In Hebrew halachic texts, gadol is also used as a term for a Jewish boy who turns thirteen, and is viewed as an adult regarding to his obligation to practice the 613 commandments. This is the age of Bar Mitzvah. When a Jewish girl reaches the age of twelve, according to Jewish law, she is called a gedolah (the feminine form of gadol).
Kohen Gadol refers to the high priests in the Jewish Temples. Shabbat Hagadol is the Shabbat prior to Passover.
In modern Hebrew, gadol as slang is used as an interjection to mean something is extremely cool, out of this world, superb, awesome, absurdly funny or hilarious. For example, upon hearing a funny joke one might interject "Gadol!"
In English writing, the transliterated word "gadol" generally refers to a prominent rabbi.
The following are names of rabbis of the non-Hasidic communities that were or are widely recognized to be the gadol hador:
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term Sifrut Chazal. This more specific sense of "Rabbinic literature"—referring to the Talmudim, Midrash, and related writings, but hardly ever to later texts—is how the term is generally intended when used in contemporary academic writing. The terms mefareshim and parshanim (commentaries/commentators) almost always refer to later, post-Talmudic writers of rabbinic glosses on Biblical and Talmudic texts.
In Jewish law and history, Acharonim are the leading rabbis and poskim living from roughly the 16th century to the present, and more specifically since the writing of the Shulchan Aruch in 1563 CE.
Degel HaTorah is an Ashkenazi Haredi political party in Israel. For much of its existence, it has been allied with Agudat Yisrael, under the name United Torah Judaism.
Yosef Shalom Elyashiv was a Haredi Rabbi and posek who lived in Jerusalem. Until his death at the age of 102, Rav Elyashiv was the paramount leader of both Israel and the Diaspora Lithuanian-Haredi community, and many Ashkenazi Jews regarded him as the posek ha-dor, the contemporary leading authority on halakha, or Jewish law.
Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, also known as the Chazon Ish after his magnum opus, was a Belarusian-born Orthodox rabbi who later became one of the leaders of Haredi Judaism in Israel, where he spent his final 20 years, from 1933 to 1953.
Shemaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievsky was an Israeli Haredi rabbi and posek. He was a leading authority in Haredi Jewish society on legal and ethical practice. Known as Gadol HaDor and the "Prince of Torah", much of his prominence came through Torah education and advice about Jewish law.
Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, known as The Steipler or The Steipler Gaon, was a Haredi rabbi, Talmudic scholar, and posek ("decisor" of Jewish law), and the author of Kehilos Yaakov, "a multi-volume Talmudic commentary".
Elazar Menachem Man Shach was a Haredi rabbi who headed Misnagdim Orthodox Jews in Israel and around the world from the early 1970s until his death. He served as chair of the Council of Sages and one of three co-deans of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, along with Shmuel Rozovsky and Dovid Povarsky. Due to his differences with the Hasidic leadership of the Agudat Yisrael political party, he allied with Ovadia Yosef, with whom he founded the Shas party in 1984. Later, in 1988, Shach criticized Ovadia Yosef, saying that, "Sepharadim are not yet ready for leadership positions", and subsequently founded the Degel HaTorah political party representing the Litvaks in the Israeli Knesset.
Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, also Shtainman or Steinman, was a Haredi rabbi in Bnei Brak, Israel. Following the death of Yosef Shalom Elyashiv in 2012, he was widely regarded as the Gadol HaDor, the leader of the non-Hasidic Lithuanian Haredi Jewish world. Along with several other rabbis, Shteinman is credited with reviving and expanding the appeal of European-style yeshivas in Israel.
Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah is the supreme rabbinical policy-making council of the Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah movements in Israel; and of Agudath Israel of America in the United States. Members are usually prestigious Roshei Yeshiva or Hasidic rebbes, who are also usually regarded by many Haredi Jews to be the Gedolim ("great/est") sages of Torah Judaism. Before the Holocaust, it was the supreme authority for the World Agudath Israel in Europe.
Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz was an Israeli Haredi Torah leader and rosh yeshiva in Bnei Brak for over 70 years. He was a maggid shiur at Yeshivas Tiferes Tzion from 1940 to 2011 and rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Ponovezh L’Tzeirim from 1954 to 2009, raising thousands of students. He was a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Degel HaTorah, a member of Mifal HaShas, and nasi (president) of the Acheinu kiruv organization, and played a leading role in the fight for Torah-true education in yeshivas and Talmud Torahs in Israel. In addition to his own Torah works, he published the teachings of his rebbi, Rabbi Shlomo Heiman, in the two-volume Chiddushei Shlomo.
Har HaMenuchot is the largest cemetery in Jerusalem. The hilltop burial ground lies at the western edge of the city adjacent to the neighborhood of Givat Shaul, with commanding views of Mevaseret Zion to the north, Motza to the west, and Har Nof to the south. Opened in 1951 on 300 dunams of land, it has continually expanded into new sections on the northern and western slopes of the hill. As of 2008, the cemetery encompasses 580 dunams in which over 150,000 people are buried.
Shlomo Eliyahu Miller is a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah. He is a Rosh Kollel (dean) and co-founder of the Kollel Avreichim Institute for Advanced Talmud Study, a haredi post-yeshiva educational institution in Toronto and head of its Beis Din. He is a Litvish Haredi Posek in Toronto.
Rabbi Aharon Feldman is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean) of Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore, Maryland. He has held this position since 2001. He is also a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah.
In Jewish law, a posek is a legal scholar who determines the application of halakha, the Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah in cases of Jewish law where previous authorities are inconclusive, or in those situations where no clear halakhic precedent exists.
The Jerusalem Faction is an Israeli-Haredi political organization based in Jerusalem. It was founded in 2012 by Shmuel Auerbach, as a reaction to the Bnei Brak-based Degel HaTorah's perceived moderate approach to the question of conscription of Haredim into the Israel Defence Forces by the Israeli government that came up following the expiration of the Tal Law.
Yerachmiel Gershon Edelstein was a Soviet-born Israeli rabbi who was rosh yeshiva of the Ponevezh Yeshiva, president of the Vaad Hayeshivos, and the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah party in Israel. He was widely considered to be a Gadol Hador by the Litvish community.
The Lomza Yeshiva was an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva in Łomża, Poland, founded by Rabbi Eliezer Bentzion Shulevitz in 1883. Rabbi Yechiel Mordechai Gordon served as the yeshiva's rosh yeshiva for many years, and Rabbi Moshe Rosenstain served as the mashgiach. A branch of the yeshiva was established in Petach Tikvah, Palestine in 1926, where Rabbi Reuven Katz served as co-rosh yeshiva alongside Rabbi Gordon.
Yeshivas Knesses Beis Yitzchak was an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva, founded in Slabodka on the outskirts of Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1897. The yeshiva later moved to Kamyenyets, then part of Poland, and currently in Belarus, and is therefore often referred to as the Kaminetz Yeshiva or simply Kaminetz. The yeshiva was famously led by Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibowitz.
The GRA, the father of the Lithuanian stream in haredi Judaism, was called Gadol Hador...
Close your eyes and imagine the gadol hador of three centuries ago, Rabbi Akiva Eiger, sitting in his study during the late night hours and studying by the light of ...
We know that the Chofetz Chaim was the gadol hador....
Rav Shach and his talmid got into the car, and the aged gadol hador and his young talmid headed towards Yerushalayim.