Zushy ,my mistake; you’re correct about rav Schlesinger’s yeshiva; i got mixed up with locations. You’re also correct that he’s a kanoi, but I don’t know who in brisk says he’s inaccurate. It’s true rhat in my years among brisker rabbonim i think i only heard about him once or twice, but i did not hear anyone say he was inaccurate.
Re, rav shlomo zalman; there are times that gedolim say or do things that are a tzarich iyun. We don’t change around the Torah because we see a tzadik do something we don’t understand. Here,rav shlomo zalman did not do anything against halacha, nor did he openly say that rabbi kook is acceptable/respectable despite saying that secular jews are holier than frum ones. What we have is him not changing his view despite being told by family and others that rabbi kook is chutz lemachaneh. So on that we have a tzarich iyun. It could be he didn’t want to listen to lashon hora. It could be that he loved torah so much that he couldn’t fathom a talmid chochom saying apikorsus. Who knows?
Regarding rav elchonon; his not visiting YU was complicated. Rav elchonon allows college in a teshuva – and rav boruch ber forbids it! If so, it should have been the opposite, rav boruch ber would not want to visit a place that was trenched in violation of halacha, and rav elchonon should have been ok with it.
The answer is that everyone knew what YU was. The question was, do we show American boys Torah and even teach there, and maybe make a difference? That’s what rav shimon shkop held. Do we visit to be mechazek acheinu bnei yisroel? That’s what rav boruch ber held. Do we make a machaah even though no one will listen and they will do as they please? That’s rav elchonon.
Rav elchonon was not outside the mainstream; he was a foremost talmid of the chofetz chaim, and was just as respected as the other two gedolei olam we’re discussing. He also literally gave his life for his talmidim, to make sure that they have the right kavanos when they will he slaughtered al kidush Hashem…rav elchonon was a pure angel.
If rav elchonon, who is the mamshich darko of the chofetz chaim, calls someone a rasha…it cannot be disregarded. One gadols rasha is not another gadols tzadik; rather it’s more logical that the ones who believe him to be a tzadik were misled. The satmar rov says this is not a stirah to gadlus batorah, to be too open and trusting.
Regarding shlomo lorencz; he was a confidant of many gedolim, and spent time with the rov, the chazon ish, gerrer rebbe, and many others. He was, however, a baal habayis. He made some mistakes in his book series, including a discussion with the rov that could not have been. He claims that the satmar rov said that the miracles of 48 were from the soton, and that the rov said that everything is from Hashem, and that the miracles were on behalf of the frum, inspite of the secular.
That story is impossible, because the satmar rov doesn’t say that the soton independently does anything. What he says in vayoel moshe and al hageulah is that the soton is in charge of testing klal yisroel, and has shown them signs and wonders to test them, to see if they will follow avodah zara. We find that in medrash rabba, where the soton showed klal yisroel a vision of moshe rabbeinu dying on har sinai, which led to the egel. So too, says the satmar rov, miracles don’t prove that one side of a question is right – the soton can present challenges to us, which of course are min hashomayim.
Umikra malei hu – the pesukim spell out that a false Navi may perform miracles! It’s quite telling that the anti-kabalah modern Orthodox people run to miracles to substantiate their claims that “god is on our side”.