Reply To: Daas Torah in gemora

Gedol,
we seem to agree on Shimon Amsuni, I view him as a paradigm of real learning despite his obscurity, even his name is in doubt, despite his thick thesis on esim. There are several great explanations about R Akiva’s addition on Talmidei Chachamim to “yeras Hashem”. The one I like the best is that obviously a baki like R Shimon saw this as a possible answer, but preferred to forfeit his life work rather than saying something that he did not feel 100% correct (or maybe self-serving). So, R Akiva’s answer is based on seeing R Shimon’s behavior – that such T’Ch can be included in “yeras Hashem”.

This actually gets back to the DT topic – giving a pretty high standard for the DT, not just someone who leared a lot, but someone with impeccable middos, but it is probably assumed in the ideal notion of DT.