Which country had the most Tzadikim?

Perhaps Eretz Yisroel. Not Israel.

Bavel?

“Most” in this case is largely a function of total population. A small village of lamed-vav’niks will probably have fewer tzaddikim that a large city most of whose inhabitants are evil, but only a small minority are tzaddikim.

Then you have to define time periods and “country”. In terms of total population with a “sovereign” country, the United States in recent generations is roughly tied with Medinat Yisrael as it is today with total population, though many would argue that the Roman Empire at one point had a great population of Jews (probably at the start of the period in which Nero was elected imperator, since he started the process of many Jews looking for non-Roman areas to migrate to combined with “ethnic cleansing” of Jews in Eretz Yisrael.

So in raw number, the most “tzaddikim” would probably be found in either Eretz Yisrael today, or the Roman Empire at the end of Bayis Sheini (estimating populations in ancient times is a problem). While the US has as many persons of Jewish descent as Eretz Yisrael today, most are assimilated.

If you look at percentages, you will have to deal with many Jewish communities in which almost everyone was frum, and many were in “sovereign” city states – but until the modern period (largely due to improved medicine and food supply) populations were much lower.

ujm: interesting take. doesn’t it discount the chazon ish, the steipler and the post-war gedolim of israel, though?

Besalel: No, because we’re talking about quantity. Of course those you mention rank in in the top, but there were still more of them in America at the time.

ujm, I don’t know if that estimate is accurate – yerushalayim had tons of gedolei olam, including rav shlomo zalman, roshei yeshiva of chevron, mir, ponevezh…

I think it’s about equal in quantity, too

Very ignorant question and something we discussed when we were in first grade. To ask who had more righteous people is something only God can answer as you can have a simple person that controls his inclinations and character traits and is far more worthy of being called righteous Than a Rosh yeShiva. That knows the entire Torah, perhaps, but fails to control his character and humility ,remember “Tsaddik” means righteous. On the other hand ,If you would like to ask who produced more scholars, that’s also difficult bec i’m sure you’ve never heard of a lot of scholars that were in Europe and Lithuania because they weren’t famous or didn’t write books that left a legacy and how much more so you have no idea on the situation in Middle Eastern and Sephardic countries. Perhaps a better metric, would be who which country produced more books , which is also not going to be accurate because they were many many books produced in sefardic countries that never made it to Print, because they did not have that technology and to print would mean sending something to Italy, which was very expensive, and of course, most did not have the money for that. I remember being in a library in israel with many sefarim on shas and shulchan aruch but have never made it to print.

UJM not every tzaddik in the old yishuv was grabbing media headlines.

yabia – having learned the immeasurable depth of reb akiva aiger and the gaon’s torah, when i compare it with sefardi seforim, i don’t see anything similar, i just don’t. Im sure the gedolim like the ben ish chai, chida, etc…were just as big, but by and large, every other sefer ive seen has been drush or psak halacha, or teshuvos.

i can measure the stature by the content of the seforim. for example, the words of the rishonim aren’t at face value very complex; we believe in their greatness by mesorah and by what achronim told us about them – but we dont need any mesorah to see the greatness of rav akiva aiger and the like; just reading their words shows you the indescribable greatness of torah that they had. that includes the dibros moshe, chazon ish, reb chaim, and many others. sefardim don’t have seforim like that that i’ve seen – maybe there are, but im not aware.

re data about sefardim being not very into learning after the war – syians in NY didn’t build yeshivos. they built a mixed day school and fancy ornate shuls. most of them didn’t end up keeping all the mitzvos; many intermarried with fake converts(hence the “edict”) and those that did keep more and learn more, eventually, after rav ovadia set the tone, built up communities like ateret torah, which are on par with the ashkenaz yeshiva world.

before rav ovadia, a certain gadol told me that the image of a sefardi in america was “eineh vos ken mohl nisht gelernt”

but the ones who were behind ateret learned in ashkenaz places. to this day most sefardi rabbonim in america learned in the ashkenaz torah bastions like BMG, chaim berlin, and especially mir yeshiva in brooklyn.

in eretz yisroel, that wasn’t the case; sefardi yeshivos had talmidei chachamim, so much so that when a certain gadol visited porat yosef in the 30’s he said that the bachurim were no different than in mir or kletzk.

Avira, I think there are 2 things to consider on Sephardi limud:

1) (generalizing, of course) they indeed tend to go into pilpul like Ashkenazim. Many commentaries include stories. This does not make their limud lower. To the opposite, I often find them addressing the core issues rather than dealing with some complicated borderline relevant issue. This may be akin to difference between Yerushalmi and Bavli, as we discussed before: Yerushalmi is more focused (and looked down at wild Babylonians), while Babylonians developed a complicated – and useful – methodology.

2) Sephardim did not have haskala. So, when they arrived in 20th century to modern world, they encountered same isues Ashkenazim did 200 years before. Syrians in NY did not do worse than French and Germans in Europe. On the other hand, pretty soon they jumped up on Ashkenazim bandwagon of developed solutions (schools, conservative halakha, shtreimels) and went through the painful process much faster. (same as, l’havdil, Afrikans get wireless internet skipping putting phone cables Europeans did fro 100 years before).

Anyone who thinks that lomdus is just chilukim never touched a maaracha of rav akiva eiger. They probably can’t even read a tosfos without getting stuck.

Avira, maybe they cannot read the tosfas as there Hebrew education is weak. Thank Hashem that you are able to read it.

Here is some fire for the most ridiculous context of which tzadikim are more tzedek:
students of Chofetz Chaim were learning Mishna Berura and found a reference to a sefer that was not in the yeshiva. They went to the Rav’s house and asked him to loan them this sefer. Rav did not have it at home, but said someone in another town, just an hour on a train, has it. Students were stunned – Rebbe, you are quoting this sefer and you do not have it at home to learn? Yes, he said, it will cost money and gelt ist tzait and tzait is Toirah…

To contrast, R Ovadia lived in a small apartment and worked there. People who were in the apartment testified that he does not own numerous books that he is quoting and is doing it frmo memory, without taking the train.

let’s continue with the daf! Nedarim defines rasha/tzaddik in the following way: how responsible is a person with his words. A rasha tends to make nedarim (to motivate himself) – high-stake promises that cause complications, such as when an animal dies, you need to find another. A tzadik does nedava – dedicating a specific animal, and if something happens with it, the nedava is gone. The best way is to take the animals to the doors of BM and do nedava right before entering. No risk of false promises.

To extrapolate, a tzaddik thinks thru all practical implications of his decisions and talks and acts accordingly. A similar business concept is called “managing risks” rather than embracing it “bravely”
(aka foolishly). So, if you organize your life and what you do for others in a right way, you are a tzaddik. How do you achieve that is immaterial – if learning tosfos brings you there, shoin. If Ben Ish Hai stories teach you common sense, tov meod.

Reb E – exactly. Thanks, I did not know how many es-ens are there… Now, I will have to double-check!

This really highlights his gadlus. In modern language his theory was 100% correct after 2600 tests and then became 99.96% correct, enough to reject…

Repeating from an other topic:

Look at the Sefer Habris who explains that there are 25 levels of neshama. נפש, רוח, נשמה, חיה, יחידה within each there are 5 levels such as נפש שבנפש, רוח שבנפש וכו. Each has a maximum strength. Once we arrive to the highest level of the current neshama by defeating the yetzer hara, the yetzer hara cannot be stronger but it wants to be. So Hashem gives the person a higher level of neshama. So according to this, being a tzadik or a beneni is relative to one’s neshama. It is the maximum or middle for the current level of the neshama.

My favorite explanation is that the question is not on R Shimon but on R Akiva – how is he giving an answer that the expert on esim does not? Because he saw integrity of R Shimon worthy comparison w/ Hashem.

AAQ, thanks, I never heard that one.

It says שלך אי אתה רואה אבל אתה רואה של אחרים ושל גבוה, people don’t see their own faults but see it in others and especially, to elevate themselves, see faults in the holy.

CS: Even combined, those two places don’t have more than the Vatican.