There was a Shepherd Boy who tended his sheep at the foot of a mountain near a dark forest. It was lonely for him, so he devised a plan to get a little company. He rushed down towards the village calling out “Wolf, Wolf,” and the villagers came out to meet him. This pleased the boy so much that a few days after he tried the same trick, and again the villagers came to his help. Shortly after this a Wolf actually did come out from the forest. The boy cried out “Wolf, Wolf,” still louder than before. But this time the villagers, who had been fooled twice before, thought the boy was again lying, and nobody came to his aid. So the Wolf made a good meal off the boy’s flock.
When reading articles and books about various religious figures and historical events, I often encounter revisionist history. It is more than a little distressing. Rav Eitam Henkin gave various examples here. It is a pervasive problem. A Rav who was just niftar was one of the most chashuv dayanim in Eretz Yisrael. I read about him in one of the religious papers and they omitted the fact that he taught in Yeshivat Hakotel. That doesn't fit with their picture of a true Torah personality so they just left it out.
The problem - besides the dishonesty in and of itself - is that I can never know if anything I read is true. Like the boy who cried wolf. Lie once or twice and then you can never be believed again.
A biography of a certain Gadol and Tzadik came out recently. The stories were unbelievable. I called the author to find out who his sources for the book are. It was about a Rav who has been gone for over 80 years and almost nothing has been written about him so I was wondering how he had so much information. Just about everybody who met him and spoke with him is dead. The author gave me two names of people who told him the stories and he assured me of their veracity. I happen to be related to a relative of both of these two sources. This relative of mine was in my house recently. He saw the book and commented [w/o any prompting] "Maybe 30 percent of the stories in this book are true". The author simply made stuff up.
Then I was wondering which 30 percent...
