What follows is a fragment of a book review of three books about Rav Ovadia Yosef, by Marc Shapiro, which expresses well what I wanted to say earlier.
"Finally, I must say a word about the most astonishing feature of R. Ovadiah’s writings, and that is his breath-taking beqi`ut, an encyclopedic knowledge the likes of which has never been seen in Jewish history. There have been great beqi`im prior to R. Ovadiah, and I think of R. Joseph Zechariah Stern and R. Hayyim Palache as two examples. But neither of them can compare to R. Ovadiah, if only because in the intervening century the responsa literature has more than doubled in terms of published works. R. Ovadiah has mastered all of it and continues to master every new
volume of any significance that appears. The knowledge that his mind encompasses is beyond belief and hard to describe. It is the product of an unequalled memory that has no use for the various electronic data bases that have made beqi`ut less valuable in this day and age.
I was recently asked if I have ever encountered such a mind in academia. Indeed, I have not. Yet this question led me to consider how someone like R. Ovadiah would be viewed in the academic world. This helps us understand why the Lithuanian yeshiva world has been less than overwhelmed by him. Considering the famous twentieth-century Lithuanian roshei yeshiva, you find personages with great minds who were able to produce stunning new talmudic insights. Had R. Aaron Kotler, for example, not remained in the yeshiva world, he could have used his great intellect in some other field. Had R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik not devoted himself to Torah, he could have excelled in philosophy, mathematics, or any other field to which he set his mind. The same can be said about the other Lithuanian Torah geniuses.
In contrast, when one surveys the work of R. Ovadiah, one finds not analytical brilliance, but a photographic memory that marshals a dazzling array of materials—and by the standards of the both the academic and the Lithuanian yeshiva worlds, this does not count for much. In the academic world one is judged by the significance of one’s publications, and in the yeshiva world by the profundity of one’s shi`urim (lectures). In the academic world a photographic memory may not even get one an interview, and in the Lithuanian yeshiva world he will not be regarded as suitable to offer shi`urim.
This is the challenge that R. Ovadiah presents to those in the academic and Lithuanian yeshiva worlds, where for good or bad, his type of knowledge is good for casual conversation, but has little true significance. Looking at the truly groundbreaking thinkers, such as those winning Nobel prizes or those reinventing fields in the humanities and social sciences, I cannot recall any with photographic memories. Having such a memory may even stand in the way of one’s mind charting new directions and creating new paradigms—the true stuff of genius. From an academic perspective, as well as from the outlook of the Lithuanian yeshiva world, it must be said that in the final analysis R. Ovadiah’s great knowledge amounts to a collection of facts, an encyclopedia, without real and lasting scholarly significance.
While R. Ovadiah is certainly a great technician, able to collect sources and come to conclusions by balancing views off one another, we are not confronted by any advanced thinking or grand theories that make a contribution to knowledge. There are no hiddushim (novellae) in the classic sense in R. Ovadiah’s writings. Even in his responsa, which overwhelm one with their sheer breadth, one finds that on almost every page R. Ovadiah cites a view, notes that this view is not mukhrah (necessary), and then cites a group of aharonim who disagree with this view. Yet hardly ever does he explain why the rejected opinion is wrong, or how its author has misread the Talmud or rishonim.
There is something deeply unsatisfying about declaring that an opinion is to be rejected because it is contradicted by a group of other scholars. It is not hard to see why someone trained in a great Lithuanian yeshiva would not regard this as a proper approach to pesaq. In the Lithuanian Torah tradition, a poseq is engaged in a search for truth, and if such a poseq feels that his interpretation is correct, then the fact that ten aharonim have a different opinion is irrelevant. To convince this poseq that his view should be rejected, one must show how he has misinterpreted the sources, rather than point out that many others disagree."
