Someone has to say this…
Anyone who reads current Torah literature, especially Parsha sheets, has come across the fantastical stories of Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein. He has written highly popular books of this material, including multi-volume “Aleinu Leshabe’ach”, “Barchi Nafshi, “Tuvecha Yabi’u”, and more. To believe his anecdotes we must assume:
- reality is far stranger than fiction – and not because of Rabbi Zilberstein’s wondrous imagination and story-telling abilities,
- all the amazing stories come solely to his doorstep,
- in incredible numbers, and
- he first hears an interesting Halachic dilemma, only then, with God’s help, locating some overly-ingenious solution and/or argument in the Torah sources.
And he assures us these are all actual cases which occurred, not custom-made fiction tales, like responsa Terumas Hadeshen.
I don’t buy it.
And not that something obvious needs proof, but I hear Rabbi Dov Landa of Slobodka has said he doesn’t believe Rabbi Zilberstein’s stories either.