If you find a gadol story that doesn’t include dark times, you are reading pure fiction. In the world Hashem created, fighting spiritual fights is integral to growth, and fighting means that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. It seems that in an attempt to portray gedolim as great, we have made them non-human – angels just barely wearing human form.
While this may stem from a noble motivation, it is false, and it brings with it a real danger. If a gadol is barely human, I can’t learn from him. After all, I am very human. I have ups and downs, moments of great inspiration and times of doubt and questions. I fall down and need to pick myself back up. If gedolim are perfect angels, what connection do they have to me? How can I learn from them?
I could not agree more. Rabbi Scherman: Are you listening?