Rabbi Tzvi Kushelevsky shlita on Miracle Stories
I heard from a student in his yeshiva a variation on this (by Rabbi Yosef Tropper):
Rav Chaim Volozhin was questioned the following question. He said: I don’t get it that you tell over osos and mofsim about the Vilna Gaon as well, so why are we any different. We’re telling over osos and mofsim about our rebbe. So, Rav Chaim Volozhin said: There’s a stira in the gemara. On the one hand it says that all the tannaim and amoraim were capable of doing techiyas hameisim and great things, so we see even in the time of the gemara there was a discussion about the greatness, the kabbalistic and spiritual greatness of the tannaim and amoraim, but yet, at the same time, there’s a gemara in Brachos that says there was a certain man, “hahu gavrah”, there was certain individual, we don’t know who it was, and he was raising a girl who was an orphan and there was no mother to nurse the baby, and a miracle happened and the man was able to nurse the child and keep her alive. And, the gemara says that this miracle happened. The gemara comments that this is discussed and “kama meguneh” and this miracle is disgusting and an insult.
Rav Chaim Volozhin said: What’s going on over here? Is it a great thing that a miracle happened, or is it a bad thing? So, he says like this: If you’re known for your Torah and chesed and you’re known to be a great person and that’s who you are, and then on the side you happen to do some miracles, okay. So, then great. It fits in with the profile. A person is a tanna and an amora, and he happens to do miracles on the side, fine. But the gemara isn’t filled with miracles; the gemara is filled with lumdus, with learning Torah and yiras Shamayim. But if you’re just “hahu gavrah”, you’re some random guy. Noone knows anything about his Torah, then all of a sudden we just start talking about these osos and mofsim, these miracles that he does, then that’s worthless. And, I’ll finish the sentence, and no one misunderstands it. He wasn’t insulting anybody, but he was saying that if you’re known as a gadol baTorah and yiras Shamayim and you teach Torah and mitzvos and middos and then it happens to be on the side there’s some osos and mofsim that come out because a person that accepts Torah on himself, Hashem changes the world around for him, that’s great, that’s wonderful, that’s the Vilna Gaon. But, if you’re just telling me stories about nobody, about a nobody who all of a sudden does osos and mofsim and that’s the reason that you want to be close with him and spend time with him, then that doesn’t justify it. And, that is as Litvish as it comes.