Yeridas hadoros (the decline of generations) it would appear is not limited to Jews as we move ever further from Sinai. Among the nations of the world the decline might be even swifter as popular culture becomes ever more degraded and dehumanizing.

These glum reflections were inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s remarkable A Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. The “team of rivals” refers to the three men who competed withLincoln for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination all of whomLincoln subsequently brought into leading positions in his cabinet. Secretary of State William Seward who had been considered by many the inevitable Republican nominee in 1860 becameLincoln’s closest advisor and confidant.

Goodwin interweaves the biographies of all four men of the post–Revolutionary War generation. Those biographies are based in large part on diaries and letters. (Will future biographers examine Twitter accounts?)

Politicians in those days invariably spent much time away from home and generally did not take their families with them. Nor did they return home by plane every weekend. The only means of communication were the long letters written home. These letters reveal relationships of a depth several orders of magnitude deeper than the virtual “friending” of today.

During those prolonged periods of separation spouses shared a remarkable degree of detail about their daily lives. Even among happily married couples today I wonder how many take the time to share so much of their diurnal activities with one another confident that whatever is important to one is automatically important to the other.

Another thing that strikes a modern reader is the depth of emotional closeness and longing for the beloved’s company expressed. That longing for the company of the other was not confined to spouses but expressed by men for their male friends as well. Friendships too were far deeper.

The point is not just that we can no longer give vent to feelings the way people of those times did. It’s worse. Most people no longer have access to such feelings. Our emotional vocabulary has become impoverished and with it our emotions themselves. Contemporary society with its instant (and frequently illiterate) communication and equally short-lived and utilitarian relationships does not give rise to deep friendships much less marriages.

One of the differences between the earlier period and our own is that people were better educated. Lincoln and his “rivals” all read prodigiously in their youth even thoughLincolnhad little more than a year of formal schooling. They were grounded in classic texts which in those days included the King James Bible at the top of the list. The cadences of their writing drew on those of the Bible and their thoughts dwelt on the big questions of life.

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address took less than two minutes to deliver but still retains its power today even far removed from the battlefield on which tens of thousands gave up their lives. The Lincoln-Douglas debates which thousands gathered to hear in smallIllinoistowns standing three hours or more under the sun are still studied in political theory courses today. What contemporary politician even aspires to more than an instantly forgotten sound bite on the evening news?

Another crucial difference was the omnipresence of death. Many children died in infancy or from childhood diseases against which there were no vaccines. Besides facing the dangers of childbirth women died suddenly of diseases that are virtually unknown today — scarlet fever smallpox — and some we have never heard of like milk fever.Lincolnlost his mother and a beloved older sister early in life. Salmon Chase his secretary of the treasury buried three wives by his mid-30s and never again married.

The shadow of death intensified relationships. Feelings not expressed today might not have occasion for expression later. Long absences from home and the ubiquity of sudden loss encouraged reflection on what one’s spouse or friend meant to one.

TOO SOME EXTENT the palpable decline of emotional depth I am describing does not apply to Torah society. We erect barriers against the most degraded elements of contemporary society entering our private domain and attach ourselves to the words of Torah. As a consequence our marriages and friendships remain on an altogether different plane.

Yet with the physical and metaphorical ghetto walls broken down our barriers are not impermeable. The preference for quick and shallow communication has infected us as well. When was the last time any of us wrote a letter conveying to a loved one what that person means to us? Life expectancy has more than doubled since 1860 and with it the tendency to take our most precious relationships for granted and to delay working on developing them to their fullest potential.

Already more than 80 years ago Rav Yerucham Levovitz wrote of how rare it was to find a man of contemplation of real depth — and he was writing from within the walls of the greatest citadels of Torah.

As I was formulating some of the thoughts triggered by the Lincolnbiography the maggid shiur in a nighttime shiur on Eiruvin inexplicably pulled out a volume of Rav Akiva Eiger’s letters one night and read the famous letter occasioned by the passing of his first wife whom he married at the age of 16.

It would be foolish to attempt to measure societal decline by a comparison of ourselves to Rav Akiva Eiger for even had we been contemporaries the chasm between us would have been great. But at the very least the depth of feeling he expresses after her death and his description of their marriage gives us an ideal towards which we can strive.

The gaon was responding to a letter from a number of prominent rabbanim proposing a shidduch with the daughter of his late wife’s sister. He was only 34 and three of his four children were still unmarried. Still he reacted with astonishment to the thought of a match being proposed so soon after the loss of “the wife of my youth my pure dove with whom Hashem blessed me … Who will I share my worries with and receive comfort who will look after me and care for me ... Who knew her righteousness more than I? Many times we were up in animated discussions about the topic of yiras Shamayim until the middle of the night.”

Rav Akiva Eiger did not hesitate to bare the depth of his despair which rendered him as yet unfit for marriage: “I am a broken man in a dark world I lost all pleasure. I accept Hashem’s decree. I cannot answer any sh’eilos now the tears make me unable to read.... I am unable to eat or keep down any food.... I cannot daven without distraction or even learn a simple topic.” (Translation by Rabbi Yosef Tropper)

Six months later he accepted a match with his 16-year-old niece to whom he was wed for 39 years in a marriage that produced 13 children who survived into adulthood. When she too passed away he was again broken and passed away little more than a year later.

A day before Rav Yehoshua Neuwirth ztz”l passed away Rabbi Doniel Wolfson who had served as rosh yeshivah in one of the three yeshivos established by Rav Neuwirth came to visit him in the hospital. When it came time to leave Rabbi Wolfson wished Rabbi Neuwirth a refuah shleimah. The rav immediately added “b’soch sha’ar cholei Yisrael — among all the other sick members of Klal Yisrael.”

In those few words lies an entire worldview. Rav Neuwirth did not conceive himself as an individual apart from Klal Yisrael. Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler explains that the power of tzaddikim to effect a kaparah for their generation lies in their total identification with the Jewish People. The classic example is Moshe Rabbeinu after the Cheit HaEigel when he told Hashem “and if not [i.e. if You cannot bear their sin] erase me please from Your book that You have written” (Shemos 32:32). Hashem’s great love for Moshe Rabbeinu did not allow Him to exact the full measure of punishment from Bnei Yisrael.

That ability to identify oneself with the klal and its needs was one aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu’s anivus. And that quality defined Rav Neuwirth as well. What other gadol of his stature taught practical halachah to seminary girls for decades? Or subjected himself to enormous fundraising burdens even when he had grown very weak by opening new yeshivos for boys who did not have places?

The owner of the small Har Nof gym at which I’m too infrequently found worked privately with Rav Neuwirth three times a week in his last years. A few days after the levayah he described Rav Neuwirth as “my best friend.” He told me how Rav Neuwirth would greet him by asking where he was up to in the Gemara he was learning but would then follow that question with many more about the members of his family and whatever else was going on in his life.

That ability to speak freely and openly with a pashute Yid as one would speak to a best friend was yet one more aspect of how Rav Neuwirth dwelt fully among his nation.