I agree Rav Shach was Gadol and I also agree that Rav Ovadia Yoseph is extremely smart. But the place where I would look for greatness in Torah --the Lithuanian Gedolim are not. Read a bit what they have written and you will see for yourself. However, I admit they can learn. That much I will grant to you. But does this level of learning justify the changing the halacha from one "must not" take money for learning Torah to one "must". Or changing the halacha to fight in a war of protecting the Jewish people-- milchemet mizvah (war of obligation)--in which you draft even a bride out of her bride-chamber. All the more so in this case in which learning Torah is not a petur (permission to refrain) from doing even the smallest mitzvah--much less this greatest of all mitvot.
[however I do admit that Torah Scholars do not have to go out to fix the wall of a walled city with everyone else. This is a true halacha in the Talmud. But serving in the Israel defense Force is in the category of protecting the Jewish people for which purpose one drafts even a bride at the minute of her chupa. I might mention in this context that learning Torah is not a petur from any mitzvah. If asked to do a mitzvah even the smallest mitzvah it is never a answer to say ''I am busy learning.'' This is simple Shulchan Aruch. All the more so for the greatest of all mitzvot-serving in IDF.
But I do admit Litvaks (Lithuanians) learn better than Religious Zionists. I still remember that stupid article in the main publication of Dati Leumi (Religious Zionist publication) arguing for techelt thread that was green!
What is wrong with this: Absorption of light. Water doesn't look blue; it is blue. It absorbs in the infrared and enough in the visible range that red wavelengths are absorbed before blue. So the farther away something is under water, the bluer it looks. Also the fuzzier and fainter because even clear water has suspended particles to scatter light. The deeper you go in the ocean, the bluer the scene gets (because red light from the surface is absorbed) and the darker.
