Is greatness something innate which would manifest itself in any time and any place, or is greatness created by circumstance. Was Winston Churchill simply a political exile and outcast who was created by the events which unfolded in September 1939, without which he would have remained historically insignificant, or was he a giant that would have revealed his metal even in the absence of crisis. Rather, what G-d has given to man is a calling. Every human being hears the voice of Sinai as it rings in his ears through successive generations. The challenges of every age are different, but their essence is the same.
Every human being is born with the potential for distinction, excellence, and greatness.
Every man and every woman can be a great man or woman, if they so choose. And commensurate with the opposition to these ideals in any given age, and the degree to which the individual surmounts these obstacles and rises to the occasion, is the level of greatness that he or she will be said to have attained. Churchill emerged as one of the finest leaders in history when he steadfastly stood as the principal opponent of the foremost evil that has ever stalked the earth. And Maimonides was immortalised to posterity as one of the greatest Jewish scholars of all time when he vociferously and unequivocally defended Judaism against intellectual onslaught that sought to disqualify the validity and authenticity of the Sinaiatic tradition, while all the time retaining his intellectual rigour and integrity. Our own age is not immune to greatness.