We left Rabbi Oberstein last month as a talmid in Ner Israel, where he was awed by the greatness of the Rosh Hayeshiva and rebbeim.
The first time I ever heard of the concept of a gadol was from my friend Meir Fialkoff at Yeshiva University High School, in my first year there. Meir had a picture of Rav Aharon Kotler in his wallet. I had never heard of Rav Aharon and couldn’t fathom a boy keeping a rabbi’s picture in his wallet. If you had asked me back then who the greatest rabbi in America was, I would have answered David De Sola Pool. Why him? He was the rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York, and I had received a book by him for my bar mitzva, entitled Why I Am a Jew.
I only saw Rav Aharon Kotler once. When in Boro Park for Shabbos, he davened at Rabbi Sheingarten’s shteibl, where I went when staying with Yitzchok Eichenthal for Shabbos. What I remember are his eyes; to me they seemed to shine. He was on a different level, but I didn’t really appreciate it at the time. That same year, Rav Aharon passed away, and many people from all over the yeshiva world went to his levaya, funeral. At my high school in Washington Heights, it was not mentioned (in my shiur). The only concession was that if a boy wanted to attend, it was an excused absence. Meir went; I didn’t.
What Is a Gadol?
A main underpinning of the “yeshiva world” is the idea of “gedolim.” The next question is what is a gadol? It is not an insignificant question, as the entire worldview of the olam hatorah, the Torah world, is built on following “daas Torah,” the judgment of the gedolim.
While belief in the truth of the Torah is the foundation that unites Orthodox Jews, there are layers of hashkafa that distinguish one group from the other. My friendship with Rabbi Moshe Sherer led me to understand that the yeshiva world is based on more than emunas chachamim, trusting the wise men, which is common to all Orthodox Jews. The yeshiva world is based on the concept of daas Torah. This leads to a belief in the authority of gedolei Torah.
I asked my good friend Rabbi Avi Shafran, Director of Public Affairs of Agudath Israel of America to define daas Torah, and this is his response: “Daas Torah is not some Jewish equivalent to the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility. Not only can rabbis make mistakes of judgment; there is an entire tractate of the Talmud, Horiut, predicated on the assumption that they can, that even the Sanhedrin is capable of erring, even in halachic matters.
What daas Torah means, simply put, is that those most imbued with Torah knowledge and who have internalized a large degree of the perfection of values and refinement of character that the Torah idealizes are thereby rendered particularly, indeed extraordinarily, qualified to offer an authentic Jewish perspective on matters of import to Jews – just as expert doctors are those most qualified (though still fallible, to be sure) to offer medical advice.”
So, gedolim are those rabbanim who are acknowledged to be the most learned and saintly of the generation. Yet I submit that one cannot understand or appreciate what a gadol batorah is until he has actually seen and interacted with one. It doesn’t matter if you are a great scholar yourself or a simple layman. I, for instance, saw how Rav Ruderman interacted with each person. He was a gadol in every situation. Rav Ruderman was the Torah authority for the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, Torah Umesorah. In this capacity, he dealt with many complex issues, especially of schools in areas where the majority of the students did not come from observant homes. He had the ability to apply the Torah to each situation individually. Anyone can forbid things; to allow something different requires a greater person.
There is a verse in the Torah, Devarim, Parshas Ekev (10:12): “Now, O Israel, what does Hashem, your G-d, ask of you? Only to fear Hashem, your G-d, with all your heart and all your soul, to observe the commandments of Hashem and His decrees, which I command you today, for your benefit.” Dr. Joseph Kamenetzky, our Machon teacher, told us this vort when we visited him in his sukka in Boro Park: In the above verse, it seems that Moshe Rabbeinu doesn’t think it is too hard to follow what the rest of the verse requires; he uses the phrase “ki im” which is translated above as “only.” The question is posed: Is fear of Hashem a small matter (an easy behavior)? The answer is “Legabei Moshe rabbeinu, yirah milsa zutrosoh hi – To Moshe Rabbeinu, fear of Hashem is a light task.” This is because Moshe was so holy himself.
Dr. Kamenenetzky told us a different pshat. “Legabei Moshe Rabbeinu” means that, if you are standing next to Moshe Rabbeinu, then you see that yirah is a light task. Similarly, if you have interacted with a gadol batorah, if you have observed with your own eyes how he lives his life and how he deals with others, then you understand what fear of Hashem is.*
Becoming Part of the Yeshiva World
My experiences over the years had given me a greater awareness of the variety of beliefs within the Jewish community in general and, especially within the group I had been least aware of, Orthodoxy.
Most American Jews are not ideological. They have very little depth of understanding. Since I come from that background, I see that many of my fellow frum Jews don’t fully realize that most American-born Jews are just being pragmatic. As long as doing something Jewish feels good, that is what matters. This is not so with Jews who come from a culture where emuna peshuta, uncomplicated faith, is a given. For example, in Los Angeles there is a Temple Sinai whose rabbi is a well known Conservative thinker and writer. Hundreds of Iranian Jews belong to this synagogue, as it is a prestigious place. A few years ago, the rabbi declared from the pulpit
that since there is no archeological proof of the exodus from Egypt, he doesn’t believe it took place as written in the Torah. This made waves nationally, possibly because so many of his members, especially the Iranian-born ones, had never heard anyone deny the truth of the Exodus. They had no idea that at the Jewish Theological Seminary they teach a scientific approach to Torah based more on archeology than on Chazal.
People in kiruv will tell you that the Jews they deal with are not kofrim (apostates). They are just being as Jewish as they want to be, while immersed in American culture. The “denomination” most American Jews support is what I call “utilitarianism.” That is, if it works, then do it. That is why so many changes are taking place outside of Orthodoxy; they are trying
to figure out what will work. Belief in the Torah has nothing to do with it.
On the other hand, I saw that Orthodox Jews actually do have real beliefs that they live by. Yet there is a wide spectrum of opinions and affiliations within the American Orthodox community, and even within subgroups like the yeshiva world, a wide range of behavioral norms and interaction with the wider world is accepted. Depending on one’s background and beliefs, one can view any place on this spectrum as too inclusive or too restrictive. I leave it to each person to develop his or her own approach and find his or her ideal of normative behavior.
The culture of the yeshiva world, including the idea of the gadol, makes perfect sense and is internally consistent – if you are willing to dive head first into the “sea of the Talmud.” If you are sitting on the sidelines as an observer, however, you may not fully see the logic of it. Because I was introduced to Jewish Orthodoxy gradually over a period of years and in various settings, by the time I got to Ner Israel, I was able to appreciate a lifestyle and belief system much different than the one I had originally subscribed to.
I never had encountered the concept of deference to a gadol at YUHS nor at Kerem B’Yavne. Daas Torah was not a part of the Mizrachi ideology back then. In fact, the idea that rabbis could tell politicians how to vote was rejected. Rabbis should stick to rabbinical matters and let Dr. Burg and Dr. Wahrhaftig and the other members of the Knesset deal with politics. Rabbi Saul Berman, a leading Modern Orthodox scholar, has written that there is a distinction between religious matters, where authority in halacha is binding, and political and social matters, where it is not. In fact, the whole concept of daas Torah has been looked upon as an invention of the Agudath Israel. (I want to make absolutely clear that I am not talking about kavod hatorah, which all observant Jews practice.)
Interestingly, today, the National Religious Party, descendent of the Mizrachi of the 1960s, believes in “daas Torah” of its own. Former Chief Rabbis Mordechai Eliyahu and Avrohom Shapiro are considered “gedolim” by their followers, and their word is law. This was most evident during the retreat from Gaza, when the above rabbis inspired massive nonviolent resistance and even promised that the evacuation would not take place.
Encounters with Gedolim
Two factors made it possible for me to become a part of the yeshiva world. Most important was the greatness of Ner Israel’s leaders, men of absolute integrity who were totally consistent in their behavior, and whose actions reflected their beliefs. (I wrote about them last month.) Secondly, the bachurim, my fellow students, were also worthy of emulation. As I got to know many of them, I saw that they, too, were on a spiritual odyssey that had led them to Ner Israel.
I remember the visit of Rav Moshe Feinstein to Baltimore. This was a great event. He came to solicit funds for his yeshiva, Mesifta Tiferes Yerushalayim. The frum balabatim and the yeshiva bachurim all went down to the train station to await his arrival. Then we followed as he was driven to his hosts, Mr. and Mrs. M. Leo Storch, on Bancroft Road, the address for tzedaka in Baltimore. Mr. Storch was the president of Bais Yaakov, and my late mother-in-law, Rosalyn Siegel, often quoted him as saying, “there are plenty of givers, but not enough takers,” by which he meant people to ask them to give.
Rav Moshe gave a shiur in the yeshiva, which was not easy for me to follow. But anyone could see that this man had vast knowledge. The concept of an individual who is a “walking sefer Torah” is not a exaggeration if you actually saw such a person.
Yitzchok Eichenthal was a close talmid of Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky, and through him I met this wonderful man a number of times. Rav Yaakov was known to all not only for his pikchus, his wisdom, but for his outstanding middos tovos (character). I recently heard from Rabbi Shraga Neuberger a number of stories about the giants of the Lithuanian yeshiva world, like Rav Yisroel Salanter and many others. The common thread in all of the stories was that the chumros (stringencies) they accepted first were in how they dealt with other people.
Let me relay one: Once the Alter from Slabodka’s wife wasn’t in town, so two bachurim were assigned to prepare his meals. The first bachur made a soup and burned it, but the Rabbi ate it to the last drop so as not to embarrass him. The second night, the other bachur made the soup and it tasted good. However, as the Rabbi took a spoonful, he observed the second bachur look
derisively at the first one, who had burned the soup. The Alter spit out the soup, saying he couldn’t eat it, as it tasted terrible. He continued, “It has a taste of miskabed be’elbon chaveiro, glorying in someone else’s embarrassment.” This made it inedible.
Rav Yaakov was such a person. His son Rav Binyamin related in his hesped how his father once stayed up all night rather than turn on the alarm clock. He had to meet someone at the train station early the next morning, but he was worried that, through the open window, the gentile in a nearby apartment would be awakened by the alarm clock. He stayed up learning all night rather than risk disturbing the neighbor’s sleep.
Learning from Rav Dovid
My greatest personal interaction with greatness was with Rav Dovid Kronglas, mashgiach at Ner Israel, whom I mentioned last month. When I first came to Ner Israel, I was placed in a certain shiur. In hindsight, it was the right one for me. But, at the time, I wanted to go to a higher shiur. I went over to the mashgiach, Rav Dovid Kronglas, and asked to speak to him about it. He was the one who made these decisions. Rav Dovid looked at me and said, “How can you even think of something such as this in the month of Elul?”
If our Sages tell us that we will understand yirah, fear of Hashem if we are near Moshe Rabbeinu, then I can say that if you were near Rav Dovid, you understood Elul. I honestly don’t know if bachurim today begin to understand what I am talking about, but anyone who was in Ner Israel when we were zocheh to have Rav Dovid among us knows exactly what I mean.
An old Jewish saying goes, “During the month of Elul, even a fish in the water trembles.” The month before Rosh Hashana is not only the first month of the school year at any yeshiva; it is also a time of introspection and sincere attempts to improve ourselves, both in relationships to Hashem and in our dealing with our fellow man. In Elul, we are aware that the Day of Judgment is at hand.
Dr. Kamenetzky once told us that Rav Yisroel Salanter was passing by a shoemaker during the month of Elul. He overheard someone ask if he could fix his shoes. The shoemaker, who was working by the light of a flickering candle, answered. “Vi lange az di lichteleh brent, ken ich mesaken zayn – As long as the candle is burning, I can fix them.” Rav Yisroel Salanter overheard this innocent exchange and immediately realized the great import of the words. He ran into the Bais Medrash and exclaimed that, as long as there was a flicker of light in the Yiddishe neshama, (the pintele Yid), it was still possible to repair one’s soul.
If you were in Ner Yisroel in those days, these were not metaphors. This was the aura that Rav Dovid gave off. He was Elul. Is there anyone today who exhibits such aimas hadin (trepidation over Hashem’s judgment). I don’t know, but I know that I am sorry for all those who didn’t see Rav Dovid in Elul.
Each year, Rav Dovid made a mesiba (party) for his shiur. He gave each talmid an inscribed copy of his sefer, Divrei Dovid. This is the sefer on Zeraim that he wrote in Shanghai during the war while his entire family was being wiped out. He survived the ordeal by immersing himself in Torah. Each talmid compared what Rav Dovid wrote in his own volume to what he wrote in his friend’s volume. Rav Dovid complimented you, but only with the truth.
I need to say a little more about him. Lest you get the impression that Rav Dovid was so holy that he couldn’t relate to the bachurim, I want you to know that the opposite was true. Who do you think bachurim went to for advice on dating and marriage? To Rav Dovid. Boys would ask him what to say when they called up the girl to ask for the first date and what to look for in a wife. They would come back and go over what had occurred and ask for advice on whether to continue seeing the girl. Rav Dovid was on the mark; he understood us American boys. When it came time to plan a career, he was the one we turned to for guidance.
Yes, Rav Dovid understood the American bachurim, but there was one incident he found unacceptable. In the 1960s, the shidduch scene was not like it is now. I don’t remember people having lists, etc. The Torah world wasn’t as big as it is today, and things went fairly smoothly.
In the late 1960s, a student of the yeshiva was engaged to a fine girl from a very nice family. Not too long before the wedding was to take place, he got cold feet and broke the engagement. Rav Dovid, who was a master of self-control, was livid. I remember that one day he called me into his room to share his feelings. He told me about a shaila, a halachic question, about a man who became engaged to a woman before he actually met her, which was common in earlier times. Upon meeting her, he discovered that she was hard of hearing. (This was before hearing aids were invented.) The question was whether or not this was sufficient cause to break the engagement.
The answer, Rav Dovid told me, was that if she was so deaf that he would have to talk to her in such a loud voice that the neighbors would hear through the walls, there could be no privacy and he could break the engagement. But, if she was able to hear him when he yelled in a moderate voice, and the neighbors would not hear, then he may not. This is the way a man should honor his word, said Rav Dovid. Nowadays, he added, it is “easy come, easy go.”
I was talking to a fellow talmid recently, and this incident came up. He told me that the fellow never got married. I didn’t want to burst his bubble, but I actually met that former talmid and he was married, not for the first time. He had been the cantor in my sister’s Conservative synagogue in Texas for about two years, and I met him there when my sister and her husband celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
A broken engagement was so rare in my time that it sticks in people’s memory. Today, the shidduch scene is not the same. I think this incident is important to remember because it made such an impression on the bachurim, who saw how much it pained their rebbe, even if it didn’t affect the fellow himself.
I have found that the great talmidei chachamim I have met were very cognizant of the world. They had gone through many trials and tribulations and appreciated the worth of every Jew. Rav Dovid accepted the bachurim as we were, but he did not let us stay that way. He would be mechanech us – more than education, chinuch means dedication – to become bnai Torah.
One more story: I was invited to a wedding in New York on a Thursday night. That Shabbos was an “off Shabbos,” when we could leave the yeshiva. I asked Rav Dovid for reshus (permission) to miss afternoon seder on Thursday. He asked me how close I was to the chassan, and I said he was a friend. That wasn’t a close enough relationship, as far as he was concerned. It wasn’t enough of a reason to miss afternoon seder, to cause bitul Torah (neglect of studying the Torah). He told me no, and I did not go. I stayed for afternoon seder. I still went away for Shabbos, but I missed the wedding.
I tell this story to bachurim today, and they don’t get it. I would never have defied Rav Dovid. In fact, he was proud of me for listening and he let me know it. That was more important to me than going to the wedding of a friend. If I were writing a politically-correct gadol story in which Litvaks are turned into wonder rabbis, I would add at this point that the marriage of that friend eventually ended in divorce (true). I would then make out that the rebbe knew this with ruach hakodesh and that is why he didn’t let me go. But, to do so would cheapen the greatness of a true gadol batorah.
“Ashrei ayin shera asa zos – Happy is one who witnessed this.”
*As I was writing this article, I wanted to find the exact location of the above verse from Devarim. I used two methods: leafing through Devarim looking for the pasuk, and asking one of my colleagues, who immediately “googled” “ki im leyirah” in Hebrew type into his computer. In less than a second, he had 12,500 references to these words. This made me recall a time when I was about to give a speech during my career out of town, and remembered part of a ma”amar chazal. I called the Rosh Hayeshiva, Rav Ruderman, and asked him where in Shas this ma”amar could be found. In less than a second, he listed three different locations in Shas and was ready to give me more, but I told him that this was enough. The moral of the story: a real gadol doesn’t need to google!
