Tatty, z”l, was larger than life. He excelled in so many areas. Unfortunately this article only has limited space. We have therefore picked only a minimum from each area.
Oseik
B’tzarchei Tzibur B’emunah
Although Tatty was the gabbai, his devotion to the shul was so much greater than that.
Once Tatty saw R’ Weiss cleaning some crumbs off a table; this bothered Tatty
greatly. How could we allow the Rav of the shul to be the janitor of the shul?!
From then on, Tatty took over all the needs of the shul, from making sure that
there were paper towels to stocking styrofoam cups for early morning coffee. I
remember him taking me along to pick up milk, coffee, etc. and bring them to
the shul. He never came during zmanei tefillah so that he wouldn’t
receive public recognition for his dedication. The switching of the paroches
for the Yamim Noraim was also done with
Tatty’s own two hands. It would be a shame not to mention that Mommy had a big
hand in the shul as well as she was the dedicated shul secretary at R’ Weiss’
shul for many years.
Amud
Hachesed
Vayisah einav vayar…vayar vayaratz likrasam. (Bereishis 18:2) Rashi explains
the double lashon is to teach us
that Avraham Avinu did not merely see three
strangers walking by but, rather, saw inside of them and realized what they
needed. This was Tatty. Always looking and noticing and realizing when others
needed help.
A certain talmid
chacham in Baltimore, who was a good
friend of Tatty’s, was a rebbi in a certain yeshivah. Due to the circumstances,
he was forced to leave the yeshivah. On Purim, Tatty left him an enthusiastic
message, giving him tremendous chizuk with his whole heart during the time he
needed it. It is now a few years later, and this talmid chacham still has that message saved in his phone, playing
it whenever he needs chizuk.
Tefillah
Tatty’s office was adjacent to that of an
accountant named Pinny Lerner. Since quite a number of Yidden worked in the
area, there was a Mincha minyan in the office every day at two o’clock. Due to
Tatty’s schedule, most days he did not make it to this minyan. The people in
the minyan decided to make it “chick-chock” by davening a hoyche Shemoneh Esrei.
However, when Tatty davened there, he insisted on there being the regular
“long” Shemonah Esrei with chazaras hashatz.
One day, Tatty asked Pinny to work with him
on a presentation that he wanted to give to a certain investor. They worked
quite hard on this presentation. Some time later, they were davening Mincha in
the office, and Tatty was davening for the amud,
of course with a full chazaras hashatz. In the back of the room, Pinny
noticed a stranger. He had a white yarmulke perched on top of his head, which
looked like he retrieved it from his glove compartment. After Mincha, Tatty and
Pinny were introduced by this man, who turned out to be the investor they were
planning to meet for their presentation.
The man immediately turned to Tatty and said,
“You are hired.” Tatty was stunned. “But don’t you want to hear our
presentation?” “There is no need,” he responded. “I realized from your chazaras
hashatz that you must be a truly honest man.” Tatty ended up using this
investor for 16 years!
During a certain period of time, in the shul
where Tatty davened, there was an interesting fellow who was a chiyuv and
davened Maariv for the amud every night. It seems that this person did
not go to a mainstream yeshiva growing up. Thus, he davened for the amud in
a funny tune which most people were not used to. Tatty overheard a group of
people talking not nicely about how this person davened. Tatty immediately
stepped into their conversation and stated matter-of-factly, “Quite the
contrary; this person probably did not even grow up frum and still, look how far he has come, davening for the amud every
night to the best of his ability. I would not be surprised if when he gets to Shamayim,
he will get to be the baal tefillah.” Perhaps, we can add that, with
all of the toil and effort Tatty put into tefillah,
maybe he is zocheh to be
davening for the amud in Shamayim
together with the Avos Hakedoshim.
Chashivus
HaTorah
Ever since Tatty was a bachur, he made it his mission to be kovea itim b’Torah with
full force. One of the ways he motivated himself to do this was by doing Shnayim
Mikrah with Rashi by the day (i.e., Sunday-Rishon, Monday-Sheini,
and so on). He did this for the rest of his life. Amazingly, though
not surprisingly, Tatty’s Chumash was
checked and found with a bookmark exactly up to that day’s shnayim mikra.
A humorous story occurred when he was about
20 years old. A man noticed Tatty with his well-built appearance and figured he
must be well into shidduchim.
Nonchalantly, he asked, “Where are you holding in the parsha?” It was Thursday, so Tatty innocently answered, “Chamishi.”
The man was slightly confused. “You mean you already dated your fifth girl?!?”
When Tatty was a bachur learning in Bais Shraga of Monsey, he noticed that one of
the second seder rebbeim, R’ Dov
Housman, did not have a shtender like the other rebbeim did. Tatty felt like
this was a great lack of kavod haTorah. When he got home, he built a
shtender with his own two hands and generously presented it to his rebbi. At
the shiva, R’ Dov Housman related
that he still cherishes it to this day.
Shviras
Hamiddos
Concerning middos, Tatty was a self-made man. He constantly worked on his
patience and temperament. A few years ago, there were a lot of car robberies in
the neighborhood. During the cold winter, Tatty wanted to heat up the car in
the driveway for Mommy early in the morning. However due to the robberies, the
car couldn’t be left running in the driveway. Tatty therefore blocked the
driveway with his car and then turned on the engine to heat up Mommy’s car. As
she was backing up, she hit something and thought it was a garbage can, so she
continued backing up. In reality, this “garbage can” was Tatty’s car. Tatty
watched in surprise while his car was being hit not once but twice by his own
wife! With great strength, he controlled himself and instead of getting angry
said, “Baruch Hashem, I have a wife.”
A few years ago, Tatty was working in Camp
Extreme (a program for kids at risk) and they wanted him to stay for a melaveh malka on motza’ei Shabbos. However, he needed to be back early Sunday
morning for a hashgacha job. With a
tight schedule, Tatty planned to leave immediately following the melaveh malka in hopes of arriving at
his hashagacha job just on time.
Unbeknownst to Tatty, the airport terminal was under construction and was
therefore a half-hour away from where his flight was to take off.
Pressed for time, Tatty explained to the
clerk how he must get onto that flight. The clerk said there was nothing he
could do; he would have to take a later flight. Tatty texted Mommy and
explained what was going on and wrote that he would not get angry at this clerk,
no matter what. Tatty returned to the clerk and showed him the text that he
wrote. The clerk couldn’t believe it, “What! Everyone screams at me!” As if on
clockwork, the events began to unfold,
“Does your foot hurt you?”
“Nope,” said
Tatty.
“Are you sure your foot doesn’t hurt you?” he asked
again.
“I’m sure.”
Then the clerk tried once more: “Maybe your foot hurts
you.”
At this point Tatty was a little confused and said, “Maybe
a little.” (After all, he had walked a half-hour to get there.)
The clerk immediately summoned a wheelchair, had Tatty
sit in it, and zoomed him through the airport and through security and got him
on the plane. Being that he was “disabled” they sat him in one of the
handicapped spots. The entire time, the crew kept asking him if he was okay. At
the conclusion of the flight, an announcement was made: “All disabled
passengers should please wait until the rest of the passengers exit the plane.”
Since Tatty was in a rush and was sitting in the front of the plane, he immediately
jumped up and made it just in time for his hashgacha
job. All this was because he made the effort to work on his middos and not become angry.
Chashivas
Hamitzvos
Tatty had a big place in his heart for shuls.
He knew the ins and outs of things that go on in a shul. Naturally, he had a
great appreciation for anything Judaic. As a bachur, he worked hours on end for Tuvia’s Judaica Store in Monsey
making hundreds of pairs of tzitzis
as well as lulavim rings. He once
noticed that the tzitzis on one of
his friend’s talleisim had started to
fray. Tatty pointed out that he should take care to get it fixed as it might be
passul. A few days later, Tatty
noticed that his friend’s tzitizis
was still frayed. Usually, that person took his tallis home, however hashgacha
had it that at this time, he left it in shul. The next week when the friend
came in to shul, he noticed that there were brand new tzitzis on his tallis. It
didn’t take long to find out who the “ganav”
was who fixed his tzitzis.
Kiruv
Krovim
Tatty had the amazing ability to inspire troubled souls
and had had a tremendous success in his early years in bringing them back to
realizing the proper path in life. His reputation grew, and people wanted him
to also help girls at risk. Initially, he pushed it off, however, the pressure
increased. He was told by R’ Shmuel Kamenetzky that these girls had no where
else to turn and he was therefore obligated to help them. Once, before Purim,
two girls came over to Tatty and exclaimed, “We don’t want to fast on Taanis
Esther. Just because Mordechai and Esther fasted we have to fast too?!” Tatty
showed them how the Mishnah Berura explained that the reason we fast
is not because Mordechai and Esther fasted, rather to remind us that Hashem
sees and hears every Yid’s personal tzara,
just as He did with Mordechai
and Esther. Those girls ended up fasting. After Purim, they said to Tatty that
they told their friends what he had said, and they also fasted. They then said,
“If only we had more teachers like you, we would be in a much better place much
faster.”
Yehi zichro baruch.
