I am sitting down to write this the day after the Rosh Yeshiva’s 38th yahrzeit. In honor of the occasion, I emailed my article about him that appeared in the Where What When as the first of this series of articles. I received such incredible, positive feedback that it brought back many memories. I ended up rereading the original article at least half a dozen times, and each time, I thought of more stories and more lessons that the Rosh Yeshiva taught me. As I noted in the earlier article, I will refer to him in this article exclusively as “the Rosh Yeshiva.” I cannot bring myself to refer to him any other way.
Halacha
The Rosh Yeshiva was my final authority in halacha,
but, far more than that, he was my daas Torah, directing me in the
decisions that would build chinuch and Yiddishkeit in the small
Torah community where I served as rav. On numerous occasions, I called him to
ask what I should do in a given situation, and there were as many times that I
asked him how to halachically navigate a challenging circumstance. Often, it
was a question of what type of halachic standard was required for a community’s
kashrus. At times, it was to determine whether a geirus (conversion)
was acceptable for someone to become a member in our shul. Always, the Rosh
Yeshiva’s piskei halacha and advice were available. They were, without
question, a significant factor in the success of my years in rabbanus
and the institutions that I was able to build. I note that the Vaad Hakashrus I
built there is a highly respected organization over 40 years later as is the shul
where I was rav, notwithstanding the fact that both have had
numerous changes of personnel.
Here are some stories of advice regarding communal
matters that I received from the Rosh Yeshiva:
The Teachers’ Strike
At one point in our chinuch work, my wife was
teaching in a local community school where the Torah standards of much of the
faculty were very wanting. This unfortunately included even teachers of Jewish
subjects in the school. One of the very serious problems of the school was the
existence of a very powerful teachers’ union that represented the faculty of
the school. We had been advised when my wife took the job that she would either
be required or strongly advised to become a member of the union – I no longer
remember which. Without any question, however, we felt that the union was one
of the greatest impediments to the development of Yiddishkeit in the city.
The teachers’ union called a strike to begin
immediately after Thanksgiving weekend. I knew that Rav Moshe Feinstein, in a
published responsum, had ruled that it is forbidden for teachers to strike,
even if the school is significantly behind in paying their salaries and they
feel this may be the only way for them to collect their well-earned wages. In
my young mind, this meant that, if the union called a strike, my wife should
still come to school to teach, even if it meant crossing a picket line of
strikers.
The Rosh Yeshiva told me, “Absolutely not!” If the
union called a strike, no one should cross the picket line. He told me that if
she were to go to school in defiance of its decision, she would lose all her
ability to be mekarev and teach Yiddishkeit at the school. This sagacious
advice certainly taught me that daas Torah involves a lot more than
knowing all the halachic sources and responsa on a topic.
Kavod HaTorah
When I was a talmid in Ner Israel, I davened before
the amud on my mother’s yahrzeit, as the halacha mandates. The
practice in yeshiva was that at Mincha, one waited until the Rosh Yeshiva
completed his Shemoneh Esrei and then recited the first part of tachanun,
which, according to nusach Ashkenaz, is recited sitting with one’s head
bowed down. Only after the Rosh Yeshiva finished this part of tachanun did
one recite the kaddish that signifies that tachanun is over and
the tzibur should recite Aleinu.
For some reason, I forgot the practice and began
reciting kaddish as soon as the Rosh Yeshiva completed his Shemoneh Esrei
– in other words, too early. I soon realized my error, and I was mortified.
This was certainly a lack of kavod haTorah on my part, and an error
noticed by many in the yeshiva.
As soon as I had recited my mourner’s kaddish
and Mincha was over, I ran over to the Rosh Yeshiva to apologize for my
breach. To this day, I remember his smile and his carefully chosen words. “Don’t
worry; I was mocheil (forgave) you already.” I note very carefully that the
Rosh Yeshiva did not say: “Don’t worry, it was nothing.” That would have
conveyed that the breach was acceptable. It wasn’t. It was acceptable because
we are human, we are forgetful or not always focused on what we are doing. We
sometimes do not pay attention to every detail of our actions.
The Rosh Yeshiva didn’t say that what I did was
nothing. It wasn’t tragic, but it wasn’t nothing. He certainly was not going to
hold it against me – he was mocheil. From the Rosh Yeshiva’s words, I understood
that I didn’t have to worry; neither he nor beis din shel maalah would
hold me accountable for this. But that does not mean that, in the future, I shouldn’t
focus more on kavod haTorah.
The Rosh Yeshiva was fastidious about kavod haTorah,
which, in his instance, also meant that his comportment, his dress, and his
demeanor always reflected a kiddush Hashem appropriate to a talmid
chacham and a gadol b’Yisrael. For example, I never saw him outside
his home when he was not wearing his kapota (frockcoat) as befitting a rosh
yeshiva, and he walked in a way that demonstrated tremendous refinement and
composure.
He also inspired kavod haTorah in others and for
other talmidei chachamim in the way he respected them. When Rav Ovadia
Yosef, then the Chief Rabbi of Israel, came to visit Ner Yisrael, the Rosh
Yeshiva honored him by having him give a shiur klali, a major halachic
lecture, in the main yeshiva beis hamidrash attended by the entire
yeshiva. The yeshiva also conducted a special mesiba (gathering) in
the main dining hall of the yeshiva in honor of Rav Ovadia. The fact that I
remember these events so distinctly over 50 years later demonstrates the effect
that this taught, although the Rosh Yeshiva did this because it was proper, not
because he had any need to demonstrate for our benefit.
Kavod Rabbanus
I will close this article with another anecdote that
conveys a similar lesson, notwithstanding the fact that I am personally very
embarrassed by it. As I mentioned in the previous article, as a talmid
in the yeshiva, I frequently visited the Rosh Yeshiva at his house, and I was
very accustomed to seeing him in his shirtsleeves. Shortly after I had assumed
my first position as the rabbi of the Young Israel of Greater Buffalo, I had
occasion to visit the Rosh Yeshiva at the Agudah Convention. This event
occurred after the Rebbitzin had already passed on, and the Rosh Yeshiva was
attended to at the convention by a bachur. I found out the Rosh Yeshiva’s
hotel room and knocked on the door. The bachur quickly answered the door,
and I introduced myself by my family name as I deemed appropriate.
The Rosh Yeshiva received the message but did not
immediately tell me to enter. He had been sitting in his shirtsleeves, as one
would do in the privacy of a hotel room. Before he received me, he asked his
bachur attendant to bring him his kapota, telling him (in Yiddish),
“The Buffalo Rav is here; I need to look respectable.”
I admit to being embarrassed at the time, as I remain
to this day. Not only was the Rosh Yeshiva old enough to be my grandfather, but
he knew more Torah at his bar mitzvah than I would probably ever achieve in my
lifetime! I was in my twenties, and he was one of the gedolei hador. Perhaps,
I had merited to be among the smallest of his talmidim, or perhaps the
smallest of talmidei talmidav, the students of his students. And yet he
was insisting, without the slightest pretense, that he owed me respect
because I was a visiting rav! Embarrassed as I am to retell the story,
there isn’t any way you ever forget this lesson in kavod rabbanus – the
honor due to communal rabbis.
There were other lessons implicit in his action: I
needed to appreciate that, although I was barely 28 years old at the time, for
the community and city of which I acted as rav, my deportment and all my
actions required me to act a certain way. Much as I might not want to realize
this, I could no longer act without appreciating that my position required me
to represent Torah in all that I did.
I hope to continue sharing these anecdotes of the Rosh
Yeshiva with the greater public. We can all learn vast lessons simply from the
way he acted.
Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff was the Rabbi of Baltimore’s Darchei Tzedek and
a dayan on the Beis Din of Baltimore from 1986 to 1997. He is the author of 11
books and hundreds of articles on Rabbinic scholarship, in both English and
Hebrew, two volumes of halachic responsa, and three scholarly volumes on the
intricacies of the laws of Shabbos. The Kaganoffs live in Neve Yaakov.
