Approximately a dozen years ago, I traveled to Baltimore with my daughter for a kever avot visit in advance of the Yamim Noraim. At my late mother’s insistence, and meticulous supervision, we painted the heretofore illegible faded letters of my great-grandfather Rav Yitzchak Schuman’s matseva (tombstone), some 70 years after his 1942 passing. Family legend held that the text, composed in a beautiful acrostic literary Hebrew, was written by his great chaver in learning, the Gaon Rav Michoel Forschlager, zt”l, who, by prior arrangement, was buried nearby.
Shortly after I completed that
trip, an ad appeared in the Baltimore magazine called Where What When,
seeking anyone who could share information about Rav Forschlager. At
my mother’s insistence I responded to the ad and told all I knew
about Rav Forschlager and Rav Schuman; it was a short conversation indeed
since the matseva was all I knew about them at that time. The author of
that request, Rabbi BenTzion Bergman, informed me that he was researching Rav
Forschlager and was collecting information. Thus, he requested facts and photos
of my great-grandparents, Etta Gita and Rav Yitzchak Chanoch Schuman, z”l.
I acceded to his request and then closed the book on those memories as I had
nothing more to discuss or offer Rav Bergman. Or so I thought....
A few months passed, and Rav
Bergman called me to say that he had a message for me from the other
world. Needless to say, he had my attention; I’d never had a message quite like
that. He told me that, upon the demise of Rav Forschlager in 1959, his library
was shipped to the library of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, Yad Harav
Herzog. Rabbi Bergman visited the library to do research on the collection.
There he discovered nearly 50 leather-bound volumes containing an estimated
20,000 pages of Rav Forschlager’s handwritten Torah and
voluminous other materials.
At some point, the librarian told
him that there had never been any interest in this collection, and no one had
touched this material since its arrival. “Please sign it out,” she
continued, “go home with it, complete your research, and return it when
you’ve finished.” Rav Bergman heeded the librarian’s suggestion and began
packing. While he was organizing this massive treasure, a single piece of scrap
paper fluttered from a book and caught his eye. He examined it and
immediately recognized it to be the pencil draft of the Schuman matseva
in Rav Forschlager’s hand. He called me to report that news, saying,
“Someone is reaching out to you from the other world! I’m mailing you this gift
I found.”
Needless to say, I was stunned to
receive a message from my namesake that originated 85 years ago! To
date, Rav Bergman and his team have published eight volumes of Rav Forschlager’s
words of Torah.
Several months ago, Rav Bergman
called me saying that he had yet another greeting for me from “the other
world.” He said that Rav Forschlager rarely mentioned anyone in his writings
but that his team had just come upon two references to Zaida Yitzchak Chanoch Schuman. “I am sending you scans,” he
said. The wording he sent was, “Shamati mi Moreinu v’Rabeinu Hagaon Hamuvhak
Hachareid Harav Yitzchak Chanoch Ben Avraham Schuman m’Baltimore, and this
is what he said…” Then he introduced a discussion in the Gemara Eruchin.
With this call, the Schuman family
learned for the first time that the relationship between their ancestor, who
immigrated to America in the 1890s, and the Gaon Rav Forschlager was rooted in
much more than just the composition of a monument. Theirs was a decades-long
intimate connection rooted in limud haTorah. A message from the other
world indeed!
The next “message” I would receive
from Zaida Yitzchak would be the unimaginable gift of his kosher tefillin,
which date to 1870. For that story, see the recent Jewish Action
Spring/Summer 2025 edition.
