A talmid remembers his private Talmud sessions with the Rebbe
by Beinish Rosenbaum
This article originally appeared in the Jewish Observer and is also available in book form in the ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications Judaiscope Series. It is reprinted here with permission
Rabbi Nochum Mordechai Perlow
5656/1896-5736/1976
I am certain that there were others who knew the Novominsker Rebbe better than I did. But, then again, we learned together on a regular basis for the past few years. The three of us - the Rebbe, Yitzchok, and I - spent thousands of hours together, and I had the privilege of knowing him, his unwavering hasmadah (diligence), and his love for Torah, as few others did.
To be sure, we also caught glimpses of his unusual midos - his face would light up with joy whenever he learned of the success of someone else's undertaking: a Rebbe attracted a host of new followers - marvelous! A Rosh Yeshiva expanded his institution - wonderful! Another's triumph was the most precious of occurrences. As for himself, he would shrug: "Me a Rebbe? Never! I'm at best a Chassidishe Yid. But I'm nowhere near the achievements of my father."
We, however, did know him as a Chassidishe Rebbe ... The last time I saw him alive - just a day before his passing - I had traveled to Brooklyn from the Catskills to consult him on a chinuch (educational) matter regarding one of my children.
Actually, his circle of followers was far wider than one might have supposed:
As far as we members of the bais hamidrash were concerned, "Sidney" was a mechalel Shabbos befarhesya - a public violator of the Sabbath, who deserved no place in our bais hamidrash. He had Yahrzeit one Shabbos, and the Rebbe went out of his way to wish him "Lechayim" after davening.
We had misgivings: Sidney's hair had been well groomed and combed, and his smooth cheek reeked of aftershave lotion - pungent reminders of fresh chillul Shabbos. After havdalah, we respectfully approached the Rebbe: "Was it really necessary to give Sidney such kavod? He so obviously had violated the Shabbos!"
Said the Rebbe, "Shouldn't somebody tell him?"
Yet the Rebbe's definition of Yiddishkeit had its very strict demands:
A distant cousin who taught in Jewish Theological Seminary boasted to him that he influenced his students toward Chassidus. Why, he even had them over for a Friday night tisch !
Commented the Rebbe, "... Like trees that blossom profusely, but never bear fruit."
Others also knew his total suspension of self, his involvement in the situation of others. Our advantage was that we "learned with him."
The Kvius
When we would arrive at the bais hamidrash early for our kvius, we could hear the Rebbe struggling with breakfast in the kitchen, one floor above. And it was a struggle. Since radical stomach surgery nine years earlier, it was very painful for him to swallow any food; yet he had to eat to survive.
A few minutes later he would enter the bais hamidrash, fall into his chair, with barely enough strength to open the Gemara and turn the pages. But once we began our studies, he would argue heatedly, shouting, jumping to his feet, running to fetch a reference sefer to prove his point.
"Shas on his fingertips" meant just that. He would unfailingly refer to the exact page of a Gemara, flip open the pages, with finger ready at the position, pointing to a Tosafos ... all the while citing in advance Tosafos's three, four or five tirutzim (answers) to a particular question.
More than once, the Rebbetzin entered, interrupting a spirited argument, "What are you doing to him? Stop!" she would plead. Whereupon, the Rebbe would protest, "Do you want to rob me of my life?"
Torah, indeed, was his food, his life-stuff, his very breath. At times he would enter the bais hamidrash gasping for air, coughing, ''I don't think we can learn today but we'll make an attempt. "
In a matter of minutes, he was totally involved - voice raised, emphasizing a point with his fist on the shtender.
The margins of his Gemara were crowded with annotations in his script. Yet, in our experience, whatever we studied together, he approached with a freshness, unencumbered with previous judgments, taking one word, one line at a time.
His Concept of Klal Yisrael
Although the Novominsker Rebbe represented a very particular type of Polish Chassidus, his concept of Klal Yisrael was far from parochial. His deeper differences with the Satmar approach toward Israel are well-known, yet a copy of the Satmar Rav's definitive "Va'Yoel Moshe" was seen at his bedside . . . If a sefer expressed the opinion of a legitimate group within Kla2 Yisrael or of a Torah leader, he wanted to know it.
The underpinnings of his understanding of Klal Yisrael, however, were Torah. For this reason, it seems he took special delight in Daf Yomi as a binding element of Jews the world over. In fact, quite apart from our regular sessions together, which were usually devoted to Tur-Shulchan Aruch, he made Daf Yomi his kvius, the focal point of his Torah study, which he would pursue standing, giving it his greatest concentration. He glowed with appreciation when I told him, how, on one particular day, I saw different Jews - in Bnei Brak, on a TWA plane, and then in the airport in London - all studying the same page of Gemara, following the Daf Yomi schedule. He always had the Gemara - the volume containing the current Daf Yomi tractate - at his side. Friday afternoons before Minchah on Shabbos, and Motzoei Shabbos after havdalah ... Yom Kippur eve, as well as right after the fast . . . on Purim . . . On his bedside table, on the Shabbos that he passed away, lay the Daf Yomi volume of Pesachim.
We were in the middle of our regular seder, when the Rebbe made reference to a particular commentary, jumped out of his seat and quickly scaled the ladder to reach the sefer to underscore his point. (He never asked anyone else to do his legwork for him.) On the way down, he tripped, and fell on a wooden box lying at the foot of the ladder. He suffered a terrible flesh wound and he gasped in pain. We attempted to pick him up, but he lifted his hand. "Please ... we need a doctor ... Leave me where I am."
No sooner had Yitzchok run for the doctor than the Rebbe turned to me and whispered, "Benish, gib mir a Gemara Zevachim" ... the current Daf Yomi Mesechta. When the doctor entered a few minutes later, the Rebbe was on the floor, his position unaltered, except for his two hands stretched over his head, holding the Gemara Zevachim open like a canopy.
Before a trip to Miami in 1975 - incidentally, the first time he ever went South for his health - he was packing his belongings: I found him squatting in his library with a flashlight, searching for meforshim (commentaries) on the next Daf Yomi tractate, Eruvin. He collected eleven different volumes, satisfied that he was prepared for the trip.
Meeting The Needs of Klal
The Novominsker Rebbe may not have been a very well- known public figure, but his deep concern and insights made him highly appreciated behind the scenes. It may seem contradictory, but he was active both as a member of Agudath Israel's Presidium, which concerns itself with day-to-day organizational matters, and as a member of its Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, which is a policy-making body.
During the Yom Kippur War, we had the opportunity to observe him from close: the anguish and loss of sleep that further creased his face, the numerous calls from outstanding Torah leaders and Knesset members in Israel, the conference calls. And his calm demeanor and total immersion in Torah and tefillah when their time had arrived.
On Shemini Atzeres, as was the custom of the Rebbes of Novominsk, he would hold a small Sefer Torah and spend as much as an hour expounding on Midrashic interpretations of Chapter 30 of Mishlei:Eishes Chayil (Woman of Valor), which is an allegoric tribute to Torah. On this particular Shemini Atzeres, just ten days after the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, he said, "One is commanded: Ohaiv es Ishto K'Gufo, U'Michabdah Yosair M'Gufo--to love his Eishes Chayil as much as his own person, and to honor her even more. Klal Yisrael is threatened. Who can think of his body? What standard does it offer us for loving the Eishes Chayil, Torah? But the honor we must give is on a greater scale. Let us give kavod to the Torah.
He was like a sturdy tree: with roots sunk deeply into the old world, its branches stretched out into contemporary society.
He often said: Problems repeat themselves. So, we must assume, do their solutions. What would Reb Chaim Ozer say to this? ... What did the Gerer Rebbe do? - or the Chiddushei HaRim?
Another of his frequent comments: Yaakov Avinu was the "Rebbe" of our conduct in Golus. When he came to Shechem, he performed two services for the community: He minted coins and constructed bath-houses. The message is obvious. We must establish the means to carry on exchanges with other groups, but we must have the ability to wash off from ourselves the effects of each Golus exchange.
One might say that this was the life pattern - involvement and, yet, isolation.
He would frequently say, "What can I do for this situation? What can I do...?"
Discussing the plight of South American Jewry, and the founding of the Kollel in Argentina, he said, yearningly, "If I thought I could be of help there, I would go there, sick as I am - perhaps I would see some Poilishe Yidden and influence them to say Shema Yisrael again or to send their children to a Talmud Torah."
In 1974, he told us that he would be interrupting his regular sessions during Aseres Yemei Teshuvah (between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur) because he was traveling to Toronto on behalf of the Russian Immigrant Rescue Fund. I felt close enough to the Rebbe to protest: "If you will allow me, this is the kvittel season, when people come to you. They need you and ...
"I intimated that he was somewhat dependent on them.
Replied the Rebbe: "lf they need me now in Toronto, I must go now. The Yid with the kvittel, if he really needs me, will wait until I come back."
If He Had Known ...
When the Rebbe was born, his paternal grandfather Reb Yaakov Novominsker was so ecstatic over the birth of his first grandson - a direct descendant of the Besht (Ba'al Shem Tov) - that he recited the brachah "Shehechiyanu" in full. It seems as if his saintly grandfather had visualized that this descendant of the Besht would spend half a century in the United States, giving so much to Klal Yisrael, yet suffering not at all from exposure to the corrosive elements of American society.
Reliable Chassidic sources relate that the Chozeh of Lublin, during the sixteen years of his life that he was privileged to live contemporaneously with the Rebbe of Berditchev, would devote an hour a day to give thanks to Hashem Yisborach for this zechus, and to praise Him for having planted such lofty neshamos in our midst (see Tiferes Shlomo). Perhaps we, too, should sing praise for having had the zechus to share our life on earth with such a lofty tzaddik, whose very existence was so inspiring to those that knew him.
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