To The Editor:
I am writing in regard to the article printed in the Yated
Ne'eman in English, about HaGaon Vehatzaddik Rabbi
Avigdor Miller, ztvk"l. I would like to express my
thanks for your willingness to be mezakeh the English-
speaking public with a few words lezichro.
However, I strongly take issue with the title on top of the
article, "The Rov who turned Baalei Batim into Bnei
Yeshiva." I personally believe, as do many others, that this
is not giving him his due and is a misrepresentation of
Rabbi Miller, zt"l. Your newspaper, as well as
others, have been portraying the Rov, zt"l, as only a
kiruv figure. For your information, in the last 15
years of his life, it was difficult to find anyone besides
bnei Torah, bnei yeshiva and chassidim, at his
lecture each week. The shul was packed to capacity
with hundreds of "heimishe ehrlicher Yidden" who came
to hear the devar Hashem from someone who transmitted
it be'emess uvesomim.
The real truth is that Rabbi Miller was "the Rov who turned
bnei yeshiva and chassidim into bnei
yeshiva and chassidim." The emunos
vedei'os and hashkofos tehoros which he taught
with such emes and mesiras nefesh all his life
are necessary no less for bnei yeshiva than for
baalei batim. There are talmidei chachomim
"muflogim", roshei yeshiva, rabbonim and
mashgichim who grew immensely under his influence and
who consider themselves talmidim muvhokim and who owe
their entire lives to him.
In fact, it may be said that there is no one else in the
world whose one lecture could have been heard by a rosh
yeshiva and a secular Jew, and each one grew from the same
lecture at his own level. This is due to the fact that each
word he said was emes le'amitoh without "watered-down
Judaism."
Oy, mi yitein lonu temuroso,
Avrohom Bleich
Kiryat Sefer
