Written soon after his passing, we are publishing this for
the first yahrtzeit of HaRav Gedaliah Nadel, zt"l, 16
Sivan.
There were those who thought it was proper to attempt
eulogizing R' Gedaliah Nadel zt'l, but in vain. To
those participating in his funeral there remained only the
moments of parting from a sefer Torah about to be
buried. In the laden atmosphere there hung a great cry: Rouse
yourselves from your sleep to yet grasp on to the casket of
one whose body and soul personified a true talmid
chochom.
The children of the new generation who were not yet asleep at
the late hour of night, the young married men or the youths
whose hearts were still awake, were able to hear the roving
loudspeaker announcing the funeral. They were privileged to
accompany to his final rest one of the remnants of a
distinguished generation which are slowly fading from the
world scene.
"Run to grasp onto the pall of HaGaon Hagodol R' Gedaliah!"
Touch with your fleshly hands the coffin of R' Gedaliah Nadel
— a heavy wooden casket. Strong. Very much so. Thick
and hard. A simple hardwood — so simple, in fact, that
it screams from one end of the world to the other . . .
Some coffins are constructed from trees whose treetops can
only be seen from a distance, but their trunk and roots are
not visible to the eye. Here — the opposite is true: a
coffin constructed from a tree whose roots and trunk hug the
ground and could be seen up close. But its treetop was so far
up, it stretched up so high that its peak could not be seen
from among the cedars of Lebanon.
*
The particulars about his personal, private life were like
sections of parchment of a superior sefer Torah. Who
were they written by? The Chazon Ish.
Maran the Chazon Ish ztvk'l was the first one to
inscribe the initial letters in that holy book and many were
the people who so loved to peer into that `sefer Torah.'
But they were not given permission to lift it up. He
refused. And there were those who naively thought that when
that sefer Torah would be furled and the ark would
begin moving, then R' Gedaliah would permit it. He would
sanction the kissing of the paroches, perhaps to kiss
the fringes and sacred decorations.
But the gaon passed away and is no more. He wished to
disappear in the dark of night, and did so on motzei
Shabbos after midnight. Perhaps he thought that no one
would take notice, no one would know to pay him his last
respects. But who, indeed, did not come, all atremble with
awe and veneration?
Tonight, my honored friends, we have gathered to bemoan and
shed a tear over those Torah scholars who slam the door upon
all the fleshly pleasures and delicacies of the material
world. A genius who, in spite of his brilliant mind and head
in the heavens, did not fathom the taste of honor, the
pleasure to be derived from fulfilling desires, pandering to
envy, enjoying the luxuries of a fine house and pleasing
furniture, the amenities of life and even the permitted
modicum of self pride. Who needed all those?
The black mantle of night swathes the thousands of people
standing and weaving gently and fearfully, to and fro, before
one who walked our very streets, at our very side, his both
hands like the supports of the Torah scroll, without
ascribing an iota of importance or even attention to anything
in his vicinity. A lion in hiding — who destroyed all
the rooms and inner rooms that cling to a person, reserving a
mere `four cubits of halochoh' for himself. That and
no more.
Within this space he lived — anything beyond that was
"When a person dies in the tent . . . " The fountain gushed
forth from him, with love and pleasures — only at the
side of the large gemora which glowed with a supernal
light.
Life did not succeed in enticing him even as far as the
doorway of that four cubit compartment. R' Gedaliah banished
all the allures. He would only stretch his hand from inside
that precinct and agree to pluck a kav-measure of
carobs from the tree of R' Chanina ben Dosa to sustain him
for the week. That and no more. He invested the remainder of
his vigor in Torah or "I loved that Hashem hear the voice of
my supplication."
Even after the Shas was absorbed into his organs when
he studied, for example, a delectable `morsel' of R' Chaim
Halevi on the Rambam, he would say that if he didn't have a
space of at least 6-7 consecutive hours, his study was not
the real thing, it was discountable. He would say, "For at
every stage of his words, one requires a minimum of time to
think and rethink the sugya in detail, to inspect
every angle, every nuance. And even after that, who could say
that one began to understand what he was driving at?"
This was said over and above the magnitude of a brilliance
that soared to the very heavens and beyond. His purified body
trembled when he touched the hem of the garment of the mighty
acharonim sages — and all the more so, to be
sure, the rishonim who are like angels in comparison,
and utterly sublime in their holiness. He reveled, more and
more, over every iota he was able to illuminate for himself
from their corners.
And towards the end of his days, when he already found it
difficult to conceal himself even from the very chair from
which he didn't budge, people could see how, with his final
vestiges of strength, he would take a Tanach in his
hands, open it, and read from it with deep adoration. Verse
after verse, without commentary. Torah in its pure pristine
form.
And then, his brilliant eyes would shed rivers of tears. His
face glowed awash from the tears that cascaded ceaselessly,
melting his heart with the simple study of those verses, "And
the Maharshal wrote that they testified of the Maharash of
Keinan that after he studied Kabboloh, he would pray
like a day-old infant" (Mishna Berurah, Siman 25 . . .
). HaGaon R' Gedaliah studied word after word verily like
a day-old infant, with incomparable devotion.
"R' Gedaliah is weeping!"
And now, he is no more; he has left this world and gone his
way.
We really should wail but if not, let us at least weep over
ourselves. For we don't have many of his like to escort. They
disappear in the darkness, after midnight, and are interred
in the very bosom of the big darkness, bereft of the
pleasures of the world, not leaving behind as much as a small
packet of candles to illuminate our way back from the
cemetery . . .
And the darkness thickens increasingly, more and more. Who
can possibly replace him?
