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IN-DEPTH FEATURES
Part II
R' Yitzchok would encourage even baalei batim who were
occupied over their heads in their livelihood to take time
off to study in a kollel or in any way possible so that they
too could utilize every spare moment for limud
haTorah. At the shiva some people related that in
his zchus they started studying Daf Hayomi and even
finished the whole Shas.
Whenever R' Yitzchok would meet someone in the street, he
would start off by talking with him in divrei Torah.
"What chiddush did you say or hear in the yeshiva or
kollel today?" he would ask.
He would also tell that person what chiddushim he had
innovated, and wanted to hear any chiddushim or
vorts that person had to tell him. HaRav Hillel Zaks,
a grandson of the Chofetz Chaim and rosh yeshiva in Chevron
Yeshiva of Yerushalayim, remarked that before he would meet
R' Yitzchok he would make sure to have a good chiddush
ready to tell him.
R' Yitzchok endlessly wanted to absorb more and more Torah.
HaRav Mordechai Cohen, a rosh yeshiva in Slobodka Yeshiva,
said that R' Yitzchok was always like a boy who just became
seventeen years old and is now entering a yeshiva gedoloh.
He always had the same vigor and liveliness and fervent
will to shteig in Torah learning.
It was not just that R' Yitzchok loved Torah; love of Torah
was his whole essence. R' Yitzchok and ahavas Torah
were the same. "Anyone who saw R' Yitzchok would clearly see
what Torah really is and could not remain indifferent to
Torah" (an excerpt from an eulogy delivered by HaRav Sholom
Noach Krol zt'l, the rov of Moshav Chemed).
His younger brother Zecharya, a musmach of HaRav
Yitzchok Hutner zt'l, psychologist and Professor of
Education in Bar Ilan University of Ramat Gan, moved to
Israel after R' Yitzchok and lived with his family in the Bar
Ilan campus that is adjacent to Bnei Brak, just across the
intercity Geha Road. Although the two differed sharply in
ideologies, they remained loving brothers and would always
maintain strong and warm family ties and hold frequent family
visits.
All the seven sons and one daughter of Reb Yekusiel Yehudah
(Leibish-Louis) zt'l remained frum and their
offspring are prominent in religious and general Jewish life
in Eretz Yisroel and America.
Chessed Activities
Although he himself was content with whatever he had in life
(which unquestionably was not much) and detested the luxuries
of life, he provided financial support for many needy
families, particularly before the yomim tovim. He did
all this without fanfare, quietly, with unbelievable
tznius. His concern was with the livelihood of others,
not his own.
His sister Mrs. Sylvia Fuchs a'h commented (Jewish
Press, Jan. 10, 1986, pg. 56B), "All his life, Yitzchok,
in his very quiet way was involved in gemilus
chassodim, a love of learning, and askonus,
exhibiting stubbornness to pursue his goals despite all
obstacles . . . No memorial to Itzie can end without the
knowledge that, as with Rebbe Akiva, none of this would have
been possible without the loving devotion of Shoshanah, their
sons and daughters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law and
grandchildren."
How did R' Yitzchok excel in gemilus chassodim? He
knew well that money is not the only thing that people need.
Some people need solid moral support and words of
encouragement to lift their spirits. R' Yitzchok was always
ready with a warm word of praise or encouragement to uplift
others.
He would, however, not employ false praise or flattery in his
efforts to raise people's spirits. R' Yitzchok would never
have anything to do with falsehood; he dealt only in truth
and hated the opposite. As Dovid Hamelech wrote, "I hate
falsehood, It disgusts me. I love your Torah"
(Tehillim 119:163). The Malbim (Ibid.) explains, "I
love your Torah that is all truth and therefore I cannot
possibly love falsehood. To love Your truth is to hate that
which is the opposite of truth. Falsehood is the antithesis
of truth, and therefore Dovid Hamelech despised falsehood."
Indeed, R' Yitzchok exhibited both an ardent love of Torah
and an abhorrence for anything lacking emes.
R' Yitzchok attained the middoh of being an ish
emes, a man of truth, from his rosh yeshiva, Maran R'
Aharon Kotler ztvk'l who carefully molded his
character during the period that R' Yitzchok studied in his
yeshiva. "If someone came to the Rosh Yeshiva with a plan
— even a plan that was lesheim Shomayim —
if it wasn't truth, he would not hear of it." (HaRav
Stefansky shlita, a mashgiach in Lakewood
Yeshiva).
In practical terms, R' Aharon would not build or support
Torah with falsehood. He would not allow any fundraising for
the yeshiva it if included anything that could be misleading
to a potential donor or had other traces of falsehood. The
Rosh Yeshiva was well known for his adamant opposition to
even seemingly innocent "artistic license," such as his
famous directive to the yeshiva's office to dispose of
receipts in which the graphic artist added nonexistent
shrubbery to a picture of the yeshiva building. He also
considered it wrong to accept donations for his yeshiva when
the contribution involved a change from the original purpose
for which he approached the potential donor. (Excerpts from
A Living Mishnas Rav Aharon, written by Rabbi Yitzchok
Mordecai Dershowitz, the son of HaRav Menashe).
Everyone was R' Yitzchok's friend. HaRav Elya Svei
shlita said in his eulogy: "R' Yitzchok was able to
talk to everyone: with bnei Torah, with baalei
batim, and even with those without any connection to
Torah observance . . . He loved every person and had the
middoh of an ayin tovoh."
At the shiva a young mailman came to console the
family. After the sons asked him what connection he had with
their father, he answered that R' Yitzchok would always treat
him as a mentch, not just as a person doing his job.
Every morning when R' Yitzchok would see him he would go over
to him and greet him with a wide and warm smile. All this was
done naturally and offhandedly. This was greatness in Torah
mixed with simplicity. He would chase after chessed .
. . and catch up with it.
When R' Yitzchok was about to marry off one of his children,
a friend of his who knew that R' Yitzchok was lacking money
even for the bare necessities for such an endeavor wanted to
give him a considerable amount that could greatly help him.
R' Yitzchok, however, flatly refused. He was not interested
in gifts from people; he only wanted loans that he would,
with Hashem's help, be able to return.
His friend, who wanted to convince him to take the money as a
present, answered: "I do not have the time to get involved in
loans. Either take the money or else . . . " R' Yitzchok then
took the money but opened up a gemach under his
friend's name and afterward repaid the loan to the last
penny.
A bank manager who knew R' Yitzchok to be a Jew who barely
made a living but one who never complained, heard one day
that R' Yitzchok's parnossoh took a turn for the
worse. The manager was happy that he succeeded in arranging a
bank loan for him. But suddenly R' Yitzchok returned to the
flabbergasted bank manager and asked: "Maybe someone else
needs the money that I am borrowing? Maybe I am harming
someone by taking this loan?"
On one erev Shabbos an acquaintance saw R' Yitzchok
trudging from one hotel to the other in Tel Aviv. "Where are
you going at such a late time of night?" his friend asked
him.
R' Yitzchok answered: "I heard that someone who once studied
in a yeshiva but afterward deviated from the way is staying
in one of the hotels. I am looking for him. Maybe I'll be
able to help him become a baal teshuvoh."
These brief glimpses into R' Yitzchok's life clearly show his
ahavas chessed, love of acting with kindness toward
anyone, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable it was for
him.
Singing for Chessed and for Mishpat
Throughout R' Yitzchok's last stage of life he suffered
excruciating yissurim, but as is evident from the
following short accounts, he never let up on his pressing
desire to help other Jews, his unrelenting efforts to fulfill
all of Hashem's mitzvos with shleimus and his fully
accepting yissurim with true love:
A long and tiresome day finally came to end. This was not a
wearisome trip to Acre in the north to save a boy, not to a
Shabbos protest in Beer Sheva in the south, not a flight
overseas back to America to help found the Pe'ilim Movement,
but a day of exhausting medical tests before an operation.
R' Yitzchok fell asleep for a moment and then quickly woke
up. He was agitated. How can one possibly sleep before an
operation? It was now important to make use of every moment
to do teshuvoh. His sickness could not destroy his
spirit.
HaRav Elya Svei shlita remarked that R' Yitzchok
reached the special madreigoh of those who knew how to
bear yissurim and misfortune in a way that would not
at all harm their ahavas Hashem. That whole terrible
period in which R' Yitzchok suffered excruciating pain, which
in the end terminated his short but rich life, could not take
away R' Yitzchok's everlasting smile from his face and could
not stop him from studying Torah. Whenever he had a little
strength he would drag himself to the beis medrash.
One night in the hospital R' Yitzchok picked up his head and
again asked: "Nu, now?"
When the answer was negative, his head dropped back on the
pillow. This was the last night of that month in which one
could recite the kiddush levonoh and it was as if the
moon was deliberately hiding. The sky was overcast with
clouds and the moon did not shine through. Almost at the
break of dawn R' Yitzchok scanned the sky from his bed. This
time he could clearly see the moon.
R' Yitzchok was almost delirious with happiness. Boruch
Hashem, he would again be zocheh to recite kiddush
levonoh! Only someone with colossal powers of spirit
could act like that. It is therefore truly understandable, as
mentioned above, that HaRav Y. Y. Kanievsky ztvk'l
(the Steipler Rov) attested of him: "R Yitzchok is both a
talmid chochom and a yirei Shomayim."
On the day before his operation on his spinal cord R'
Yitzchok was angry with himself because his medication caused
him to wake up late in the morning. How could he prepare
himself spiritually with so little time?
R' Yitzchok was wheeled on a stretcher to the operation room,
and such a sight as this no one ever saw before: R' Yitzchok
was singing out loud a merry song full of simchah and
trust in Hashem. "`Of chessed and mishpat do I
sing to You, Hashem, do I sing praise' (Tehillim
101:1). If chessed happens to me, I will sing; if
mishpat happens to me I will sing" (Brochos
63a).
Following the operation, when he was in the recovery room,
immediately after he opened his foggy eyes, he began
discussing with those around him what he had studied last
year with his son after the previous operation.
The doctor who was checking the X-rays exhorted the family:
"The patient is suffering terribly! How can he be disturbed
now?"
"Really?" asked the family.
"What do you mean by `really'? Can't you tell?" asked the
amazed doctor.
The members of family shrugged their shoulders. They could
not possibly be aware of R' Yitzchok's suffering since he was
always happy, always smiling, and his eyes were always
shining. One never heard even a slight sigh or a complaint
coming from him.
Between operations, R' Yitzchok recuperated in his sister's
house in NYC and hardly ever missed going to shul to
daven with a minyan. Even when the wound from
the first confined surgery was infected, he insisted on
walking to shul to be with a minyan.
His Last Day on Earth
During R' Yitzchok's final week in Olam Hazeh and his
last day in this world he remained the same R' Yitzchok, the
same fervent oveid Hashem:
Simchas Torah, 5746. Everyone was joyful and dancing in honor
of the Torah. R' Yitzchok who was sitting in a wheelchair
also shared in the simchah although he could not dance
with others. In addition, R' Yitzchok was thankful for every
breath of air that he inhaled.
The gabbai called R' Yitzchok up for the aliyah
of chosson Bereishis, a great honor. A few days
afterward on Shabbos Bereishis R' Yitzchok was brought to the
main Ramat Elchonon shul where he recited bircas
haTorah on the krias haTorah. We were again
beginning from Bereishis . . . "For the Torah, for the
avodoh . . . for this Shabbos day." But a few hours
later R' Yitzchok at the age of sixty-six had started another
Bereishis. His neshomoh ascended to Heaven.
Heading R' Yitzchok's large levaya was Maran HaRav
E.M. Shach ztvk'l, rosh yeshiva of Ponovezh Yeshiva,
HaRav Michel Feinstein zt'l, rosh kollel of Brisker
Kollel of Bnei Brak, HaRav Nissim Karelitz shlita,
rosh kollel of Kollel Chazon Ish, HaRav Yitzchok Silberstein
shlita, rov of Ramat Elchonon neighborhood of Bnei
Brak, HaRav Dov Shwartzman shlita, rosh yeshiva of
Beis HaTalmud Yeshiva of Yerushalayim, and many others.
R' Yitzchok was always a person who stood with his feet on
earth but his head reached Shomayim. R' Alter Yitzchok
whose accomplishments were innumerable was taken away from
us! Yehi zichro Boruch!
HaRav Sheinker shlita served as a mashgiach
in many yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel and Chutz La'aretz
Yated: When did your close acquaintance with HaRav
Alter Yitzchok Dershowitz zt'l begin?
HaRav Sheinker: About forty years ago I began studying
in the kollel of HaRav Yitzchok Nesher zt'l in Tel
Aviv, which was founded by HaRav A. Y. Dershowitz together
with HaRav Ezra Novik shlita and HaRav Nochum Ber
Kreisman zt'l — who all studied in Lakewood
Yeshiva.
Yated: Did R' Yitzchok start off as a
mashgiach in the kollel?
HaRav Sheinker: No, he certainly did not. He sat and
learned like a regular kollel talmid. In the course of
time, HaRav Nesher observed how R' Yitzchok would learn with
great cheishek and diligence, and would seriously
immerse himself in mussar seforim to further refine
himself. He also noticed that the other yungerleit
respected him immensely, and therefore at a meeting one day
he announced that from now on R' Yitzchok was the
mashgiach of the kollel.
Yated: Someone once told me that a mashgiach is
99 percent a policeman and 1 percent a tzaddik. Was
that true of R' Yitzchok too?
HaRav Sheinker: He would never go over to anyone who
was just talking instead of learning, and reprimand him
directly. He wasn't that kind of person at all. R' Yitzchok
would simply approach him and start asking him a
kushya or request an explanation for a difficult
passage in the gemora. The avreich would
realize that it was time for him to get back to his learning.
R' Yitzchok was a true onov. Even if it happened that
a yungerman was discourteous to him, he would not
notice it. He was the epitome of, "hearing oneself being
disgraced but not responding" (Shabbos 88b).
Even though gedolei Torah thought highly of him (such
as his neighbor the Steipler Rov zt'l, and HaRav Isser
Zalman Meltzer zt'l who invited him over for the
seder), he never boasted about that. He would always
be mevatel himself without ascribing importance to
himself, despite his enormous ma'alos that were
evident to all. He would labor over his Torah studies without
any thought of honor. R' Yitzchok would run to whomever he
could to hear a kushya, teirutz, pshat or dvar
Torah even if that person was far younger than he or far
less knowledgeable.
I remember that we once rode in a taxi with the Strikever
Rebbe from Tel Aviv to Bnei Brak and R' Yitzchok took
advantage of the opportunity and began conversing with the
Rebbe in learning, asking him to explain a complicated
passage in the gemora that the kollel was learning.
The Rebbe, who was a major talmid chochom, answered
him and a heated discussion developed on the way back home
around the correct pshat in that sugya.
Yated: Did he excel in any other way in his
position?
HaRav Sheinker: Well, R' Yitzchok was a baal
chesed who would concern himself much about how each
yungerman was making out, and when he heard of a need,
he would hand him some money on the side to help him out. If
he noticed that a yungerman was depressed, he
approached him and tried his utmost to encourage him. He even
would arrange for the yungerleit to receive CARE
packages that were coming from the USA at that time. Once
there wasn't enough money to pay for the trip to the kollel
from Bnei Brak to Tel Aviv, and R' Yitzchok paid from his own
pocket although he himself barely made a living.
Yated: Did you ever have a closer relationship with
the niftar?
HaRav Sheinker: Yes, for a period of time I studied
with him bechavrusa. I remember one occasion in the
middle of our studies when he stopped to tell me that he felt
he has to ask mechiloh from me. It seems that he felt
that he had spoken something improper to me or had demanded
something he should not have, but to tell the truth, I
couldn't grasp what that possibly could have been. R'
Yitzchok couldn't bear improper behavior and was particularly
strict with himself.
Yated: Do you remember any particular anecdote of R'
Yitzchok with an odom godol ?
HaRav Sheinker: Here is a story that you can learn
something from. From this story you can see how gedolei
Torah act and what concerns them most on the holy day of
Purim.
This happened on Purim 5730 or 5731. I don't remember exactly
which year. R' Yitzchok met me and asked me to accompany him
to engage in a big mitzvah. He took me to visit HaRav Naftoli
Teply zt'l, who was an eminent talmid chochom
but unfortunately crippled and never married — a lonely
eltere bochur. When we arrived there, we saw that
HaRav Chaim Kanievsky, HaRav Dov Weintraub and HaRav Akiva
Tennenbaum were already at HaRav Teply's house. If I
recollect correctly, it was R' Yitzchok who organized this
whole mitzvah. The whole chaburah kedoshah sang songs
of bygone days full of emunoh, bitochon and ahavas
Torah. That was a real simchas Purim and mitzvah
that I will never forget. That is how gedolei Torah
celebrate Purim!
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