Transcript
I'm truly humbled to be standing up here. If you described how unimaginable it was in your youth, when I was a boy visiting this shul on a frequent basis, Shabbos and Yom Tov, sitting right over there with my grandfather, looking up to my grandmother right over there, I can still see them at this moment. I never would have dreamt that I'd be in a position that I'd be standing up here, that I'd be receiving what is the ultimate compliment from my dear friend and colleague, mentor Rabbi Binny Blau, to put me in the same sentence, to compare me at all is a gross and egregious exaggeration, but a compliment nonetheless. And I'm so glad that my father was here to hear it. He may even believe it, but I know that I don't. I feel terribly inadequate in the presence first, bishus harabanim, of Rav Teitz's choshuva family who are here to speak about the Rav, to speak about Rabbi Teitz, to offer any reflections on this 30th yahrzeit, to extract or extrapolate any lessons for today. Who am I and what am I in your presence? And so I ask you for forgiveness in advance if I don't capture adequately or precisely or do justice, but these are my impressions and they are how I am inspired nonetheless, and so I appreciate. Rabbi Binny Blau actually took my introduction. I was going to say, why am I here? I'm not a historian, certainly not a contemporary of the great Rabbi Teitz zatzal. Didn't grow up in Elizabeth. Who am I and why am I here to present to you this evening? But as he captured about my family connection to this place, how my great-grandfather, the shochet in Kishinev, came to Elizabeth before Rabbi Teitz to be the shochet of Rabbi Preil and stayed under Rabbi Teitz in that capacity. My grandparents who were here and so close with the Teitz family. My mother, should be well, was a miracle baby after several miscarriages of my grandmother. And she related to me and has the picture to prove it that when she was born and her parents were so overjoyed by the miracle of her existence, and when she came home from the hospital, this little bundle of joy, so fragile and new, before she actually went home on the way home from the hospital, my grandfather stopped at the Teitz home for Rabbi Teitz to meet their new bracha, to give a bracha that she be healthy and well. And that was the closeness, that was the connection, that was the awe, and that was the admiration in which my parents, my grandparents held and hold the Rav. My mother's a product of this shul, this community of Rabbi Teitz. As was said, my father, who I'm so honored came with me and it's not easy with the weather conditions and the travel, but he insisted and he said to me such hakaras hatov that we, our family, he feels even in particular himself as a graduate, such a sense of a debt of gratitude to the Rav, to Rabbi Teitz, to this community and to this institution. It's really an honor that he is here. Rabbi Teitz was their mesader kiddushin, and so my parents by extension, my siblings and I, our whole family are products of this community of Rabbi Teitz zatzal. And so this is an enormous, enormous honor. There's so much to say about Rabbi Teitz's biography, about his background, about his history, about his illustrious past, about his yichus and about his family, about where he comes from, the Shelah, the Levush, the Maharshal, the connection to the Aderes, his relationship with the Rogatchover and the Meshech Chochma, his learning in Ponevezh and Slabodka and connection with Telshe. There's so much to say and so much to tell. Many, most, all of you are familiar with it, and if you're not, certainly you should read and memorize Dr. Blau's incredible book, Learn Torah, Love Torah, and Live Torah to see it. I'm not here and I'm not the person, the authority, to give you a comprehensive biography to mark this meaningful milestone, this 30th yahrzeit. So I'm not here to give you a retrospective, I'm here to not here to talk about the past, but rather what we can glean and what we can learn prospectively. How Rabbi Teitz should be the standard, the torchbearer by which we measure the success of every Rav, our mission, our obligation, our responsibility, our achrayus. I think Rabbi Teitz's life and legacy should be taught in every smicha program and every Rav should be handed a copy of that biography to understand the possibility, to understand our power, to understand the influence and the impact, to understand the responsibility that we have, because what may be obvious, unfortunately, sadly as I'll describe, is not to way too many, but the Rav was a pioneer. Was a breakthrough, was not happening at that time. And so, in my experience, although there are extraordinary Rabbonim and community leaders, I see too many who fail to walk in the footsteps of the great Rav Teitz zatzal, who fail to embrace that role most fully, to fulfill that mission most nobly, to make their impact and influence with the possibility. And so I want to spend our time tonight, and I was not given an end time, which is very dangerous to a Rabbi whose flight is not till the next morning, I have nowhere to be, but I'll try to do it in not too long a fashion, to articulate what I think was most outstanding about the Rav, as a Rav, as a communal leader, what informs and inspires me personally, my rabbanus, every day. I'm not exaggerating, I was tempted to bring it here to prove it to you, but on my wall immediately next to my desk is a picture. I have a lot of Gedolim. I'm privileged as someone in the community who has a hobby of collecting Kisvei Yad, and he has pictures of Gedolei Yisrael with their authentic, original Kisvei Yad, some of the greatest Gedolim, not only of the last generation but going back Rav Chaim Ozer and others. But next to my desk, looking over me and I look every day for inspiration, is a picture I have of my grandfather and my grandmother, Sam and Ruth Aboff aleihem hashalom, Meyer Dunn and Rabbi Teitz. It was when a school here in Elizabeth, a public school, was named in memory of my grandfather, and it was at the event commemorating and marking it, and it's a portrait of the four of them on that stage. And that's what sits, that's what I look at. It informs and inspires my feeling and my sense of responsibility every day, and I hope and I think it should be the standard for my colleagues as well. A rabbanus based on courage, on activism, on achrayus, a rabbanim that projects malchus, a rabbanus that's trying to build community and kehilla, a responsibility for the next generations of chinuch and חנוך לנער על פי דרכו. A rabbanus that reflects never having arrived and never being finished, never being done and never being complacent, but rather always looking for the next growth opportunity. A rabbanus that's built on dreams and vision and challenges. A rabbanus that communicates and transmits the timeliness and the timelessness of Torah for every generation, but for that one in particular. Those are the themes, those are the ideas, those are the lessons I think that come from the Rav, and that's what I want, if you'll allow me to elaborate on a little bit this evening. So number one: the capacity, the capacity to blend and to find a balance between old world Torah and the modern world in which we live. Certainly in 1935, the year in which the Teitzes got married, Torah in America was anemic. The institutions, the infrastructure, infrastructure wasn't there. Few institutions, little support, few role models. And if you were a betting man or woman in 1935, you would have bet against the future of Orthodoxy. You would have not have seen a bright light, a bright future that was coming, because even those who had transplanted from Europe, who had come to these shores, who had come from the old world, for those who were here who were trying to redefine and rebuild and restart lives, that old world they were out of touch. They had a different literal and figurative vocabulary. They couldn't communicate, they couldn't connect with what was happening in that time. They struggled to replant or transplant the vibrant yiddishkeit of their youth, to bring the old world to the new world. It was lost. And lest you think that was a challenge in the 1930s or 40s or 50s, and today we're comfortable and we're vibrant and we're expanding and look how strong and it's true we are, Torah Jewry is strong. It's vibrant, dynamic, it's powerful and it's growing. But at the same time, it's far from secure. Aside from the challenge of assimilation of intermarriage, which you'll excuse me, it's not our topic, but I take every opportunity to remind all of us, as I think Rabbi Teitz would feel the obligation of the day, that as threatening, as looming as anti-Semitism is, as much as it is rising and posing an enormous danger to us all, the forefront of all of our minds, the challenge and the danger, the threat pales in comparison to what we're doing to ourselves through assimilation and intermarriage. The greatest anti-Semites of our day couldn't dream of making the Jewish people disappear as quickly as we are to ourselves. That responsibility. of outreach and caring about the unaffiliated around us, but also the responsibility to retention, to ensuring that those who are growing up in our Yeshiva systems and in our homes and in our shuls do not take what is an open invitation today to leave it all behind, to walk away. The challenge of blending a Torah that is thousands of years old and formulating it and transmitting it and packaging it and giving it a language and a vocabulary that is resonant and that is compelling for today is just as real and as important now as it was in the time of Rav Teitz. אלה תולדת יצחק בן אברהם אברהם הוליד את יצחק. Rashi tells us the famous Chazal that the Leitzonei Hador, the cynics of the generation, always cynics in every generation, try to manufacture controversy, they manufacture scandal, and they suggested that Yitzchak in fact was not the son of Avraham, and therefore Hashem made a miracle that Yitzchak was the spitting image, the exact appearance as his father Avraham. But does Hakadosh Baruch Hu make miracles to offset the cynics, the scoffers, the silliness of the Leitzonei Hador? For that, He makes what the Torah communicates as a revealed miracle? And in his Chamesh Drashos, Rav Soloveitchik suggests that the Leitzonei Hador, the cynics of the generation, didn’t doubt Avraham’s physical ability to father a child, rather they were doubtful that this old man Avraham, how could he successfully communicate his old ideas and his old, ancient, outdated lifestyle to a young person in a new generation? How could it be that Yitzchak, this young man living in the here and now, how could he possibly come from that old man with his old and stale and outdated ideas? The Leitzonei Hador, the cynics and skeptics of Avraham’s philosophy, his ideology as a passing fad, a short-lived trend. How could an old man with extreme ideas inspire a son who would embrace his legacy, who would perpetuate his lifestyle? So they whispered, Yitzchak must be the son of Avimelech, the offspring and follower of a modern society and culture and popular trends. Yitzchak must surely be carrying the legacy of Avimelech rather than the outdated ideas of his biological father. I’ll share with you the words of the Rav himself. People laughed at the event. They didn’t believe that Yitzchak would inherit Avraham. He, a young lad of the new generation, would continue to carry Avraham’s vision and laws? He would engage in building altars and calling on the name of Hashem? They laughed at Avraham’s dreams that his son would give his life for Torah and fight for the sanctity of Avraham’s house. The scoffers said, Sarah conceived from Avimelech. Others claimed they brought themselves a foundling from the marketplace. It’s impossible to pass Avraham’s outlook, the mitzvos of Avraham, his statutes and laws to the modern generation. When Avraham dies, people said his entire philosophy will perish, his altars will be dismantled, his Shulchan Aruch will be eaten by moths, all traces of his life will vanish just as the grass will grow over his grave. And Rav Soloveitchik sees this also when the Torah communicates that Yitzchak redigs the wells of his father, he gave them the exact same names that he’s continuing that legacy of his father. As the Rav put it, Yitzchak dug again, he called their names after the names by which his father called them. The same Gemara, the same Shulchan Aruch, the same Shabbos, the same laws of divorce. Who could have foreseen that the young modern Yitzchak would also say that a divorcee is forbidden to a Kohen, that he would demand a kosher kitchen and fight for religious education? Who could have guessed that he would speak with the same language the old Avraham spoke? As the author of the Shulchan Aruch, as the Rama, as the Gaon of Vilna, as Rav Chaim of Volozhin. Avraham was successful. And Rav Teitz, Rav Teitz was unusually, maybe uniquely successful of taking that Torah and never ever allowing it to become stale or outdated or inaccessible, to become a relic of the past, but he communicated it and he transmitted it in modern language and to a modern world and giving it modern relevance. As you know, he was a talmid of Slabodka through and through, steeped in classic European Torah and Mussar, just like his peers, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rav Ruderman, Rav Hutner, Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, Rav Aharon Kotler. Slabodka instilled in him and them the Gadlus Haadam. He was regal, he was royal, but he also bore a sense of achrayus, a responsibility to not be complacent or happy with his own avodas Hashem, but to be able to adapt it and adopt it to a modern world. He was a talmid of the old world and at the same time American in mindset. He was able to successfully adapt but without compromise or corruption. When Rav Teitz came to America, he knew Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic, German, Latvian, Lithuanian. And Russian. As if that's not enough languages, but now it was time to learn English. And towards that end, he would read the New York Times with his Rebbetzin. They studied Shakespeare and Milton because quote if I'm gonna learn a language I want to read the masterpieces in it. He realized quickly that Yiddish sermons they didn't resonate they didn't land to the audience that he was now speaking to so he worked with his Rebbetzin to transliterate his drashos from the Yiddish to English. He would write them phonetically in the Hebrew language and deliver them until he picked up a masterful English himself. His slogan: Be modern, be Orthodox. Not modern Orthodox, be modern, be Orthodox. Fully rooted in Torah and fully engaged in the best, extracting the best of and contributing meaningfully to the modern world. That fusion, that capacity to blend and integrate uncompromising mesorah with the communication and the language and idiom of his time, that was central to his effectiveness, it was central to his legacy and it is critical to our time. He showed that you can be traditional in dress, my mother said that growing up all the years in his home she never saw him not wearing his frock, not looking regal and royal, she never saw him in a casual way, Slobodka through and through, traditional in dress and halacha and hashkafa and outlook and yet forward-thinking and contemporary. He promoted high-level education, he promoted being a person who's not complacent or satisfied with mediocre but striving for excellence, embracing technology and the best of modernity. And why do I say that's a critical lesson for today? It didn't end thirty years ago with his passing because we're seeing in our time sadly I believe that it's so easy to fail in one direction or the other. To live in the extremes is easy but a gross gross failure. It's easy, it's easy to embrace modernity and to compromise on our mesorah. It's easy to adopt the ideologies of the day, what's popular, what seems progressive or woke, what seems the world is trending in the direction it's going. It's easy to be attracted, it's easy to speak a Yiddishkeit that will be received by the modern world if you're willing to compromise into modern values. And it's easy to be extreme in holding on to the past, in being rigid, in being firm, in being inflexible, in not willing to change even in just the way that we communicate. To live in the extremes to a certain extent is easy. It's hard, it's hard to find that balance, it's fragile and a person has to be willing to be vulnerable. It's delicate and it's complicated and it's who Rav Teitz zt\"l was and it is our responsibility to look at the world, to look at the students in our yeshivas and to look at the baaleibatim in our communities, to look at those who go to shul and to look at those who've never been in a shul and to find a way without compromise and without corrupting our Torah Hakdosha, our mesorah, but to be able to couch it and communicate it in the language and the words of today. והיה כעץ שתול על פלגי מים אשר פריו יתן בעתו ועלהו לא יבול וכל אשר יעשה יצליח Dovid Hamelech describes in Tehillim the tzaddik as a tree planted by streams of water that brings forth its fruit in season. And it's interesting, Dovid Hamelech does not use sort of the more classic word that you would for planting, he doesn't say netia, he says v'haya k'etz shasul, shisila. What's the difference between netia and shisila? Shisila means to transplant. Because the true tzaddik is not planted and rooted only in one location. They don't know only how to be a Yid in Slobodka, in the old world, but they know how to be shasul. A tzaddik knows how to replant, to transplant without compromise, to adapt to a new world without corrupting where they come from. And I think that's the first lesson and legacy that is as relevant and important today as it was. It's a responsibility and a challenge, it's not easy. And there are forces and elements that will oppose, that will challenge, there are the letzonei hador of our generation who will say you're not frum enough or you're too frum, your balance is off and therefore you're no good. But Rav Teitz courageously wasn't worried because he understood the responsibility to a future to find that delicate balance and so must we. Towards that end number two as my dear colleague and friend Rabbi Benny Blau pointed out the use of technology for Torah in finding those platforms that language that vocabulary those tools the instruments and vehicles to take the Toras Chaim and to reach people ba'asher hu sham where they are. January 17th 1953 the first broadcast of the Daf HaShavua radio shiur on WEVD. Weekly in Yiddish. Controversial at the time. Looking back you'd say what could be controversial about teaching Torah to as many people as possible? But who knows who's listening and maybe you're compromising and that was exactly this delicate balance that we were just referring to but Rabbi Teitz he wasn't worried he didn't look over his shoulder and he wasn't he wasn't concerned with what others would say. He had the haskama of major gedolim Rav Moshe, Rav Aharon Kotler, Rabbi Eliezer Silver, the Sridei Eish. The shiur was syndicated in many cities around the country Boston, Chicago, Detroit, LA, Miami, Montreal, Philadelphia and beyond. And mistama you know the story the first siyum they held not knowing how many people would come how many were really listening. 1500 showed up. The government in the McCarthy era was carefully monitoring all programming that was in any language other than English and they reported that there were 250,000 listeners. You tell me anyone who has a podcast anyone who is broadcasting or streaming a shiur what they would give to have those numbers today with all the marketing and advertising tools with all the optimization and tagging and whatever shtick people are using Rav Teitz had none of it. What he sold was authenticity and truth the truth of Torah and boy did it sell quarter of a million weekly listeners. That shiur had a mastery of Gemara and meforshim woven seamlessly but it also always contained a lesson. The sugyas were tied to current events and to contemporary issues. They showed that the Torah is not a relic of the past the Torah is the lens through which we see and perceive and understand and it empowers us to navigate the world today. He understood that and he embraced that and he did it to reach people ba'asher hu sham. I only knew this in preparing this I read that his motivation was the Yiddishes who were towards the end of their life who had abandoned a life of Torah and mitzvos but who had dug their heels so deep that it would probably be difficult to reach them to get them to admit the error of their way to be willing to come back and begin to observe. So Rav Teitz realized where can I get them? Not in the public square where it would be humiliating and shameful but in the privacy of their home where no one was watching but the pintele Yid inside them might be drawn to listen to a blatt Gemara to that authentic Torah to reach people ba'asher hu sham. Rav Teitz understood that if you want to secure the future of Klal Yisrael you don't talk to people where you wish they were or where you want them to be you speak to them where they are and you raise them you paint a picture for them you charge them with the power and the energy of Torah ba'asher hu sham. Torah tells us when it comes to the Aron ועשית בדי עצי שטים וצפית אתם זהב. The Aron had loops in which the poles were placed והבאת את הבדים בטבעות על צלעות הארון and they remained there lo yasuru mimenu and Rashi says lo yasuru le'olam. Those poles were placed in the Aron and they were used to transport and to carry it and unlike other kelim of the Mishkan they were never removed. What's the meaning? What's the significance that the poles of the Aron were there in perpetuity le'olam never removed? Listen to Rav Hirsch says because the Aron carries the luchos the Aron represents Torah and Torah must always be ready to be transported. Torah travels with us. Lest you say where is real Torah? That's in that city that's in that community that's in that decade or that era that's in the past or the old world. Where is Torah? Only in shul or only in the beis medrash? Says Rav Hirsch the Torah had the poles the Torah was ready to travel the Torah was portable because it came and comes with us wherever we go it informs and inspires our lives wherever we are. Rav Teitz understood that and used the tools to transport Torah into the living rooms and into the homes of anyone who would listen. He was a brilliant visionary. He wasn't ahead of his time he brought it to his time and in our time we're seeing just how right he was. The use of technology to reach It's interesting because I was, I don't know if you get it, Artscroll puts out each week a newsletter, Divrei Torah on the Parsha based on different Artscroll books, and the back page of it this week, I don't know if anyone saw it, it came from Artscroll book about history, and it was recalling Corona, the coronavirus, how we lived and the Gedolim that we lost, and earlier pandemics and times of earlier Gedolim, Rav Akiva Eiger and others, and it talked about, it didn't really reference it, it couldn't, it hinted, it alluded how we adjusted to figure out that even though we were shut down and locked down and isolated from one another, that we can continue to learn Torah. That was technology, and without it how much Torah would have been lost, wouldn't have been learned, time that would have been wasted. How many pivotal and critical years of our children and youth they wouldn't have been connected. The Aron had poles, it's transported, to wherever we go, wherever we are, it's portable. Rav Teitz understood that. The Torah tells us in Parshas Ki Savo: ויהי ביום אשר תעברו את הירדן that when we cross the Yarden we're to put up these great stones. והקמות לך אבנים גדולות ושדת אותם בשיד. וכתבת עליהן את כל דברי התורה הזאת בעברך, למען אשר תבוא אל הארץ אשר ה' אלהיך נתן לך. What do you write on them? את כל דברי התורה הזאת. By the time this command is given not all Torah yet was given to us, certainly it wasn't written, so what does it mean: את כל דברי התורה הזאת? So the Midrash, the Gemara in Sotah מלמד שכתבו את התורה על אבנים בשבעים לשון. It was written in 70 languages. The Torah was communicated, captured on those stones, the image I always have is those stones represent the Mezuza going into Eretz Yisrael before there was a Ben-Gurion airport people crossed at the same point and they passed these stones that captured and communicated the great billboard of Torah, and it was the Mezuza as they made their way into Eretz Yisrael. And what was Torah? Was it written Lashon Hakodesh only Hebrew? Say Chazal it was written B'shivim Lashon, in the 70 languages. And the Malbim writes: why 70 languages? Because it's telling us that Torah is not singularly in one language for one time for one place in one Hashkafa, but we have to adapt Torah without compromise to the times in which we live to reach people wherever they are. Rav Teitz understood it then, and we have to understand it now. And when I was an early adopter of some of the technology to spread Torah the Leitzanei Hador went after me, and they gave me pause, and Boruch Hashem I always consult my Rebbeim and the people around me that I trust, but the Leitzanei Hador in every generation will push back, and will challenge either their old outdated ideas, they're ancient, they're relics of the past, they're no longer relevant, or you're too modern, you're compromising too much, this is no longer authentic to what we have. But the courage to push through and persevere, to embrace the challenge of reaching people Ba'asher Hu Sham, to employ appropriately and moderately and judiciously and with boundaries and filters the technology of our time to reach people where they are, was a gift Rav Teitz gave me and all others who use it to know as the early precedent for all of us that this is a model that we have to follow and continue to embrace and follow and reach people where they are. Rav Teitz started the Bas Kol, teaching Torah on records. It was short-lived, it didn't take off, but it was the spiritual antecedent to Torah Tapes and to what we have today, TorahAnytime and YUTorah and all the websites and all of the incredible mechanisms and platforms from apps and WhatsApp groups and Torah's communicated so broadly over so many different ways. Rav Teitz understood that long before anyone else. And to embrace his legacy is to pick up that baton and continue, to recognize and realize our responsibility of Shtilah not just Netiah, not just to plant but to replant, to take from the past and to be the bridge towards that future reaching people Ba'asher Hu Sham with the technology and the platforms that we have at our disposal. Number three: founding and building or expanding and building on the community of his father-in-law, רב אלעזר מאיר פריל זכר צדיק לברכה. But he didn't just succeed his father-in-law, he didn't just continue what was being done. He transformed Elizabeth from a small Shomer Shabbos outpost into this full integrated Torah community outside of New York City at a time when such communities were rare at best, maybe didn't exist at all. Rav Teitz wasn't complacent and he wasn't apathetic. Too many see their job as: I give my Parsha Shiur, I answer whatever Shailos come my way, I give my Drasha and I live to see another day. That's all I do. I play defense, I put out fires, I do the bare minimum, I keep within the dalet amos of my shul and that's my entire purview. But from his very beginning, Rabbi Teitz understood with tremendous she'ifos, with great drive and great vision, with big big goals and big big dreams, that a true Jewish community has to have yeshivas and schools for boys and girls and young men and young women and it has to have satellites. In our community we have satellites to our shul. Where'd we learn that from and where'd they see that? That you could have satellites that cooperate and work together, that integrate and that create tremendous benefit by being together but also recognize not only geographical distance but also different populations to build a mikvah, famously threatening to leave in 1935 if the mikvah wasn't built, the money was raised that night, otherwise he would've walked away. Imagine! Imagine had they called that bluff, that threat. He created one unified kehillah with multiple minyanim under one leadership, recognizing the power of community. And this, I feel very strongly about, is increasingly being lost in our time because we're suffering from something called the tyranny of convenience. So nobody wants to walk further than the shtiebel that's two houses down from them. Nobody is willing to live inconveniently or experience some discomfort, whether it's in the snow in Elizabeth in the winter or the heat in Boca in the summer, but all of our communities are being threatened to no longer be communities because everyone's making Shabbos for themselves and everyone wants what's most convenient, everyone wants to live life on demand and to order, everyone wants exactly what is good for them, but sacrificing in the process the concept and the power, the potency of kehillah, of a unified community, of what that means and the difference it can make. But Rabbi Teitz understood the need and the importance, the staying power and the possibility, the impression, the Kiddush Hashem that we could create and the power of influence we have over a community, the influence on policy to elected officials when we function not indulging in convenience but when we're willing to live with the discomfort, sometimes the sacrifice of davening at that minyan a little bit further, a little bit longer, a little bit different nusach, a little bit different, because kehillah, community, it means something, it matters, it's important. And he implanted that vision to want more, to not be satisfied or complacent, to not feel we've arrived. Yehuda, the name Yehuda comes from gratitude. And Yehuda teaches us a capacity for gratitude for what is, to see what we have, the middah of histapkus. And we are called Yehudim, the Chiddushei Harim says because we're a people of gratitude and as much as we long and aspire we can be grateful for what we have and what is. But Yosef? Yosef is wanting more. יוסף ה' לי בן אחר, that's where his very name comes from. Yosef, to be mosif, to add on, to grow, to progress, to achieve. The Chozeh MiLublin says that Chanukah corresponds with Yosef HaTzaddik because on Chanukah we pasken like Beis Hillel, mosif veholech, mosif veholech. We've never arrived, we're never done, we're never finished. It's the next idea, the next dream, the next vision, the next program, the next minyan, the next satellite, it's the next person whose life we can change to always add on. Yosef was the great dreamer and having dreams, it's risky, it can be filled with disappointment if the dreams don't come to fruition. To have dreams makes you vulnerable to articulate them when people will oppose them or challenge you or tell you why they'll never happen. It takes much more work to be a dreamer than to just show up, do what you have to and go home, that's easy. Just deliver, stay out of everyone's way, don't have anyone pay attention. To have dreams, to be a builder, to have vision, it's work, but it's worth it, Rabbi Teitz taught us. Yosef teaches to never be satisfied with what is, but to always seek and desire to add more. ה' אלקי אבותיכם יוסף עליכם ככם אלף פעמים ויברך אתכם כאשר דבר לכם. If we want to be subject to the Ribbono Shel Olam's bracha, then we have to show him, if we want him to give us more, then we have to give him more, then we have to constantly be accepting the challenge. What's next? What's our next mission? What's our next assignment? What's next? The Zohar says Yosef merited that his dreams became reality because he always spoke about them, he always mentioned them. ויזכר יוסף את החלמות אשר חלם להם. He was always talking about his dreams, he was recruiting other people to dream with him, to build. And bring those dreams to reality and fruition with him. Rabbi Teitz was a dreamer in a generation and a time where people looked around and thought they saw a nightmare. He had dreams, big dreams. When others were pessimistic, he was optimistic. When others were critical and condemned, he complimented and he built up. When others saw there was no path forward, or they were happy with what was, he saw what could be. And he built. Not only this community, but those who are the spiritual offspring of it. And to walk in his footsteps, to follow in his legacy, for rabbanim and community leaders alike, is to be Yosef, to be mosif ve'holech, vayizkor et halomos, to remember and repeat and articulate and shout and celebrate and sing our dreams and our visions. To never arrive, to never be done, to never be finished, to never be complacent. But to always be building and always be expanding, always be doing more. Number four: a rav, not just as a teacher of Torah, a posek, which certainly Rabbi Teitz was par excellence, but a rav as a CEO and a visionary. ואת יהודה שלח לפניו אל יוסף להורות לפניו גשנה ויבאו ארצה גשן. We read yesterday that Yaakov, when he learns that Yosef is still alive and he anticipates he plans for when he and his children are going to make their way to Mitzrayim, he sends Yehuda ahead of them. He says go quicker, go faster, get there first, go to Goshen. And Rashi quotes Chazal tells us why, Goshna, what's he supposed to do there? Build the Beit Hora'ah. Build a Yeshiva. Build a network of schools. Build a place of Hora'ah, of psak halacha. Build a place where the Torah will inform and inspire and illuminate life and the lifestyle we're meant to live. I saw the Tiferet Shmuel, Rav Shmuel Berenbaum, the Rosh Yeshiva of Mir Brooklyn zt\"l, others asked the same question, yibadel lechayim I saw Rav Asher Weiss's sefer asked this, Nezer HaParsha. Yehuda? If you're going to open a Yeshiva in Goshen among Yaakov's children, which do you send? Maybe Levi? Tribe of Levi, the Kohanim, they are the teachers of Torah. They don't inherit a portion of the land in Israel because they have community Kollel, their whole job, their mission, their purpose is to teach Torah. Send Levi, they'll be the Roshei Yeshiva. We know Yissachar, Yissachar Zevulun relationship, Yissachar stands for being steeped in, shtaiging in Torah and learning. So why didn't Yaakov send Levi? Why didn't Yaakov send Yissachar? Why did Yaakov, when he's headed down to Galut, when he's going to this place of moral decadence and decay, this place of moral corruption and compromise, when he's going to navigate this diaspora and exile, the darkness of the Galut of Mitzrayim, he doesn't send Levi, and he doesn't send Yissachar, he sends Yehuda. Says the Tiferet Shmuel, you know why? Because Yehuda is Malchut. לא יסור שבט מיהודה. Yehuda is royalty. He's regal, he's dignified, he's class. And if you want to make an impression in the Galut, if you want all those to know that you've arrived, and that Torah stands tall and proud, that Torah has something to say, that Torah doesn't demand respect, but it commands respect, then you send Yehuda, you send Malchut. Rav Teitz zt\"l was Levi, he was Yissachar, an incredible Talmid Chacham, posek, certainly. But he was a visionary who carried himself with Malchut. And here I draw from my own childhood memories of sitting right over there and looking up on this bimah and seeing the image and the aura of Rav Teitz zt\"l. That regalness of Slabodka, the royalty of Klal Yisrael, the dignity with which he carried himself always, everywhere, without compromise. Without compromise. It's how he carried himself and it's what he not only demanded of but taught and modeled and inspired in us: the dignity of Orthodox Jews. That to be a Torah personality is not to be schlocky and heimesh, to be a Torah personality is not to be satisfied with mediocrity or to give a certain impression that lacks dignity, but back then and as relevant and important now, to build a Torah that's a model of dignity. Rav Teitz earned the respect of others, he didn't demand it. And he taught that living a Torah life commands respect, it doesn't demand it. He wasn't just the rav and posek, he was a visionary. Exactly how many steps would lead up to the front door reminiscent of a Beis HaMikdash. A shul that won a prize of architecture because every detail mattered and was important because Torah is about excellence, not mediocrity. It's about dignity and it's about class if it's going to leave the right impression on the people and on those around us. That was the Slabodka in him. And that's what he taught us Rabbanim, community leaders, a clear lesson to push beyond our comfort zone, to go beyond just, and I don't mean to minimize because of course it's critical and primary, teach Torah, do Chesed, give Psak in Halacha, give the Drasha. Critical and our primary role, but not to see ourselves as limited to it, to have big dreams and big vision and big responsibility and to be big builders who carry ourselves and who represent, who appear and who project the dignity of a Torah Jew and inspire and empower that in others. Number five. You're all curious how many numbers there are. So am I. Let's see how many. Number five, activism. Activism. That's a word that's not usually synonymous with Rabbanim. Activism. Not to suggest that Rabbanim are passive, but often, and today way too many, want to play it safe, don't want to take a stand, don't want to be at the forefront, don't want to be on the front lines of fighting for the causes and for the people who need it and who deserve it. It's easier to play it safe. I don't want to get involved, I don't want to say anything, I don't want to be quoted, I don't want them to cancel me. Rav Teitz wasn't afraid. The activism that went back to his time in Europe, working with the Frierdiker Lubavitcher Rebbe to free a Jewish member of parliament. The activism that he displayed in his youth, so much so that it drew the attention of Zev Jabotinsky who tried to recruit him. And an activism that he carried to these shores and to this community and well beyond. Making 22 trips behind the Iron Curtain to support Soviet Jewry, to take enormous risks in smuggling Sforim and Siddurim and Dalet Minim and Matza. Producing a special siddur called כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה, Elizabeth, New Jersey, signaling that mutual responsibility, saying everything about what he believed. Operating under KGB surveillance. Today a person who came from that country to go back, we'd say that's triggering. That's triggering for them. They're absolved. They don't have—it might trigger them to have to take on the very people that oppressed them. Rav Teitz didn't know such words or concepts or ideas or trauma. Not to minimize the people who struggle with that today. It's not a criticism of today, but it wasn't in his vocabulary. The activism demanded that: the courage and the conviction to rise to the occasion and to do it with some unpopular opinions. In a world in which the movement of Soviet Jewry was gathering for rallies, Rav Teitz didn't think that that was the right way. And it would have been easy to sit on the sidelines, not say anything and not face and not confront the many who were attending and who were supporting and who were promoting those rallies. But he wasn't a populist. He was strategic and he was principled and he had a different perspective on what it would take to bring down the Iron Curtain. And he stood by it, fearless, courageous. He didn't play it safe. He didn't take the easy way out. He was an activist. He was an activist not just for Soviet Jews. He was an activist for vulnerable populations. He was an activist for the poor. He was an activist for children who deserved a Jewish day school education and fought to ensure they would have it. He was an activist for Kashrus at personal risk. He stood up even when it wasn't convenient or politically expedient and too many lack that courage today. Whether it's to defend an Agunah and make a statement, whether it's to weigh in on issues of our time, whether it's to stand up for the integrity of Kashrus, whether it's politically to be able to confront forces that are challenging our people. But Rabbanus demands courage and convictions and not taking the easy way out, not playing it safe, not living in fear of the right or the left or of being canceled by both, but willing to stand up for our convictions, not hiding behind— to our own destiny because we say the Ribbono Shel Olam's in charge, I don't need to interfere, I don't need to weigh in, I don't need to do anything. Reb Teitz understood Klal Yisrael who stood on the banks of the sea and who started to daven and Hashem tells Moshe, why are they davening? מה תצעק אלי דבר אל בני ישראל ויסעו. There's a time to daven and there's a time to act. Or as I like to say we daven with our lips but we also daven with our hands and our feet. We demonstrate and display that emunah and bitachon with what we do when we're willing to become partners with Hashem even when it's inconvenient, even when it's difficult. Kol Yisrael Areivim wasn't just the name of a sidur, it was his way of life and it should be ours. I alluded to education and day schools number six, founding this Jewish Educational Center and his network of schools at a time when Orthodox day schools were rare. My grandfather alev hashalom worked with him in Torah Umesorah to build day schools across the country, to personally recruit parents to do something that wasn't popular at the time and take a risk and putting students in them. He built schools because he understood they were necessary for community survival for the future of our people. I'll tell you a devar Torah from Reb Teitz who wondered: Yosef lived all those years in Mitzrayim, there was no Beis Hora'ah, there was no Yeshiva for Menashe and Ephraim. Why now did Yehuda have to go down in advance before they got there to open a Beis Hora'ah, to open up a Yeshiva? Said Reb Teitz because a yachid can stay frum without a school, without a Yeshiva, but a community cannot. An individual can still live, not only survive, even thrive, but a community and Klal Yisrael can't. And so he took it upon himself. 1968 at the Torah Umesorah convention he introduced, I love this, what he called the Jewish Child's Bill of Rights. A Jewish Child's Bill of Rights. In our community we have an event next week, we run it every year to raise money for our Jewish education scholarship fund. Schools, I'm not soliciting right now, don't worry, you can let go of your pocket. Schools in our community like this one do an incredible job, an incredible job giving scholarships well beyond what could be expected of them. And despite that, too many parents who have been given the bare minimum of an obligation in tuition still can't make it. Who's going to step up to ensure they don't have to pull their child out of a Jewish day school, out of a Yeshiva? Where did I learn, where did we get an idea, why do we feel a responsibility as a shul, who says let the schools raise money, the schools figure it out? Because it's a community's responsibility, it's a rov's responsibility. This is a passing of the torch of the Jewish Child's Bill of Rights. No Jewish child should be turned away because of a lack of money. There are legitimate reasons to not be in a Jewish day school, there are needs that can't be fulfilled there, money can't and must not ever be one of them and Reb Teitz understood that from day one. He introduced the Jewish Child's Bill of Rights. We should publish it, frame it, and hang it on the wall of all communities. Number seven: His rabbinic leadership in the tone that we alluded to, we already spoke about. His participation in certain rabbinic groups, but in later years became disillusioned from them when he saw and he felt that their tone became overly negative and focused on criticism and thought their whole purpose was condemnation rather than building. In the 1970s he built a different model with a constructive, optimistic, positive tone that tried to uplift instead of knock down. And that's critical for our time as well. Nobody ever started keeping Shabbos because a rock was thrown at their head. Nobody ever made a significant change in their life because they were knocked down, called a name, and put on the margins of the community. When we lift up, when we build, that's leadership. To inspire and to guide, not just to denounce, to paint a picture and a portrait of who someone could be and not just to tell them what a failure they are. That's leadership. He wasn't afraid of anyone. לא תגורו מפני איש, the pasuk tells us, in Beis Din, dayanim, nobody can be, people shouldn't be afraid of anybody. The only one we fear is the Ribbono Shel Olam. That's how Reb Teitz lived his life. Even a major donor, an affluent member of the community, when one was building a mausoleum or living another part of lifestyle not consistent with Torah, Reb Teitz wasn't afraid to lose that donation, lose that support. לא תגורו מפני איש, to stand up for the truth and the authenticity of Torah. He felt the big picture achrayus for community but he didn't focus on the community to the extent that he lost sight. And he recognized and respected that he came from Ponevezh, Slabodka, Telz, but there's a lot of drachim, there's a lot of shevatim, there's a lot of perspectives to Torah. Yesterday we read, I'm winding down, yesterday we read that when Yosef reveals himself to his brothers and then he allays their fears, \"I'm not going to get even, I don't want to seek revenge,\" and Yosef אשר מכרתם אותי מצרימה אני יוסף אשר Hashem sold me, you fulfilled Hashem's will, he reframed this was all the plan all along, I'm not angry, I'm not going to take revenge, don't worry, and he gives them provisions and they're about to leave and he says, \"Oh yeah, one more thing: al tirgezu baderech.\" One more thing: al tirgezu. Tirgezu, rogez, broigez, means to be angry. Rashi quotes a Chazal, it means don't get occupied and preoccupied with divrei Torah, you're driving in the highway, you're going to tell a dvar Torah, you're going to miss the exit, don't, you'll get there, you'll talk and learn while you're there, but not while you're traveling. It's dangerous, you're vulnerable, that's one Rashi. Others say Yosef was worried the moment they take leave of him, the moment they walk out, they're on their best behavior now that he's revealed himself, but the moment they walk out they're going to start to point fingers, \"This was your fault,\" \"I told you we should,\" \"I can't believe we followed your idea,\" \"I knew we shouldn't,\" they're going to start to blame one another. So he says, \"Al tirgezu baderech.\" But I want to tell you what the Divrei Yisrael, Rav Yisrael Taub of Modzhitz, the Modzhitzer Rebbe says, listen carefully, it's magnificent. He says, \"Al tirgezu baderech.\" What Yosef was telling his brothers was, \"Don't be broigez because someone's on a different derech.\" Harbei drachim lamakom. There are a lot of paths in avodas Hashem. Al tirgezu baderech. Don't be broigez because someone's chosen a different derech. Rav Teitz was close with Chasidim and Misnagdim. He was close with the Satmar Rebbe and the Lubavitcher Rebbe, with the religious and the religious Zionists and the not-yet religious. He was able to forge a bond and find common cause, he was able to connect and he was able to care about, al tirgezu baderech, because rabbinic leadership and responsibility means to take responsibility for the totality of Klal Yisrael, not for our niche or our hashkafa, the people who wear the same yarmulke or sent to our particular school or vote for our candidate or align with our party, but to be able to connect with and care about the totality and the spectrum of Klal Yisrael. And lastly, number eight, the partnership he shared with his Rebbetzin Bessie Teitz עליה השלום זכרונה לברכה. Why do I share that? Because I think it's also a critical roadmap for any rav or communal leader today. 30 years after his passing it's not as relevant, it's more relevant. We spoke about the Rebbetzin's role in translating the drashos, helping him learn English. She shared his mesorah, had her own strong roots and melodies and their home combined those two rich traditions. And she, American born, anchored him in Elizabeth and partnered with him in those trips to the Soviet Union and also helped create that bridge between the old world and the new world, communicated in that new language. They were a regal couple, two powerful personalities united in that mission. And he would share that he could only change the world because he had her by his side. And that's our responsibility, we have to recognize and seek that partnership and support and shared vision and that window and perspective into all that we do. And so there is so much more to share about Rav Teitz's life and biography, his background, the illustrious family who continue his work and his ways. But to me this is what I take away, what informs and inspires me in my rabbanus and I hope is a little window into what I think is so desperately needed today. Rabbanim who have courage and conviction, who take achrayus, who have vision and who have big dreams and talk about them. Rabbanus that uplifts and that builds and that inspires. A rabbanus that doesn't take the easy way out and doesn't hide and doesn't live in the shadows or in the margins, but proudly and courageously takes responsibility to transmit the timeliness and the timelessness of our Torah, to reach people ba'asher hu sham where they are and not where we wish they were, using the platforms appropriately to help find them and bring our Torah to them. And if we all in this 30th yahrzeit can take a little bit and follow just somewhat in his ways, then the future of Torah and Yiddishkeit will indeed be incredibly incredibly, incredibly bright. Welcome back to the second installment of the halacha segment. We are up to Mishnah Berurah, Siman 11, Se'if 2. The Mechaber says, somebody who takes the tallis of his friend shelo lada'ato, without his knowledge, and he wants to wrap himself in it, he should not make a bracha on it because maybe the owner doesn't want a mitzvah to be done with his money if it's going to cause him a loss of money. However, me'ikar hadin, we assume ניחא ליה לאיניש למעבד מצוה בממוניה, that a person is happy to have a mitzvah done with his money. So therefore, it's mutar to use it as long as you fold it back up afterwards.
