Why I Admired Rav Finkel

Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the rosh yeshiva of the Mir Yeshiva, passed away yesterday.

I did not know Rav Finkel personally, though I saw him a number of times at various occasions. Not normally one to announce deaths, especially of people I did not have a personal relationship with, even if only briefly, I do want to relate for a moment to Rav Finkel's death.

Many are passing around the now famous picture of Rav Finkel as a high school senior in the Chicago Hebrew Academy, later to become known as Ida Crown Hebrew Academy, a co-ed school. He is a sharp looking and handsome young man, and it is shocking for many to learn he comes from such a "modern" background. The picture has some shock value, but it also serves to increase people's admiration, considering the background he came from and what he eventually became. it is not the typical ArtScroll rosh yeshiva story of a son of rosh yeshiva who became the next rosh yeshiva.

What I want to relate to, and, again, I did not know the rosh yeshiva personally at all, is his Parkinsons affliction. No matter how many times I saw him, I was amazed each time by how he was able to overcome his disease and still be so involved, responsible for everything in the yeshiva, still travel, still fundraise, go to events and give shiurim. A disease which can be so crippling, and in him one could see how he had deteriorated so much and how it affected him so seriously, yet he never let that slow him down.

People who overcome their challenges, their limitations, and succeed, and excel, despite those challenges and limitations, and they don't let themselves be taken down, those are the people I admire the most.
Rav Finkel was one of those men.
Yehi Zichro Baruch.