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Mar 30, 2022
the restrained Rav Hershel Schachter
Rav Hershel Schachter, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva University, is catching a lot of flak for the following incident, documented in this video:
Basically, he was in the middle of giving a shiur by video and his wife interrupted to tell him that their daughter had a baby. He acknowledged and continued the shiur, when his wife expected a more effusive reaction. So he told the shiur about the baby and wished them all simchas, fairly dry, and continued with the shiur.
I am not sure what the criticism is precisely. It has generally just been vague, "this is the problem with our rabbis" type of a thing. I guess they think he is not emotional enough, maybe he should have given his wife more attention in the moment, been more celebratory in the moment, not so cold and uncompromising with his focus and lecture.
To me, this is really nothing unusual or of interest. Rav Schachter is a person like any other. Some are more emotional, some less, some more effusive and some less, some more focused, some more private, some more or less of this or that facet of a personality. Rav Schachter was focused on the shiur and the material and did not want to be interrupted, and maybe he is less emotional and more private than some others. Who has not been given good news or bad news at work, in the middle of an important project that required focus and just took it in stride, continuing to perform the work, saving the celebrations or disappointment for later? I see nothing here to criticize Rav Schachter over, and I dont even think it has to be something rabbinic in nature that caused this. I know some rabbis who would definitely be more exuberant and effusive upon receiving such news, before getting back tot he shiur, and I know others who would probably respond pretty similarly to Rav Schachter.
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I say a Zoom shiur. My wife would not dream of interrupting to tell me about the birth of a grandchild. I have a note she once gave me asking that I cut the shiur a little short so we could run over and take care of grandchildren so my daughter in law could go to the hospital. The Gemara in Brachos 53 says, and this is not uncommon even now, that in R Gamliel's beit midrash they souldn't even say gesundheit if someone sneezed because it interrupted the laser-like focus on study. של בית רבן גמליאל לא היו אומרים ״מרפא״ בבית המדרש, מפני ביטול בית המדרש.
ReplyDeleteThis concern for disrupting Torah study was also taught in a baraita: The members of the house of Rabban Gamliel would not say good health when someone sneezed in the study hall, due to the fact that it would lead to suspension of study in the study hall.
Someone sent me that video because it shows R Shechter's laudable focus on Torah, just like many stories involving the Gaon and Reb Akiva Eiger.
Anyone that doesn't do as R Shachter did does not realize the holiness of Torah or the respect for talmidim that came to learn.
haposel bmumo posel. We each have a lens that we see the world through
ReplyDeletekr
at least watch the whole video... https://twitter.com/RabbiGoldberg/status/1509022804385140737
ReplyDeleteWell put Rabbi Eisenberg. It's a shame that this even has to be explained. You can see how engrossed he was, and how the distraction disturbed him. When R' Shimmon Shkopf, who was learning by the Chofetz Chaim in Yeshiva, received a telegram that his wife gave birth, he went to his Rebbi to get permission to leave Yeshiva to attend the Bris. The Chofetz Chaim asked him if there was no Mohel in his town that he had to attend. Now, not everyone is on that level, but it seems that Rav Shachter is on the way there.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Shachter's stocks only went up in my eyes, and if the MO community finds this disturbing then they have some serious introspection to do. Something among the lines of not putting todays values above Torah values.
L'havdil, in Halakhic Man the Rav has a story about R' Eliyahu Feinstein, his grandfather (I think the story is about him) who received word on Shabbat, or maybe a moment before it, that his daughter, who lived elsewhere, had died. He showed no signs of aveilut until the moment havdala was over.
ReplyDeleteI used to think that was too much- until I saw the same thing happen myself. My rav's wife passed away moments before Shabbat; he took the phone call from the hospital (I saw him take the call and guessed what had happened), and didn't tell anyone (they had ten kids) until after Shabbat had ended. (He usually layned; he had someone else do it that week.) Why ruin anyone else's Shabbat, he figured, and he showed no signs of it himself.
Look, we're not all on that level. (I myself had a shiva that technically began moments before Shabbat started.) But it's something we hold up as an ideal.