A brilliant light in a most imperfect vessel. The vessel became ever frailer, but his yeshivah grew only stronger

Jerusalem's Rechov Ha'amelim is not a residential street. The buildings house metal-workers, with scenes of orange sparks flying off blowtorches, and wood-workers, their sawdust blowing out with the gentlest breeze. There is a bakery, its massive oven piping hot well before the sun rises, and a silver-restoration workshop, where precision and concentration are necessary all day, every day.

It's a street where toil is in the air, where effort and exertion crisscross the bumpy road like winter's puddles. A street of Amelim, literally “toilers.”

There is but one residence on the street, and in terms of sheer hard work, it towers above the line of shops at its side. The home of Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Rosh Yeshivas Mir.

They labor and he labored....

They labor and receive their recompense: crumpled bills. He labored and found life, joy, an ecstasy so profound it defined him -- and impacted thousands of people who saw themselves as his talmidim.

“Eidus hi l'baei olam, it is a testimony for mankind, shehaShechina shoreh b'Yisroel, that the Divine Presence dwells with Yisroel.

“Mai eidus? What, precisely, constitutes this testimony?

“Zo ner ma'aravi: the western lamp of the Menorah received no more oil that the other lamps, yet the other lamps were all kindled from its light, and it remained burning after the others had burnt out.”

- Shabbos 22b

“We must thank Hashem for the gifts he’s given us.” Rav Nosson Tzvi rejoicing with the most precious gift of all

Until just a week ago, there lived a man whose being testified to the words of the mishna - The Torah gives him kingship.

He proved that the Torah cloaks those who learn it with majesty, grace and dignity. That a figure rendered helpless by physical limitations could exude strength and focus, power and limitless ability.

The face of Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Mirrer rosh yeshiva, was testimony that the Shechina rests among Yisroel.

Like the western lamp of ancient times, the greatest modern-day citadel of Torah , the Mirrer Yeshivah of Jerusalem, had a ner-tamid, a perpetual, constant light. Consistent: seder after seder, blatt after blatt, chavrusos overlapping with their replacements. And the light? His smile could illuminate the darkest room, awaken the most dormant soul.

I never saw eyes that could dance as his, or a countenance so suffused - despite unmistakable lines of exertion and travail - with nobility.

Now the ner tamid, the brilliant light in a most imperfect vessel, has been snuffed out.

A Shmuess and a Song

One of the highlights of the week during my own time at the Mirrer Yeshivah was Rav Nosson Tzvi’ss Friday shmuess, delivered in his dining room. Since he spoke in English, the crowd was somewhat different from the standard audience. Rav Nosson Tzvi seemed different too; he was more relaxed and he spoke with a certain freedom and candor.

There would be a sefer open on the table when we filed in - more often than not, Chofetz Chaim al haTorah - and he would share an insight or thought, using it as a springboard to

“We must thank Hashem for the gifts he’s given us.” Rav Nosson Tzvi rejoicing with the most precious gift of all

other topics, often anecdotes and incidents from the preceding week.

But always, he would return to the same theme. The same word, really.

Torah.

We could hear the love in his voice

No composer, no poet, has ever invested a word with more feeling than he infused into that word. “Tey-reh,” he would say, his voice lyrical, an ode of yearning and love.

His heart was a like a guitar, each string sensitive and awake to hisorerus, and on those Fridays, he’d share the inspiration with us.

During the week marking the yahrzeit of his revered father-in-law Rav Beinish Finkel, he described how Reb Beinish succeeded in keeping all his holy fire inside of him, showing nothing to the world. Rav Nosson Tzvi used the words of a zemer that his father-in-law would sing on leil Shabbos, “libi uvsari yeranenu l'Kel chai,” to express the avodah of Reb Beinish, whose innards sang.

Then the rosh yeshiva stopped, mid-shmuess, and began to sing the words “Libi uvsari, libi, libi uvsari,” to a niggun composed by Rav Meir Shapiro. Instantly, everyone began to sing along, and for several minutes, we tasted -  if only temporarily - what it means: Libi uvsari yeranenu...

During those weeks that he'd met with gedolim, come Friday he would allow us a glimpse of his impressions. This week I met Rav Shmuel Wosner, he told us, and he spent the shmuess describing the incredible yishuv hadaas he'd seen, the way the Shevet Halevi measures each and every word before he speaks, the tranquility that envelops him.

He told us of observing Rav Elyashiv before an appointment, and illustrated the simple, almost child-like way the gadol hador learned the gemara, chanting “Amar Abaya...what does Rava answer? You hear Abaye? What do you say to that? And you, Rava, how will you respond to Abaye's claim?”

One week, he described how as a yungerman, he was walking along with Reb Chaim Shmuelevitz, engrossed in learning. They walked up the road across from the Mirrer Yeshiva, passing by a strip of stores, and Reb Chaim suddenly stopped in front of one of them. It was a shoe store, and in the doorway was a large basket filled with little children’s footwear, a mountain of tiny shoes. Reb Chaim was silent for one minute, two minutes, and then a tear fell from his eye.

Rav Nosson Tzvi was bewildered. Reb Chaim explained. “I saw the pile of little shoes, shoes that will be purchased by mothers for their own toddlers, most likely the first pair. I started to think about the feelings of a mother buying that first pair of shoes for her child and the joy that will fill her tender heart as she prepares to equip him for the path ahead. Contemplating her joy, I feel it too, and therefore I cry.”

That was the shmuess. That day, we cried along.

And sometimes, he would tell us about his youth, about the teenager who came from Chicago to visit his great-uncle, the Mirrer rosh yeshiva, Rav Leizer Yudel Finkel.

He would often describe how he slept in Reb Leizer Yudel's own home, in a curtained-off section of the living room. Reb Leizer Yudel would arise early, four o'clock in the morning, and learn eight blatt before shacharis, knowing that he’d be consumed with yeshiva duties all day. The nephew from Chicago would often feign sleep and watch his uncle's entry to the room.

“He would tiptoe in so as not to wake me, still in his shirt-sleeves,” Rav Nosson Tzvi recreated the scene years later. “He wore a wide smile, and as he approached the sefarim shelf, he spread his arms apart. He leaned over and embraced the sefarim, kissing lone volumes, saying the names to himself, like a mother saying 'good morning' to her children.”

Then Rav Nosson Tzvi stopped, his own face pained with nostalgia, and listed off the names, saying each one slowly. “Teshuvos HaRosh, Ri Migash, Rav Akiva Eiger, Afikei Yam...” We, his listeners, wanted nothing more than to run and master those sefarim, so melodious was his voice.

Rav Nosson Tzvi would tell about his first winter zman in yeshiva, after Rav Leizer Yudel had convinced his parents to allow him to remain in Jerusalem for a few months. “The rosh yeshiva arranged six chavrusos for me, three groups of two, with each two teaching me a different twenty blatt in Mesechta Bava Kamma. They chazzered it with me three times each, so that I reviewed it six times with chavrusos. Then, I reviewed those same sixty blatt seven more times on my own, for a total of thirteen times. After that, I felt like I'd entered Bava Kamma.”

The rosh yeshiva would smile. “You know what? Bava Kamma is still so special to me...”

There was something he didn't tell us. Rav Leizer Yudel had approached the most prestigious yungerman in the yeshiva, Rav Chaim Kamil, and said, “I am trusting you with developing a diamond. Don't let me down.”

Ultimately, Rav Chaim Kamil would become rosh yeshiva in Ofakim, in the Negev, but he remained the rebbi muvhak of Rav Nosson Tzvi until his own passing, just a few years ago.

And one last story from the Friday shmuess. The rosh yeshiva had married off a son that week, in Bnei Brak. Of course, we'd all gone to the wedding - not out of a sense of duty, but with the excitement reserved for family and close friends. The chasunah was something special, an outpouring of love and reverence for a rosh yeshiva of thousands, from thousands.

“I want to share something with you, gentlemen,” the rosh yeshiva began the Friday shmuess that week. “After the chasuna this week, my new mechutan said to me, 'I never saw a relationship like the one you have with the Mirrer bochurim; zeh kmo okyanus shel ahava, it's an ocean of love.”

Rav Nosson Tzvi looked around the room, his eyes shining as he focused on each and every person. Then he continued. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

Masses of bereft Jews, still reeling from shock, at the levayah last Tuesday

My Talmid

It's a unique feature of the relationship the rosh yeshiva had with his talmidim: there was no elite subset of bochurim that were “his type.” Each of them, the more yeshivish and less so, the intellectually gifted and the more emotional ones, the cynical and the sincere and the back-off types, they all felt close to the American-born descendant of the Alter of Slabodka, who had journeyed to the small Mirrer Yeshivah in Jerusalem and found himself at its helm. Yerushalmim and Israelis and Americans and Europeans and South-Africans all had “their” special connection with the rosh yeshiva.

Sure, they would observe him - the illness, the exhaustive schedule of shiurim, the personal chavrusos that piled up against each other, the crushing budget, the bureaucracy of running the world's biggest yeshiva - and wonder, “Does he really know me?”

And always, he answered the question.

He had private weekly chaburos with the alumni of the many yeshivos that were represented in the Mir, and one talmid, whose chaburah met each Wednesday, had the job of approaching the rosh yeshiva on Wednesday morning and confirming if the chaburah would be running on schedule.

Years later, that bochur was learning in Lakewood, and the rosh yeshiva came for a visit. At the massive kabbalas panim, the bochur waited on line with hundreds of others, wondering if there was any point. The rosh yeshiva looked wan, tired from his trip, and the line seemed endless.

His turn finally came, and the rosh yeshiva grasped his hand, his voice a whisper. “We miss you on Wednesday,” Rav Nosson Tzvi said.

Chaim, a talmid, traveled to New York from an out-of-town community for the yeshiva's annual dinner, simply to say 'Shalom aleichem' and greet his rosh yeshiva. He too studied the line ahead of him and was consumed by doubt. The rosh yeshiva doesn't even know who I am, he though. He has six thousand new talmidim in yeshiva and it's been a while since I left. I wasn't even that close to him when I was there.

The thoughts plagued him, and he considered leaving.

“But I've come all this way, what can I lose?” he asked himself before the questions returned again.

He waited it out, and his turn came.

The rosh yeshiva extended his hand, reaching for the talmid's cheek. He kept his hand there for a long moment, and said two words.

“My Chaim.”

For the fathers of the Mirrer talmidim, it was no different. They too waited in the hope of hearing an encouraging word about their son, evidence that this gadol was familiar with their children.

One father introduced himself.

“Oh,” said the rosh yeshiva delightedly, “I know your son, he does birchas kohanim near my seat every morning. And by the way,” the rosh yeshiva added with a smile, “he can use a new hat.”

There was a bochur in yeshiva whose older sister was having trouble finding her match, and his father asked him to request a bracha from the rosh yeshiva for the girl. At the annual dinner in America, the father came to greet the rosh yeshiva, and Rav Nosson Tzvi looked at him. “This year, im yirtzeh Hashem, she'll become a kallah.”

Of course, it happened, but that's not what's extraordinary about the story.

At the beginning of a zman, a personable bochur approached the rosh yeshiva. “I know that the minhag is that the rosh yeshiva accommodates every single talmid who asks for a chavrushaft with him, but I feel bad to burden the rosh yeshiva,” he said. “I have a request: I want my 'kevius' to be that each morning, just after shacharis, I will come wish the rosh yeshiva a 'good morning.”

The rosh yeshiva happily agreed.

At the dinner that year, the boy's father greeted the rosh yeshiva and received the following message: “Please tell your son I missed his 'good morning' today.”

A talmid returned to yeshiva after spending Pesach with his family, still feelings pangs of homesickness. He had enjoyed the comforts of home and Yom Tov with his family and it felt strange to be back in yeshiva.

After shacharis, the rosh yeshiva suddenly stopped by his seat. “It looks like your mother fed you well over Yom Tov,” he said.

“And,” recalls the talmid, “that was the moment when I knew that the Mir was my home.”

Rav Aryeh Finkel (right) broke down when the time came to be maspid the rosh yeshivah

A bochur had established a weekly seder with the rosh yeshivah; he’d walk Rav Nosson Tzvi home once weekly and on the way, he’d share a dvar Torah on the parsha. One Friday, at the shmuess, the rosh yeshiva looked around the room until he located that bochur.

“I heard a beautiful thought from a good friend of mine this week,” he said, before sharing that vort.

There was a bochur who was a late riser, resulting in his repeated tardiness at first seder. His chavrusa finally told him that if he arrived after nine-thirty, he wouldn't learn with him.