A story about a few words Reb Dovid once said, which captures so much of what made Reb Dovid the venerable personality he was

As the shloshim for Hagaon Rav Dovid Feinstein ztz”l draws near, I feel compelled to offer a personal remembrance, albeit obviously inadequate, to honor the personal connection my family had to the Rosh Yeshivah and his yeshivah. This connection took several forms, one of which was based on our Lower East Side roots, beginning in the first half of the last century with my grandparents, Joseph and Celia (Yosef Chaim Eliezer and Tzivia) Kobre, whose names to this day remain engraved in gold on the wall of Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem (MTJ), visible as one enters the building.

The connection continued into the next generations; and even before I went off to attend high school and beis medrash at MTJ’s Staten Island branch, while growing up in a home where there was nothing higher on the scale of values than uncompromising reverence for gedolei Torah, I knew that “gedolei Torah” was synonymous with Rav Moshe Feinstein and Reb Dovid.

After the petirah of my mother a”h, my father closed his life’s circle by moving back to the East Side where he was born, raised, and lived his early married life into his thirties, and his connection to Reb Dovid became only closer. As I write at the desk in my study, I look up to see the plaque Reb Dovid presented to us at the MTJ kollel dinner honoring my father’s memory, the inscription signed by Reb Dovid remembering “HaRav Mordechai Kobre ztz”l as a good neighbor and great supporter of the kollel’s needs.” And, many decades later, our family was also the beneficiary of a powerful brachah bestowed by Reb Dovid, for which we remain forever grateful.

Chazal teach that “ein osin nefashos l’tzaddikim, divreihem hein hein zichronam — we don’t erect monuments for tzaddikim, because it is their words that are the best way to remember them.” I will thus share a story I recently heard from Rabbi Elchanan Adler, a rosh yeshivah in RIETS, about a few words Reb Dovid once said — and generally, a few words are all he ever said — which captures so much of what made Reb Dovid the venerable personality he was.

Although Reb Dovid regularly attended the yearly conventions of Agudath Israel of America, he rarely spoke publicly at them. One year, however, he was prevailed upon to deliver a shiur in halachah addressing end-of-life issues, in the course of which he took a lenient position on certain matters.

Following the shiur, there was an opportunity for the audience to ask questions, and a lady involved in bikur cholim work rose and began taking strenuous issue with Reb Dovid’s position. She went on at some length, arguing that the prevailing approach was not to follow such excessive leniencies as she claimed he was advocating, and so on.

Most likely, many of those present began to shift in their seats, growing increasingly agitated by this woman’s impudence. But Reb Dovid wasn’t one of them. He just sat listening quietly. And when she was done and sat down, and everyone looked toward him, he said in his unforgettable voice of humble simplicity, “There you have another opinion.” And that was it.

Rav Dovid Feinstein, the rav of the Russian town of Starobin, was a gaon and tzaddik. At his son Rav Moshe Feinstein’s levayah in 1986, Rav Eliezer Menachem Shach said in his hesped for Rav Moshe that Rav Dovid “appeared as a malach Elokim to those who merited seeing him.”

At the levayah, Rav Michel Feinstein, Rav Moshe’s nephew, recalled an episode toward the end of World War I, when a band of Polish soldiers stormed into Starobin, and after going from house to house plundering the Jews, came to the home of the rav, Rav Michel’s grandfather. After confiscating all his valuables, they led him out without a coat into the freezing night, intent on taking him to his death in the woods outside the town. The townspeople, Jew and non-Jew alike, burst out crying at the sight, but Rav Dovid remained calm:

I remained behind with my uncle Rav Moshe in our darkened home, and he said to me, ‘“Come, let us say Tehillim so Hashem will protect Zeide,” and I, a little boy, repeated the Tehillim after him word by word. Our tefillos were accepted, and the Jews convinced the Polish marauders to ransom my zeide for the astronomical sum of 140,000 rubles.

The Poles then demanded more money, but my zeide instructed the Jews not to pay more and told the Poles directly that they wouldn’t receive one iota more. Finally, they relented and said they would free him on one condition: That he must repeat after them just a few words they would say in their language. But since Rav Dovid didn’t know what these words meant, he was concerned this was some sort of affirmation of avodah zarah. He told them that he wouldn’t say words he didn’t understand, and although they threatened to shoot him right there, he stood firm. When they saw his immovable resolve, they freed him and he returned to the town unharmed, to the jubilation of all its inhabitants.

It is said that Reb Dovid’s reticent nature was something he consciously cultivated. At the time of his bar mitzvah, he was inspired by the fact that he had been born in the week of parshas Korach and took upon himself then to be vigilant regarding lashon hara and to minimize his words.

But I wonder if perhaps it was the zechus of the great zeide whose name he carried, who on pain of death would not recite just a few words, which enabled his illustrious grandson to become a role model to his people specifically because he was a man of few words.

Yehi zichro hane’eratz baruch.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 838. Eytan Kobre may be contacted directly at kobre@mishpacha.com)