Time to Move On

Reb Simcha was in Radin on the last Yom Kippur of the Chofetz Chaim’s life, in 1933, and when they parted he said to Reb Simcha, “When Mashiach comes, he’s not going to forget a single Jew, even if he’s at the other end of the world.” Reb Simcha would later reflect, “I felt the Chofetz Chaim was giving me a directive, and I knew that I was going to be traveling.”

And before long he was. Reb Elchonon sent his bechor, then in his early thirties, to Neudorf, a suburb of Strasbourg, to establish what was then the only yeshivah in France. Both Reb Simcha and his wife learned French in preparation for establishing the new school, named Yeshiva Torah Ohr l’Tzorfas, which he led for five years.

In 1938, Reb Elchonon felt it was time for Reb Simcha to move once again, this time to the United States. He wanted Rav Simcha to set up an American office for the yeshivah, from which he could collect the pledges Rav Elchonon had received during his visit and continue fundraising. Boruch Levine, a longtime kiruv activist who became close with the Wassermans during their years in Jerusalem in the 1980s, says the Rebbetzin showed him the letter they received from Reb Elchonon advising them to go to the States. “That was the moment, the Rebbetzin told me, when she and her husband knew they were not destined to have children. Many people, after all, had been asking Reb Elchonon where to go in the face of the gathering Nazi storm, and he would tell them all that America is not a place to raise Jewish children. Yet, he told his son and daughter-in-law that this was the place for them….”

During his first years on these shores, Reb Simcha led a kollel in Manhattan and later taught in Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. He became close with its trailblazing menahel, Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, and in 1941 he invited Reb Simcha to lead a new leadership training institute for promising young bnei Torah. Located on an estate in Spring Valley, New York, the Aish Dos program produced a bumper crop of future stars in the American chinuch firmament, young men with names like Moshe Wolfson, Moshe Shisgal, Moshe Weitman, Avraham Abba Freedman, Shalom Goldstein, Hershel Mashinsky, and many more. The seeds planted by Reb Simcha in Spring Valley germinated and took eventual form in another brainchild of Reb Shraga Feivel’s: the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, otherwise known as Torah Umesorah.

For Reb Simcha, the year 1943 marked the start of four decades of nearly continuous harbatzas Torah and kiruv across the length and breadth of America. He traveled to Detroit to succeed Rabbi Shamshon Raphael Weiss as dean of Beth Yehudah, a full-time Torah elementary school; in time, its full-day and afternoon tracks numbered over 1,000 students. In 1946, he was enlisted by Rav Aharon Kotler to travel to the DP camps in Europe as a Vaad Hatzalah representative. For several months he traversed the region wearing an American military uniform, hardly sleeping, as he worked to help provide the survivors with both their physical and spiritual needs. He was also reunited there with his only surviving family member.

Dovi Safier and Yehuda Geberer write:

In 1946, when he (Reb Simcha) traveled back to Europe as a Vaad Hatzalah representative, he had another important task at hand — reuniting with his lone surviving family member.

His brother Dovid, aware that Rav Simcha had gone to America before the war, penned a letter addressed to “Rabbi Simcha Wasserman — New York City,” informing him that he was alive. Miraculously, the letter reached its destination, and Rav Simcha was overjoyed.

By then, Dovid had met Eva Feldsztein, a survivor raised near Baranovich, at a chance meeting at the Vaad headquarters. Showing extreme sensitivity to her plight as a widow with a young son, he helped nurse her back to health, and when Rav Simcha arrived, the joyous wedding was celebrated, hastily arranged by Hatzalah legend Mrs. Recha Sternbuch. Eventually the Wassermans moved to New York, where they settled in Bensonhurst. They cherished their visits from Uncle Reb Simcha and Aunt Feige.

But astonishingly, less than a decade later, with the tree of Torah he had planted in full bloom, he left Detroit, bound south to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to establish a yeshivah there.

This was not an isolated instance: In one community after another — Washington Heights, Detroit, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles — Reb Simcha followed the Novardok model: He founded a yeshivah where none existed, and after doing the hard work necessary to get the institution off the ground, Reb Simcha would find someone he trusted to take over the helm. The he’d quietly move on, finding yet another community that needed him to fill a Torah void.

The Alter had inculcated in his young charges that the highest form of avodas Hashem is that which is performed lishmah, doing things with pure selflessness, with no one even aware you’ve done them. A lesser person with no children to perpetuate his legacy might have been possessive of what he had achieved, but not Reb Simcha. Once what he had built was viable, he handed it off to others and scoured the landscape for his next opportunity for kiddush shem Shamayim.

Willing to Go West

The principle of lishmah, of sublimating the self for a higher purpose, is a — the — recurrent theme in everything the Wassermans did. In 1953, a communal leader in Los Angeles contacted Yeshiva Torah Vodaath with a request: Would they be willing to send a contingent of boys out west as a founding nucleus for a yeshivah to be headed by Rav Simcha Wasserman, with the full financial support of the Los Angeles community?

In short order, the idea became reality, and Reb Simcha arrived with Henoch Cohen, longtime chairman of Chinuch Atzmai, who would serve as executive director and registrar, and a group of about ten boys, many of whom became well-known figures, including Rabbi Nisson Wolpin a”h, editor of the Jewish Observer. For the first few months, a yungerman named Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky joined the yeshivah to serve as a mashpia.

Thus did the West Coast Talmudical Seminary, later renamed Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon, come into being. Los Angeles was to be the last American station for the Wassermans, who remained there until their move to Eretz Yisrael in 1979.

Barry Septimus of Lawrence, New York, a close talmid of Reb Simcha ever since his years in the yeshivah in L.A., observes the sheer uniqueness of what Reb Simcha did in putting down stakes in California at a time when it was a veritable frum desert: “How does someone on Reb Simcha’s level — a talmid of his great father Reb Elchonon and of the Chofetz Chaim, someone who learned under Reb Isser Zalman Meltzer and studied b’chavrusa with Reb Aharon — go to a place virtually incognito, where no one knew who he is or can appreciate who he is?

“What prompts a person to do that? Why’d he leave New York, where he could have had so many more talmidim and had so much more hatzlachah?”

The answer to that seeming enigma is to be found in the Novardoker ethos of lishmah, which, says Dr. Fox, “became the cornerstone for undertakings that the Rosh Yeshivah would initiate throughout his life.”

It’s also what impelled the Wassermans to actively engage in outreach to their unaffiliated Jewish brethren long before the larger frum world embraced it as a communal priority. Rabbi Yaakov Krause, the longtime menahel of L.A.’s Yeshiva Toras Emes, who began his chinuch career in 1974 as a rebbi in Reb Simcha’s high school and stayed close with him until the end of his life, recalls his unique duality.

“He was a tremendous talmid chacham, someone with Shas on his fingertips and conversant in all the yeshivishe reid, who published his great father’s Torah writings. Yet was able to relate to rank beginners, and his outreach extended from young children to accomplished professionals.

“Every Sunday morning, you’d see these men walking into the yeshivah for a class, putting on their yarmulkes. He led them through the Gemara using baby steps until they were able to learn on their own, and he chose exclusively topics in Nezikin, because as he once told me, he believed that Chazal’s promise that ‘me’or sheba machziran l’mutav — the light within Torah will bring them back,’ only applies to Torah they could apply in their own lives. These fellows weren’t ready to keep Shabbos or make brachos on everything they ate, so he didn’t learn tractates like Shabbos or Brachos with them. But Bava Kamma and Bava Basra, with their focus on monetary law, were things they could relate to and implement, and he believed this would bring them into the fold. And for many of them it did; they became very active in the frum community, building Torah. Some of their grandchildren are choshuve yungeleit.

“I vividly recall how on Yom Kippur in 1976, a young couple was riding by the yeshivah’s building on King’s Road on a motorcycle when they noticed people walking into the building. With their interest piqued, they stopped the bike and asked what was happening. Told it was the holy day of Yom Kippur, the young man exclaimed, “I know about Yom Kippur!” They went inside, albeit dressed rather inappropriately for the occasion.

“We heard the Rebbetzin gasp as the young lady entered the ezras nashim and she quickly threw a coat over her. In the men’s section, Reb Simcha gave the fellow a jacket to wear, and the two stayed for the duration of the day. A brilliant computer whiz, the young man began learning with the rosh yeshivah. Eventually, they moved East and started a family that has produced doros of lomdei Torah.”

Reaching Out

In Reb Simcha’s world, virtually anything could be a vehicle for kiruv. He would see to it that the yeshivah’s tzedakah boxes were distributed in communities up and down the California coast, not only to bring in income for the yeshivah but because one never knew what positive connections to authentic Judaism their presence in unaffiliated Jewish homes might create.

And indeed, one day the phone rang in the yeshivah office and asked if there was someone there who could give bar mitzvah lessons. Reb Simcha took the phone and listened as the caller explained that he lived in a town two hours from L.A. and had a son soon turning 13. He doubted that his local Reform temple was up to the task of preparing the boy for his bar mitzvah, and spying the charity box of the West Coast Talmudical Seminary atop the refrigerator, he’d figured it was worth a call.

Reb Simcha said he’d gladly provide the lessons, and when the man said, “But my son doesn’t even know how to read Hebrew!” the Rosh Yeshivah replied, “No problem. My wife is a Hebrew teacher, and she’ll have him reading in no time. Give me your address and we’ll come up this Sunday.” The Wassermans made many trips up to their home in Santa Barbara.

At some point Reb Simcha asked if they had neighbors who might want to learn as well. A Torah study group formed, and in time so did a shomer Shabbos minyan, and eventually, a day school opened in Santa Barbara — all because of a little tzedakah box in a Jewish home.

In order to recruit students, each year Reb Simcha would open the yeshivah to public school kids for one week. They would stay in the dormitory and get their first taste of serious learning with both the rebbeim and talmidim. The itinerary also included other enjoyable activities, such as a trip to Disneyland.

“Each rebbi had his territory to scout out potential attendees for this ‘one-week yeshiva,’” Rabbi Kraus recalls. “My territory was the Bay area and I would contact the rabbis of Modern Orthodox shuls there, to see if they might have congregants with children who’d be willing to come down to L.A. to experience being a yeshivah bochur for the week. And indeed, there are quite a number of kids whom the rebbeim brought to this one-week yeshivah from various regions in California who are now upstanding members of the frum community, even marbitzei Torah.

Longtime Los Angeles resident Dovid Bass was a public high-schooler from a traditional but non-shomer Shabbos home when he attended the one-week yeshivah during the summer following tenth grade.

“The one Orthodox Jew my parents knew was their attorney and he said, ‘Rabbi Wasserman here in town has this one-week program. Why not give it a try?’ I did, and I never left. During that week, I jumped into Gemara learning, and it was hard and slow but I stuck with it.

“The Rosh Yeshiva didn’t lecture; he taught by example. A boy in the yeshivah didn’t make his bed in the morning, and when he came up to his room during lunchtime, he found his bed made, with a note on it that read, ‘Bed made by Reb Simcha Wasserman.’ He didn’t need to say anymore.

“I lived part-time in the yeshivah dorm, but when I was home, I wouldn’t eat my mother’s cooking, which upset her. One day, Reb Simcha came to our home and asked to speak privately with my mother, and afterward my mother asked me to bring the chicken she had made for dinner into the dining room. I was expecting Reb Simcha to tell me to eat the chicken, but he didn’t — instead, he ate it. He must’ve questioned my mother about her kashrus practices and he was satisfied with her answers, and that left me no choice. And my parents ended up being enthusiastic supporters of Reb Simcha.”

Rabbi Krause adds that although Reb Simcha reached out to everyone, “what he had no tolerance for were the leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements, and at times, for some of the Modern Orthodox leaders, too. We were once driving by a well-known Reform temple in town when he saw a big banner outside it announcing, Come celebrate Hanukah with Us!

“Reb Simcha began chuckling. ‘Reb Yankev, can you imagine going to London and seeing a big sign outside Buckingham Palace reading, Come Celebrate July 4th with Us! During the time of Chanukah, the forerunners of the Reform [movement] were the ones we were fighting….’”

Not a Penny

In Along The Maggid’s Journey, Rabbi Paysach Krohn relates a story that occurred during the yeshivah’s inaugural Shabbos in Los Angeles when a local rav was invited to address the students:

It was parshas Va’eira, and the rabbi gave his interpretation of Rashi’s lengthy commentary on a verse in the beginning of the parshah (see Shemos 69). The talmidim listened attentively and respectfully, and after Shabbos they went about their ways. However, before they retired for the night, Reb Simcha called all the young men together.

“This afternoon,” he said, “you all heard someone deliver a dvar Torah. Unfortunately, he misconstrued the meaning of Rashi, and I cannot in good conscience allow any of you to go to sleep thinking that what he said was correct. Torah is the ultimate truth, and it must always be understood correctly.

For the next two years, Reb Simcha and the Rebbetzin, who had not yet come out west, agreed that she would stay on in Detroit, using the paycheck from her teaching position in Beth Yehuda to enable her husband to do his work in the yeshivah.

“Understand that this was in the early 50s,” Boruch Levine reflects, “when she had just lost her entire family in the war. For over two long years, she stayed alone across the country from the only person she had in the world, so long as he would make sure to call her every night. There were times when he’d interrupt a conversation with someone in the yeshivah to call his wife. He’d dial her and say, ‘Faigeleh? Ah gutteh nacht,’ and that was it. He knew she wouldn’t go to sleep each night until she heard his voice telling her everything was all right with him.”

At one point during those first two years, Reb Simcha told his wife that he was considering closing the yeshivah in Los Angeles. Both the recruiting of new students and the fundraising obligations were becoming exceedingly difficult. In addition, Reb Simcha felt that he was not being fair to his wife by being away for so long. He was ready to give up and return to Detroit. The Rebbetzin would not hear of it, responding: “It is because we have no children that Hashem chose you to build Torah in a wilderness. With children you would have to leave, because there is no Torah education for them. Without children we have freedom to build Torah where others cannot. You must remain in Los Angeles.”

Even when the yeshivah’s financial state improved, however, Reb Simcha never took a single paycheck — or even employer-paid health insurance coverage, as Rabbi Krause found out while on a trip to L.A. to interview for a teaching position in Reb Simcha’s yeshivah.

“Reb Simcha brought me along to the office of one of his major supporters who wanted to meet me. He went up first to speak with this person while I stayed downstairs, and as I waited I heard loud noises coming from the office above. It became clear that this man was shouting at Reb Simcha, and I thought to myself that if a balabos can have the impudence to speak to a rosh yeshivah that way, this is no place for me,” Rabbi Krause remembers.

“Then Reb Simcha came out, and I went in for my interview. The fellow said to me, ‘You probably heard noise coming from this office, so allow me to explain.’ He told me that Reb Simcha had never taken a penny in salary from the yeshivah, instead subsisting on the Rebbetzin’s salary as a second-grade morah in Toras Emes and the proceeds from selling his father’s seforim. But now it had come to light that he also wouldn’t allow the yeshivah to pay for him to have health insurance, as it did for every other rebbi. This, the man said, was going too far. ‘I told the Rosh Yeshivah firmly that the talmidim need him and Klal Yisrael needs him and that he had to accept the yeshivah’s paying for his coverage. That’s what you heard.’ ”

Hymie Barber, a CPA and health care industry executive who was a devoted talmid of Reb Simcha, tells of his experience serving as the treasurer of Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon, the Jerusalem yeshivah Reb Simcha founded together with Rav Moshe Chodosh after settling in Eretz Yisrael. “The Wassermans would return to L.A. from time to time, reconnecting with their circle of students and the yeshivah’s supporters, and on one such visit, Reb Simcha asked me, ‘Have you been depositing the checks I send you?’

“I said, ‘To tell the truth, I understand from Rav Chodosh that the Rosh Yeshivah has been reimbursing the yeshivah for the meals he and his wife eat when they come to the yeshivah, so I haven’t deposited them.’ His response was unequivocal: ‘I don’t work for the yeshivah, and when we come we’re there as guests, so we have no right to free meals. We need to reimburse the yeshivah for its out-of-pocket costs.’

“I couldn’t help but laugh, but he just repeated firmly, ‘You will be depositing my checks for the yeshivah,’ and that was the end of it. Of course, Ohr Elchonon wouldn’t have existed without him, but he called himself retired and didn’t feel the yeshivah owed him anything.

“Neither he nor the Rebbetzin had a drop of ego, except in defense of the Torah. I would drive him around on fundraising visits, and I got to see the humiliation he would absorb. One time, someone whom I knew well and whose father had been a big benefactor of the yeshivah told Reb Simcha he would give him a check, but then proceeded to criticize the yeshivah very harshly. I was fed up with how this person was treating the Rosh Yeshivah, and I spoke up. But when we walked out, he took my hand in his to let me know he wasn’t upset at me, and said, ‘I appreciate your trying to stick up for me, but I’m perfectly capable of doing so on my own. But he was coming after me personally, not the yeshivah. Please never do that again.’”

Yakov Goldfinger, the now-retired principal of a Los Angeles accounting firm, started out in Reb Simcha’s yeshivah when his family moved to the city from New York in the 1950s. “My father found out Reb Simcha was here so he knew he’d have chinuch for his children. It was a small yeshivah in a small house and Reb Simcha did everything. One Friday, I walked in at midday and lo and behold, Reb Simchah was sweeping the floor for Shabbos. It almost brought tears to my eyes: The Rosh Yeshivah himself, son of such a renowned gaon, was sweeping the floor.

“The concern he had for talmidim was extraordinary; when a talmid wasn’t feeling well, he’d go to his home to see how he was doing. He was very concerned that both the students and their parents should be happy. I remember one time when it was my turn to daven from the amud in yeshivah, and he was in his office right next to where we davened. I saw him dial my parents’ phone so they could hear me davening. He knew they would have nachas from hearing me.

“He also made sure the boys had a good time. One time he made a Melaveh Malkah in the home of a wealthy family whose home was on an upper floor of a luxury high-rise building, choosing that venue because he knew we would enjoy the stunning panoramic view of Los Angeles. On another occasion, he had a prominent Orthodox Jewish scientist come in for a question-and-answer session, enabling the boys to ask any question they might have about evolution and anything else regarding ostensible conflicts between science and Yahadus.”

Rav Simcha would often remind the boys how important it was to avoid the local distractions, saying, “We may be in Hollywood, but we are not of Hollywood.”

Dovid Bass recalls that he wanted to spend the first Rosh Hashanah after his marriage davening in yeshivah, but he didn’t live within walking distance. “So Reb Simcha and the Rebbetzin invited my wife and me to stay in their home for Yom Tov. But it was only afterward that we realized they had given us their own bedroom to stay in, while they stayed elsewhere in the house….”

Linked for Eternity

One aspect of the Wassermans’ uniqueness, says Boruch Levine, is that “they were gedolim as a couple. Anyone who knew them became close with both of them. It couldn’t be otherwise, because they formed an inseparable unit, worrying for each other even after their time in This World.” In his tzava’ah, Reb Simcha directed that if he were to leave the world after his wife, there should no hespedim for him at all; if she was still living, he would allow one hesped, with no praise other than that on most occasions he had tried to teach his students according to their abilities and that he had indirectly influenced a few Jews to become observant.

Although he originally had purchased burial plots in Beit Shemesh where his brother Dovid (who passed away in 1975) was buried, Reb Simcha subsequently allowed two plots to be secured for them on Har Hamenuchos — not in the Chelkas Harabbanim, though, but at the foot of the mountain, near where the bus stopped — so the Rebbetzin shouldn’t have to climb to reach his kever.

Hymie Barber recalls an episode from one of the Wassermans’ trips back to L.A. following their move to Eretz Yisrael. “Some of us put together a Melaveh Malkah to help raise funds for the Rosh Yeshivah, renting out a hall in a local shul for the event, and the shul’s rav made a proviso that there would have to be a mechitzah.

“Reb Simcha always showed up punctually to events and that Motzaei Shabbos, he and the Rebbetzin walked in early, just as my wife and I and a few other couples were busily setting up. The Rebbetzin took one look around and seeing the mechitzah, she gasped. ‘You must take down that mechitzah,’ she said to me.

“I explained that the shul’s rabbi had made our use of the premises conditional on having a mechitzah, but the Rebbetzin wasn’t placated. ‘But if the ladies can’t see the Rosh Yeshivah’s face as he’s speaking,” she explained, “they won’t be able to fully appreciate the message he’s conveying. They have to watch him as he speaks!’ Reb Simcha had the most incredible hadras panim. His face was very expressive, with sparkling blue eyes that lit up his whole countenance.

“I reiterated what I had promised the rav, but right there she said, ‘Please call the rav and give me the phone.’ I did as she asked, and when I told the rav that Rebbetzin Wasserman wanted to speak with him, all I heard on the other end was, ‘Uh-oh.’ They spoke for a few moments and then Rebbetzin Wasserman said to me, ‘Here, he wants to talk to you.’ I took the phone and he said to me, ‘You can take down the mechitzah.’

“Reb Simcha actually spoke very softly, but you didn’t really need to hear what he said — you just felt it. There were many times when he’d be talking to me and his hand would envelop mine, and I’d feel this warmth coursing through my body. When Chazal speak of ‘words emanating from the heart, penetrate the heart,’ that’s the Rosh Yeshivah in a nutshell.”

Sharing the Light

In 1979, Reb Simcha and the Rebbetzin fulfilled their dream of settling in Jerusalem. Due to the century-long bond between the Chofetz Chaim and the Wasserman family, they chose the Mattersdorf neighborhood because it was then also home to the Chofetz Chaim’s youngest daughter, Rebbetzin Faiga Chaya Zaks.

Although Reb Simcha gave up the yeshivah in Los Angeles, selling it to a Chabad group for a dollar, retirement was the furthest thing from his mind. The move to Eretz Yisrael merely opened a new, very active chapter in the Wassermans’ lifelong quest to spread knowledge of Hashem’s Torah to His people.

While still in the United States, they had heard about Boruch Levine’s kiruv activities at the Kosel, and soon after settling into their Jerusalem home they sought him out there, asking if he would do them a favor: send four nonreligious guests to their home every Shabbos.

“It’s not as if they had any shortage of Shabbos guests,” Boruch notes. “They could have had guys from Brisk and other yeshivos, and in fact they had those, too. But they wanted to be involved in what I was doing at the Kosel.

“Eventually, when I would hold a second Pesach Seder for nonreligious people, which started out in a home in Meah Shearim but grew so big that it was moved to a chasunah hall, they would come by taxi, and I would seat them at the head and they would lead it. Reb Simcha would also sometimes come to a kiruv coffeehouse that I had near the Kosel, as did Rav Shlomo Freifeld.

“It wasn’t so easy to send people all the way to their home in Mattersdorf since I had to get someone to accompany these guests there so they wouldn’t drop out along the way. But it was very worthwhile, and I would make sure to send them very special people to experience their Shabbos table.”

On trips to Eretz Yisrael, Rabbi Krause often stayed with the Wassermans for Shabbos, and on one such occasion, they hosted a couple whom Rabbi Meir Schuster had sent their way. Both husband and wife were professors at prestigious Boston-area universities, and their son, himself an Ivy League student, had decided to give up his studies in favor of learning in Yeshiva Ohr Somayach. His parents decided to travel to Eretz Yisrael to see what was driving their son to upend his life, hoping to dissuade him.

At the Friday night seudah, Rabbi Krause listened as Reb Simcha engaged them in a lively and enjoyable conversation that ranged widely over many topics, from politics to philosophy to science, all of which Reb Simcha handled with his characteristic aplomb.

“They agreed to return the next day for the second Shabbos meal,” Rabbi Krause says, “but when they arrived, a shock awaited us: The wife arrived with a black eye, her arm in a sling. They explained that on their way back to their hotel they had to pass through Romema, which was then a rough neighborhood, and ended up being accosted by thugs who beat them and left the wife in that condition.

“Reb Simcha shared with them a midrash in parshas Bereishis which explains that human beings can learn lessons about morality in two ways: by seeing the light, that is, by observing the beauty of living the ethical life, or by contemplating the darkness, meaning the unfortunate state of a community of people living without the reliable moral compass provided by Torah. ‘Last night,’ he concluded, ‘you unfortunately experienced firsthand what can happen when people are lacking that moral guide and sink into darkness. On Sunday, however, you’ll have the opportunity to accompany your son to Ohr Somayach to get a glimpse of the brilliant light given off by an atmosphere dedicated to a life of moral striving.’

“When I returned to the Wasserman home the next year, the Rebbetzin said to me, ‘Do you remember that couple who were here with you last year? They’ve both since returned to Torah observance, and in fact, they’re coming together to Eretz Yisrael to spend a year learning Torah….’”

In the fall of 1992, while he and his wife were on an extended visit to the United States, Reb Simcha took ill. Boruch Levine recalls: “I was there at the hospital in Crown Heights on the Thursday morning when he was niftar, and when the Rebbetzin arrived, I walked out of his room. She looked up at me and said, ‘You don’t have to say anything. I see it on your face.’

“And then she said, ‘It’s a loss for Klal Yisrael, and we have to see to it that the levayah will be in Eretz Yisrael before Shabbos.’ She had just lost the only relative she had in the world, yet she uttered not a word about her own loss, just, ‘It’s a loss for Klal Yisrael.’

“Just one week later, as she arose from the shivah, the Rebbetzin took her own leave of the world.

“The Rosh Yeshivah’s petirah came during the week of Parshas Noach, and an insight he often shared about Noach encapsulates what the Wassermans were all about. Chazal teach that HaKadosh Baruch Hu had a complaint against Noach when the first thing he did upon emerging from the teivah was to plant a vine from which to produce wine, rather than first making sure to propagate humankind anew. But, Reb Simcha asked, what did Noach do wrong? After all, isn’t it normal to seek solace in something like wine after experiencing such cataclysmic destruction?

“Reb Simcha’s answer was that when the world is lying in ruins, there’s no time for personal comfort; it was a time to rebuild humanity rather than focus on one’s own needs. And that was the Wassermans, precisely: Though childless, they didn’t feel sorry for themselves — they got to work for Klal Yisrael.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 986)