But as the old saying goes imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. There are aspects of the lives of the gedolim that we are all capable of emulating. And we should.

For over 20 years I have had the privilege of writing biographies of great Torah leaders. One common thread uniting the stories of all the disparate figures whose lives I have researched and written about is the way they used every encounter with a non-frum Jew or even a gentile as a means of creating a positive image of Torah and Torah Jews.

A little story involving Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky captures this attitude. Reb Yaakov once found himself in a doctor’s waiting room together with a six-year-old boy. He began playing ball with the boy. Someone accompanying Reb Yaakov expressed surprise that the rosh yeshivah would engage in such frivolous activities. But Reb Yaakov explained “I don’t know if he’ll ever have a chance to see another old Jew with a white beard and I want the association to be a positive one.”

During the 1930s Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler’s primary livelihood in London came from tutoring Orthodox boys who attended public schools. One of those he tutored was Aryeh Carmell later the principal editor of Michtav MeEliyahu. It was in middle of a worldwide depression and beggars proliferated. Rav Dessler instructed his student to drop a small coin in the cup of every beggar along his walk to Rav Dessler’s home.

Rabbi Mordechai Miller later the head of Gateshead Seminary used to reach Rav Dessler via a short bus ride. In those days London’s double-decker buses had conductors who collected the fares. Rav Dessler told his pupil to always go to the upper deck in the hope that the conductor would not reach him before it was time to alight. Then he — an obviously Orthodox boy by virtue of the koppel on his head — would have an opportunity to hand the money to the person next to him and say in a loud voice “It’s my stop and the conductor didn’t arrive yet. Here’s my fare. Please pay it for me.” Rabbi Miller learned the lesson that one must not only make a Kiddush Hashem when opportunity knocks but look for opportunities to do so.

A second thread running through the lives of gedolim is the dignity and empathy with which they treated every human being. Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky and another rosh yeshivah once got into a cab in which the music was blaring. The other rosh yeshivah wanted to ask the cab driver to turn off the radio but Reb Yaakov told him not to. “His job is so monotonous that without the music he’d go mad” Reb Yaakov said citing a Gemara in support.

Rabbi Moshe Sherer showed an interest in the lives of everyone he met — the nurses in the hospital in which he was being treated the superintendent in the building in which Agudath Israel had its offices the woman behind the sign-in desk in that building. He didn’t just inquire flippantly as to their wellbeing but listened to them intently often following up later on the conversations and sometimes using his political connections to help those with whom he had spoken. That’s why all the above wept openly upon learning of his passing.

The way that Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach acted if an immodestly dressed woman sat next to him on the bus has been much discussed of late. He would not immediately jump up from his seat as if the woman were contaminated. Instead he waited a decent interval before pushing the button signaling his stop and then got off the bus (whether it was his stop or not).

One of our Shabbos guests this week shared a story he heard from a bus driver on the Monsey bus. As a young man he had to deliver a large order of typewriters to Mesivta Tiferes Yerushalayim on the Lower East Side. As he was shlepping the heavy machines up the stairs a short older man asked him if he needed help. The young Klausenberger chassid did not recognize his prospective assistant as the gadol hador Rav Moshe Feinstein and gladly accepted the offer. Only afterwards when he asked the short man his name and the latter replied “Moshe ” did the penny drop.

The point about all these stories is that the gadol in question did something we could all have done just like everyone in Monsey could have greeted and smiled at a group of local nuns like Reb Yaakov did. But only he did.

In general I think that most Torah Jews succeed in breaking the negative stereotypes in most of our individual contacts with the outside world. But we could all do better. And emulating the incredible sensitivity of the gedolei Yisrael on this point is one means of doing so.

IN OTHER AREAS we cannot hope to reach the level of our venerated leaders. One of those is in the ability to evaluate a situation and take into account all the consequences. But we can still learn from their example the importance of engaging in cost-benefit analysis before speaking or acting.

The late Rabbi Shlomo Lorincz relates in his memoir In Their Shadow that he once received a note from the Chazon Ish instructing him to cancel a fiery denunciation of President Chaim Weizmann that Rabbi Lorincz was about to deliver in the Knesset. Later the Chazon Ish explained to him that there was nothing to be gained: Weizmann would surely be reelected to a second term and the speech would only succeed in making him into an even fiercer opponent of the Torah community.

The great Jerusalem maggid Rabbi Shalom Schwadron used to tell the story of a failed mission to Haifa to speak on behalf of kedushas Shabbos in the shuls of the city. Shortly before Shabbos there was a parade in which the mayor of Haifa drove up in a convertible surrounded by a number of women soldiers. Instead of speaking about Shabbos Reb Shalom denounced the mayor and the lack of tzniyus on Leil Shabbos and again on Shabbos morning in a different shul. Both drashos were poorly received as the audience resented the insult to the mayor of the city. Later the municipality barred Reb Shalom from returning to the city for a year.

When Reb Shalom reported his failure to the Brisker Rav the latter pointed to the language we recite in birchos haTorah — “la’asok b’divrei Torah.” You have to treat Torah like an eisek (business) the Brisker Rav said. As with any business deal you have to determine the costs and benefits of an action and determine whether it is going to achieve your desired result. “You forgot the purpose of your visit to Haifa ” the Brisker Rav concluded and thereby lost both the opportunity to enhance Shabbos observance and also to enhance tzniyus. (From Rabbi Paysach Krohn’s In the Footsteps of the Maggid.)

None of us possess the Chazon Ish or the Brisker Rav’s ability to weigh all aspects of a situation. But as the Ramchal writes at the beginning of Mesilas Yesharim making constant cheshbonos is crucial to anyone striving for personal elevation. Whether as private individuals or leaders of a large public considering the potential costs and benefits of every word or action is crucial at whatever level of acuity we are capable.

Parallelism in Delusional Genocide Claims?

The charge that Israel is engaged in a war of genocide against the Palestinian people has entered the respectable mainstream of Western discourse. Israel’s allegedly genocidal policies are said by the likes of the late Nobel Prize laureate in literature José Saramago to be an outgrowth of a traditional Jewish attitude that gentile blood is cheap and only Jewish blood counts.

The claim of Israeli genocide against the Palestinians is delusional. During the quarter of a century that Israel exercised full control over the West Bank life expectancy increased 50 percent from 48 to 72; infant mortality dropped 75 percent from 60 deaths per 1 000 births to 15; Israel built seven universities where none had previously existed; Palestinian illiteracy rates dropped to 14% compared to over 60% in Egypt today; and the Palestinian economy was the fourth-fastest growing in the world. If this was genocide it was genocide of a most peculiar nature.

One wonders then what kitrug could account for such lunatic claims gaining currency on Western university campuses and in the mainstream press. I’m not close to the level required to attribute events to particular sins. But if I were inclined to such speculations the recent demonstrations at Kikar Shabbos in which a group of religiously garbed Jews performed a bit of street theater in which they morphed into Holocaust victims would have given me pause.

The use of the “Nazi” terminology by Jews against Israel and her leaders did not start two weeks ago. At virtually every Jerusalem demonstration the term “Nazi” is hurled freely at the police. In The Prime Ministers Ambassador Yehuda Avner vividly describes a 1977 demonstration against Prime Minister Menachem Begin outside his New York hotel in which chants of “Begin yemach shimcha ” and “Nazi” ascended to the prime minister’s room 38 floors above while he was giving an interview affirming his belief even after the Holocaust in the Divine Providence guiding the Jewish people.  

All were appalled by the latest street theater which despite the worldwide coverage involved only a dozen or so people and which was roundly condemned by the Eidah HaChareidis.

Hopefully the revulsion of the entire Torah community heralds a decisive declaration against the casual use of “Nazi” for anything we are protesting against.