He could resolve the most sophisticated arguments revolving around Torah and science, while never budging from the tiniest detail of the Shulchan Aruch. Rav Shimon Schwab ztz”l was a master at bridging eternal spiritual principals with the draws of modern American life, while standing guard over the sanctified thousand-year-old mesorah of Germany’s Jews. In a first-ever interview, his son Rav Yosef Chaim Schwab — master educator in his own right — pulls back the curtain on a life touched by greatness

I

f there exists a stereotype of the German Jew as being austere or dispassionately polite, Rav Yosef Chaim Schwab’s greeting shatters it. The ebullience of his shalom aleichem engulfs me as I enter his Monsey home.

The stories he shares of his venerated father’s life and legacy is a rich, compelling narrative. It’s easy to see how this retired manufacturer has become a popular maggid shiur — a camera and microphone used for his online shiurim share space with the pictures and notes on Rav Yosef Chaim’s desk. Following two successful careers — first at Bell Labs, one of America’s foremost think tanks, and then in jewelry manufacturing — he eventually returned to his first love. His shiurim are popular on Kol Halashon, JRoot Radio, Torah Anytime and, for close to three decades already, in Monsey’s Ohr Somayach. And his sefer, Niflaos HaTorah, is seeing its fourth printing.

Today though, Rav Yosef Chaim isn’t talking about his own achievements. Instead, he’s agreed to a rare interview about his father, Rav Shimon Schwab, whose 19^th yahrtzeit falls out on Purim Katan, the 14^th of Adar I. Perhaps a 20-year tribute would have been more standard, but 1995 was a Jewish leap year, and so is 2014, when Adar I comes around again.

By way of introduction, Rav Yosef Chaim indicates a towering stack of seforim: Spanning two continents and six decades, they are the 13 collected works of his father. Starting with a hashkafah pamphlet written when Rav Schwab was a young talmid in Mir, Poland, all the way through Maayan Beis Hashoeivah — Rav Schwab’s classic on Chumash — the seforim, says Rav Yosef Chaim, tell the full story of his father’s evolution, the development of his ideas as they interfaced with the challenges of modern society.

Go East, Young Man

When Shimon Schwab was eight years old living in Frankfurt am Main, his rebbi asked his students to think about what they’d like to be as adults. The child didn’t hesitate; he would like be a rabbiner, he announced confidently.

This scion of a prominent family followed the expected path — until he turned 17 and attended a shiur by a visitor from the East. Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Ponevezher Rav, talked a different talk than what the bochur was used to.

“My father,” explains Rav Yosef Chaim, “had learned according to the minhag in Frankfurt — Gemara, Rashi, Tosafos, Rishonim — but he’d never been exposed to such deep lomdus, profundity and intensity. The shiur blew his mind.”

As soon as it was over, young Shimon approached the Ponevezher Rav and said “I want to join your yeshivah.”

“My father couldn’t even pronounce Ponevezh. Besides, it appeared to be a poor career move. There wasn’t a single rabbi in Germany who didn’t have a university education, and here he was, voluntarily leaving high school — but he’d tasted something very sweet and wasn’t letting go.”

The Ponevezher Rav sized up the eager bochur and gently suggested that the Frankfurt teenager wouldn’t appreciate Ponevezh. “Go to Telshe, its more orderly there.”

So Shimon spent several years in Telshe, and then went on to learn in Mir.

“There, my father met the mashgiach Rav Yerucham Levovitz, and he was electrified. The living conditions were terrible — he slept on a bench for years — but he never told his parents how rough it was, only how he was thriving.”

Writing on the Wall

Before completing his sojourn in Poland, Rav Schwab penned a hashkafic work called Heimkehr Ins Judentum (Come Home to Judaism). In it, this child of Hirschian Frankfurt took issue with the defining ideology of his community; he felt that Torah im derech eretz — the principle of involving Torah with the modern world, with which Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch saved German Orthodoxy from extinction — was outdated and not sufficient for a new era.

“My father perceived how valuable the outlook had been in its time, but he saw the writing on the wall, saw the ominous future for European Jewry even while others were scoffing at the threat posed by Hitler yemach shemo. My father thought that perhaps a move toward a life of Torah exclusively — constant immersion in learning and minimal contact with the outside world — could perhaps protect them and serve as a spiritual fortress in the face of impending danger.”

Rav Schwab visited the Imrei Emes of Gur to discuss his work. The Rebbe heard, and a few minutes later, he instructed his gabbai, “Reef tzurik dem Deitsche boocher, call back the German bochur.”

The young man came into the Rebbe’s room.

“Boocher, go back to Germany and say in my name that the honor of Rav Hirsch should be preserved and valued. The man is a living mussar sefer!”

The booklet was never distributed. Rav Yosef Chaim enjoys retelling the story in a rich, Poilishe Yiddish, doing justice to the Gerrer Rebbe’s smoldering passion.

After years of intense learning at the Mir, the young talmid chacham returned home in 1931 to become the first rav in Germany without a university education. Rav Schwab wasn’t yet married when he was offered a position in Darmstadt. That year, he married Rochel (Rescha) Froelich. Two years later he became rav in Ichenhausen, Bavaria. As a betzirks rabbiner, a district rabbi, he would spend each Shabbos in a different village.

“There were several kehillos under his leadership. The people were relatively unlearned, but they were fierce in protecting their mesorah, which stretched back almost a thousand years — Shabbos, tefillah, taharas hamishpachah, tzniyus — and of course, integrity in business. These were people who lived authentic Yiddishkeit,” says his son.

Through Rabbi Dr. Leo Jung, Rav Schwab — who had decided to leave Europe after being threatened by Nazi inciters — learned about a vacant position in Baltimore, Maryland. He traveled across the ocean to apply. He spent some time with the kehillah, Shearith Israel, and returned home to await the synagogue’s decision. The eventual verdict reached him by telegram. Two words: Elected unanimously.

Rav Yosef Chaim laughs. “My father was conversant in English, but the second word, ‘unanimously’ was beyond him; judging by the prefix ‘un,’ he thought it had negative implications, some sort of limitation or condition to the election. He asked a friend who spoke English what the word meant, and then he made a brachah of hatov u’meitiv.”

No Compromises

The growing Schwab family arrived to Baltimore in 1936 and the Rav quickly defined his role. In an era of unconventional new Jewish movements and ideas, he was determined to clarify traditional Torah hashkafah in every area. After a speech, one listener burst out, “You’re trying to take us back 200 years!”

Rav Yosef Chaim delights in his father’s retort.

“My father looked at him and said, ‘No, not two hundred years, two thousand years!”

Within a few months, the shul’s lay leadership saw it necessary to change one of the congregational by-laws. The rule prohibiting non-Shabbos observers from holding full membership seemed archaic.

“The young people don’t keep Shabbos,” they insisted. “If we wish to have a future, we have to allow them full membership.”

Rav Schwab stood firm. “This congregation was established in the 1880s by shochnei afar, departed souls, who had principles and we will maintain those ideals. Those who don’t keep Shabbos are welcome to daven here and attend classes; but they cannot be full voting members.”

The congregants were incensed at the temerity of the newcomer. “You’re an immigrant, and we pay your salary. You don’t make the rules here,” they insisted.

But he did; so most of the members left to form a new congregation. Shearith Israel, under Rav Schwab’s leadership, was left with only 11 members.

Rav Yosef Chaim finishes the story. “The break-off minyan quickly became Conservative and ultimately disbanded, their building sold to an inner-city school. Shearith Israel is, until this day, one of Baltimore’s flourishing kehillos.”

And he shares another of his father’s potent one-liners. “I once asked him what he would have done had he lost his position, and he shrugged. ‘I’d have gone to Johns Hopkins University and become a lawyer. I wasn’t sent down to this world to be a rav, I was sent down to be a frumme Yid.”

Two Congruent Paths

The new arrival took stock of the American chinuch situation and began to rethink his previous position. Perhaps Rav Hirsch and the Gerrer Rebbe were right after all?

In later years, Rav Schwab confided to his son that he saw great European rabbanim whose children were no longer religious — and many simple people whose children brought them tremendous nachas.

“He soon perceived the foresight of Rav Hirsch, that Torah im derech eretz had the ability to give the youth a path of vibrant Yiddishkeit that could keep them grounded and connected, without compromising their commitment to Torah law,” explains Rav Yosef Chaim.

While Rav Schwab came to appreciate the value of the Torah im derech eretz system — and indeed, several of his own children would pursue higher education — he was an equally big believer in the path being charted by Rav Aharon Kotler.

“He didn’t think that a successful Jewish society could function with 100 percent of the people in kollel, but he thought that having a tzibbur using every free moment for intense Torah learning was a fundamental ingredient in our existence.”

In 1958, Rav Schwab was invited to the seat of the newly recreated Frankfurt kehillah in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood, where he would serve as rav under his one-time rebbi, the elderly Rav Yosef Breuer.

Feeling compelled, as always, to articulate Torah-true ideology, Rav Schwab wrote a booklet called Elu v’Elu delineating the correctness of both approaches: the Torah im derech eretz of Rav Hirsch, and Toraso u’manuso [Torah as an exclusive occupation] of Rav Aharon Kotler, essentially withdrawing the premise of his earlier work.

At first, Rav Breuer wouldn’t give the sefer his haskamah, but some time later, Rav Breuer changed his mind and gave his approval to its publication.

“My father would always use this as an example of Rav Breuer’s greatness — that despite his accomplishments and advanced age, he was able to step back and see things in a broader view.

“My father would say that true maturity means being able to change your mind. I would always think that he had exhibited the same thing, in rethinking his earlier opposition to Torah im derech eretz and, following his fateful meeting with the Gerrer Rebbe, developing a genuine appreciation for it.”

But in later years, the undisputed leader of the worldwide Ashkenaz community told his son, “I don’t believe in Torah im derech eretz. Neither did Rav Breuer or Rav Hirsch.”

“I was shocked to hear my father say that, and I asked, ‘Should I close the door, Daddy?’ He said, ‘No, no, it’s alright. I don’t believe in Torah im derech eretz. I believe in talmud Torah im derech eretz!”

“His point was that merely hearing the rabbiner speak once a week wasn’t what Rav Hirsch had in mind. Rav Hirsch wanted laymen who were engaged in learning every spare moment, who had noble dreams of growth in Torah.”

Better Than Me

His intellectual honesty was such that no question or debate was off limits. Rav Schwab was one of the first recognized Torah giants to deal with questions posed by science, where the latter seemed to contradict the Torah.

“My father, who left high school before graduation, amassed a tremendous amount of scientific knowledge. He regularly lectured to the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists about various theories and formulas and how they fit within Torah hashkafah. I still recall a lecture he delivered on the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

“I remember coming back from a Chol Hamoed trip to the zoo with my own children, and my father asked me if I’d seen the zebras. ‘Yes, sure I did,’ I replied.

“‘Did you notice if their stripes were vertical or horizontal?’ he asked. I answered that they were vertical. ‘Do you know why?’ he asked. My father explained what the Doppler effect is and how Hashem had given zebras vertical stripes in order to make it easier for them to escape predators. Then he stopped and said, ‘But I’m sure you already knew all that.’

“My father once told me that anyone who maintained that there were contradictions between proven scientific principles and Torah is either lacking in scientific knowledge, or Torah knowledge.”

Rav Schwab was very clear in his opposition to secular Zionism and non-Orthodox Judaism, but would often comment, “I don’t dislike any Jew. I do dislike the system that cheated them out of what’s rightly theirs. I have no doubt that if any of these people had gone to yeshivah, been exposed to the people that I was exposed to, they might have emerged better people than me.”

We’re In It Together

As effective as he was on the wider stage, was he in his home as a mechanech for his own family.

“His chinuch was seamless. He was normal and loving and devoted,” says Rav Yosef Chaim. “There was nothing heavy or preachy in his methods, but we were deeply influenced by his every word, every idea. We loved being around him. Shabbos and Yom Tov were exceptional — it was such a happy, pleasant time. My father loved to sing chassidishe niggunim, and he enjoyed joking with us too. We loved hearing his hearty laugh. ”

Rav Yosef Chaim has the raconteur’s gift, and it’s evident that no matter how many times he’s retold these stories, he still delights in them.

“My father would joke that nowadays you can’t survive with just one mesorah. He would tell us, ‘How to learn, we get from the Litvaks, how to live b’simchah we get from the chassidim. How to give tzedakah generously from the Sephardim, and old-fashioned sincerity from American Jews. Dikduk hamitzvos and precision in avodah — that’s what we teach them. Nowadays, the ideal Jew is a composite of all the good found in the various streams of Yahadus.’”

And another maxim from Rav Schwab: “Our people have been on the road for so long that no one group has a monopoly anymore… we’ve got to share what we have as we journey on.”

Yet as appreciative as he was of other traditions, Rav Schwab was a fierce defender of his own halachic mesorah.

“My father knew how to give mussar, but he always made his point with a smile,” recalls Rav Yosef Chaim. “When I was young, I once bought these huge aravos. I came into shul on Hoshana Rabbah proudly bearing my six-feet long stalks. My father looked at them and then looked at me and smiled. “I’m just a little man, so I can use little ones; you’re a big man, I guess you need big ones.”

As a boy, one year Rav Yosef Chaim was excitedly anticipating staying up the entire Shavuos night to learn. Rav Schwab put things in perspective for his son.

“Remaining awake through the night isn’t worth it if the davening afterward suffers, if you’re sleeping during Krias HaTorah and the haftarah. Remember — staying up all night is a frumkeit, but davening with kavanah? That’s Yiddishkeit.”

Every Nuance

The Yamim Noraim were a special time in the Schwab home.

“My father would recall the atmosphere of Chodesh Elul in Germany — there wasn’t a layman who didn’t wake up before five o’clock in the morning during that time of year, to devote himself to teshuvah. My father would show me the wax on the old Selichos books, testimony to earlier generations praying in the predawn darkness. Back in Germany, the season was referred to as the ‘herbst manover’ (fall maneuvers), reference to the rigorous schedule.”

Contrary to accepted practice, Rav Schwab did not feel that his yeshivah bochurim sons should join the communal Tashlich recitation in the park. “He thought it a mistake to engage in idle chatter on Rosh Hashanah, the Yom Hadin, when every moment is sacred. He would advise us that it’s just as good to go alone, after Yom Tov.”

His personal avodah culminated with the Ne’ilah prayer he himself led. “My father incorporated his own niggunim into the ancient Frankfurt nusach. It was a hauntingly beautiful experience to be there. People still remember his melodious voice and unique nusach.” In his final years, Rav Schwab was confined to his home, even on Yom Kippur. “My brother Reb Moshe left shul to go check on my father and he came back quickly, visibly emotional. He told me that he’d opened the door to my father’s private room and been overpowered by the sense of holiness; my father was in there crying like an infant, oblivious to the world. My brother couldn’t even look, it was so sacred. He immediately closed the door.”

One Succos morning, Rav Yosef Chaim remembers shaking the lulav and esrog in the succah, before davening. His father noticed and inquired, “Where did you see that?”

“Everyone does it. It’s in the Mishnah Berurah,” the son defended himself.

“Aha. So everyone does it… well, not us,” Rav Schwab spoke firmly. “Our mesorah goes back over 1,000 years, to the Rishonim. You don’t have to be smarter than the Mechaber and he doesn’t say to do so.”

Incidentally, Rav Yosef Chaim notes that this commitment to each nuance of halachah saved his father’s life.

“The Nazis would confiscate the passports of anybody they perceived as dangerous, especially rabbis, thus making it impossible for that person to leave the country,” he relates.

On Tishah B’Av afternoon of 1936, Rav Schwab — scrupulous about following the Shulchan Aruch — came home from shul and immediately went to lie down for a nap, as recommended by the Shulchan Aruch’s author.

“The officers came to the shul looking for my father and he wasn’t there. So they went to the house, and my mother — having no idea that my father was in the back of the house resting, because he wasn’t usually home at that time — said he wasn’t home. They left.”

“If not for that,” Reb Yosef Chaim emphasizes, “I wouldn’t be here today. We would never have gotten out.”

Staying Protected

Halachah wasn’t just direction on how to live; it was a belief system, an island of serenity and calm within its dictates.

“I once flew with my father to Eretz Yisrael and I was sharing various analyses about which is the most dangerous part of the flight, take-off or landing. He looked at me in surprise. ‘Did you say Tefillas Haderech? If you did, then none of this is relevant to you. You did yours, and He will do as He sees fit. There’s no point in analyzing anything.’”

He saw every word in the Shulchan Aruch as an absolute. Once, Rav Schwab was being driven by his son, Rav Myer, principal of the Beis Yaakov of Denver. They were traveling on the highway and the Rav suddenly instructed his son to pull over.

He had seen a clear moon in the sky, and he wished to recite Kiddush Levanah. He refused to wait until they got home, because the Shulchan Aruch says one should recite the blessing on the moon at the first opportunity, and adds an assurance that doing so will protect one from death that month.

Rav Myer pulled over and the two men recited the tefillah at the side of the icy highway. They returned to the car and continued on. A few minutes later, the car skidded on ice and spun out of control, landing sideways against a tollbooth. After both men survived unscathed, Rav Schwab looked at his son and said, “Nuuuuuu?”

“I later asked my father why people who say Kiddush Levanah die, and he explained that the Mechaber means that one won’t die a misah meshunah, an unnatural death.”

Rav Yosef Chaim looks down for a moment and recalls the final few weeks of his father’s life.

“I remember how the nurse wheeled him into a private room at Columbia-Presbyterian hospital and said, ‘Rabbi, we got a beautiful room for you, facing the river.’ My father realized that the window faced west and since the moon rises in the east in early evening, he politely asked to be moved across the hall, facing east. ‘No, rabbi,’ she protested, ‘that room faces the parking lot. From here you can see the sunset over the river. This is where we put the VIPs.’

“He persisted in his request. ‘I don’t need to see the river, and I don’t need to see the sunset. I need to see the moon.’”

And a final story, one that echoes through the 19 years since the passing of Rav Shimon Schwab:

“My siblings and I formed a rotation at his bedside, and one evening, as I was leaving, I asked him, ‘Daddy, who’s staying with you tonight?’

“His eyes opened wide. ‘Who?’ he seemed astonished. ‘Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He always stays with me.’”

And so He did; through Purim Katan, the 14th of Adar 1 in 1995. The Rav had chapped arein one last Kiddush Levanah.

Stepping out into the late-winter chill, Rav Yosef Chaim leaves me with a parting thought. “My father would say, ‘If you fear Hashem, then you fear no man. If you fear people, then you do not trust Hashem.’”

“And that was really a big part of my father’s effectiveness. The awareness that Hashem was always with him empowered him to live with the mandate of ‘lo saguru mipnei ish.’ He feared no one, wasn’t intimidated by any sort of pressure. A pair of American disputants regarding ownership of a yeshivah once came to Rav Shach for a ruling. He sent them to my father, saying, ‘Rav Schwab is like an island, he belongs to no one. He isn’t afraid to speak the truth.’

“My father’s sefer on prayer, Iyun Tefillah [in English: Rav Schwab on Prayer (Artscroll/Mesorah)] has become a classic, his clarity and insight evident on every page. But I think this is what made it so well received. After all the brilliance,” Rav Yosef Chaim’s voice drops, “he was just a Jew who lived with his Maker. Hashem was always with him.”

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE KEHILLAH

Rav Shimon Schwab was born in the winter of 1908 in Frankfurt, Germany to Reb Yehuda (Leopold) Schwab and Hanna, of the distinguished Ehrlanger family. Reb Yehuda was known as “the lion” because of his courage and unyielding commitment to traditional Yiddishkeit.

Shimon Schwab attended the local yeshivah, Torah Lehranstalt, under the leadership of Rav Solomon Breuer. At the age of 17, he traveled to Lithuania, where he joined the Telshe Yeshiva, and later attended the Mir Yeshiva. His two brothers, Rav Moshe and Rav Mordechai, later followed him to the great European yeshivos.

After his 1931 marriage to Rescha Froelich, he was appointed district rabbi of Ichenhausen. In 1935, he was recommended by Rabbi Dr. Leo Jung as a candidate for a rabbinic position in Baltimore, Maryland. After his hiring, Rav Schwab and family applied for visas and emigrated to America.

Rav Schwab served the congregation, Shearith Israel, with distinction for close to two decades. In addition to playing a major role in the expanding Jewish community of Baltimore, Rav Schwab and his rebbetzin welcomed a steady stream of Holocaust survivors to their home. The Schwab residence also accommodated many gedolim who came to Baltimore on behalf of mosdos or communal causes.

In 1958 Rav Schwab was invited to serve on the rabbinate of the central K’hal Adath Jeshurun community in Washington Heights, New York, under Rav Yosef Breuer. As Rav Breuer aged, he transferred many kehillah responsibilities to the younger Rav Schwab and the two rabbanim worked side by side with mutual respect and appreciation for each other.

With the passing of Rav Breuer in 1980, Rav Schwab became the official rav of the community and emerged as a leader on the international Orthodox Jewish scene. His addresses and writings provided direction and inspiration to all sorts of audiences.

He authored many seforim; two of the most prominent, Maayan Beis Hashoeiva and Rav Schwab on Prayer have been reprinted by Artscroll/Mesorah Publications more than 25 times.

His children include Rebbetzin Judy Rosenberg of Har Nof, whose husband, Rav Yaakov, was a pioneer of the kiruv movement; Rav Moshe Schwab of Brooklyn; Rav Myer Schwab of Denver; Rav Yosef Chaim Schwab of Monsey; and Rav Dr. Yaakov Schwab of Monsey.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 497)