On erev Yom Kippur like a bolt out of the blue came the terrible news of the sudden untimely passing of Rabbi Yehudah Paley zichrono levrachah and with it came a flood of memories. Not memories of isolated moments a vignette here and another there but a whole unified life story. All those vignettes joined together into a sparkling mosaic and the picture that was formed showed a unique and wonderful life. A vibrant pulsing picture overflowing with love of Torah and with total dedication to acts of chesed. The fascinating life story of a very special colorful personality now ascended to the Upper World immediately unfurled before my eyes…

Everybody seemed to know Yudke as he was affectionately called. He had a powerful presence you couldn’t easily escape from and a charming gracious smile that never left his face. Even his opponents -- and he did have opponents -- could never oppose him all the way because he radiated love and goodness of heart upon everyone who came near him. I first met him when we were both young bochurim learning in Yeshivas Kol Torah which at that time was located in an old building built by the British on the corner of Keren HaYesod and Ussishkin. Later our paths crossed again occasionally under various circumstances. But even during the years when I was out of touch with him I still kept hearing about Yudke. He was always shaking things up in the chareidi world whether it was a project on behalf of children something for the benefit of lomdei Torah or some new idea to help anyone who was suffering anyone who needed help. And we met again some twenty years ago when he founded the original Hebrew Mishpachah magazine. He carried Mishpachah on his shoulders for many years and it was he who first conceived the idea of putting out an English version of the magazine as well.

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Much will no doubt be said in weeks to come about his many activities and endeavors. But even now in the midst of these days of sorrow and mourning for his passing stories are surfacing from every sector of religious Jewry memories of the battles he fought for Torah or testimonies of the times he stood at the side of some exploited individual and saved him from his oppressors all sharing a common theme: love of Torah and love of all Jews no matter where they’re holding.

Reb Yudke was a wandering Jew always being uprooted and transplanting himself anew. And everywhere he left a positive imprint. He established Torah mosdos everywhere which are still flourishing today although few know that Rabbi Yehuda Paley was behind the founding of these institutions. Fleeing from honor was a hallmark of his character. But much will soon be heard about this as well. About his work in Teveriah for youth at risk about his visionary plan to establish a center of Torah education called Achuzat Naftali in the lower Galilee a part of Eretz Yisrael that was spiritually barren at that time. About the yeshivah he established in Ashdod for Bucharian immigrant children and the kollel he set up when he took up residence in Jerusalem’s Old City; the little-known story of his early patronage of Yeshivas Aish HaTorah and his role in getting that institution into its place of distinction overlooking the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. He had a hand — and a foot too — in the well-known Zilberman institutions. He did so much that one can only think that the need to move his residence from one city to another was decreed from On High for the sake of increasing Torah study in every part of Eretz Yisrael.

Yes much will be told about our Yudke and his mesirus nefesh for Torah but I would like to tell just two stories here. When Reb Yehuda came to live in Har Nof where he dwelled until the end of his life this Erev Yom Kippur the neighborhood was just developing and here too he found many opportunities to increase Torah learning. Another early resident was the gaon Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlita one of the gedolei Yerushalayim. This talmid chacham was not managing to find a beis midrash that was willing to give space to his kollel. Every beis midrash had its own reasons for regretfully declining. It was Yudke who called Rav Sternbuch to tell him he would put a room on the ground floor of his own house at the kollel’s disposal — and free of charge. Most people would have rented out that unit for a nice profit. But not Yudke: “A talmid chacham can’t find a place for his kollel? Here take my apartment!”  He wanted nothing in return but the sound of Torah learning which began reverberating through the building from that day on.

More surprising still is the story of Yeshivas Be’er Yaakov. For various reasons the yeshivah had to leave Be’er Yaakov and relocate to Jerusalem. And once again it was Reb Yehuda Paley who lent them a helping hand. He “sniffed out” the fact that this highly esteemed yeshivah headed by Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapira ztz”l was in dire straits and he gave them two apartments on HaKablan Street in Har Nof. And in addition at great self-sacrifice he helped to pay off a huge debt under which the yeshivah was staggering. This is not the place to go into the details but in the end he actually took part of the debt onto himself personally paying off the accumulated interest in monthly increments and finally paying off the debt itself. The important thing to him was that the rosh yeshivah should be able to learn and teach Torah without worries on his mind. And I can tell you that Reb Yudke was never a very wealthy man and this support of Torah did not come easily to him as some people might imagine.

But Be’er Yaakov is not the only Torah institution in the neighborhood that he assisted on the precondition that there be no fanfare about it. I’m sure that the full story of this man who stood at the side of Torah and Torah scholars will yet be told; I am only bringing up a few of my own scattered memories…

Even as I write more memories flood my mind of his acts of secret giving of the times he gave loans to people in need when he himself didn’t have a penny to spare --but he would turn no one away. I can bear witness that Reb Yehudah went and borrowed money in order to lend it to someone in need. I choose however to focus in these few first words of eulogy on the merit of his acts of Torah dissemination without personal benefit shunning honor or any other favors.

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This was why it hurt him hurt him very much that even some of those who were fed by his hand those to whom he lent large sums of money to maintain their institutions did not stand by him when Mishpacha magazine which he founded was slandered and libeled on false charges of preaching against Torah study. Why he asked couldn’t all these people call me and talk to me first before coming out against me? Why couldn’t they try to get at the truth? Why couldn’t they grant me the most minimal shamoa bein achichem a hearing before judgment as Moshe Rabbeinu commanded the Israelites before his passing? He couldn’t understand it and apparently he took this pain with him to the Next World.

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Yudke my friend your wonderful deeds on behalf of Torah and its scholars will accompany you like torches of fire illuminating your vision as you gaze upon the pleasantness of Hashem in His Sanctuary Above. May your soul be bound up in the bond of life.

Food for Thought

He who takes up no space

Finds a place for himself everywhere

(Rebbe Baruch of Stotchik)