This ability to get through to audiences through rhetorical power is a critical component of Rabbi Wein’s legacy

Photos: Elchanan Kotler, Mishpacha and family archives

IN the summer of 2024, as Hurricane Beryl carved its destructive path through the American South, another force of nature — gentler but no less formidable — was being celebrated in Jerusalem. Rabbi Berel Wein’s 90th birthday drew an elaborate five-and-a-half-hour marathon of tributes from across the globe, a testament to the countless lives he had touched through nine decades of extraordinary service to the Jewish people. Yet amid the outpouring of admiration and affection, perhaps only one person remained unmoved by the grand spectacle: the guest of honor himself.

Rising to address the assembled multitude, Rabbi Wein delivered a classic demonstration of the wit that had enchanted audiences for seven decades. With characteristic self-deprecation that caught everyone off guard, he opened with perfect timing: “I would like to thank the National Weather Service for naming a hurricane after me.” When the waves of laughter finally subsided, he added with prophetic prescience, “I am glad I can hear all of these eulogies while I am still vertical.”

This ability to get through to audiences through rhetorical power is a critical component of Rabbi Wein’s legacy. Each year, my wife and I would make our pilgrimage to hear his Shabbos Hagadol and Shabbos Shuvah derashos, a tradition he maintained with unwavering consistency for 71 consecutive years.