Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner he of the gentle countenance pensive expression and flowing gray beard was the image of a rav taken from a watercolor shtetl scene. Rav Yosef Tzvi Wosner has the look of a seasoned businessman his bearing and speech reflecting Brooklyn of 2015; but it’s in the eyes that you see the connection. Wise. Sensible. A layer of kindness and compassion. “We’ve been joined hand in hand for 76 years ” says the beloved son of the posek hador who passed away on Pesach at the age of 101. “I once told my father that I had never fulfilled the pasuk of ‘Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife.’ My father looked at me bewildered and I told him ‘No matter how far away I am I can never really leave the Tatte.’ ” During the recent period of Rav Wosner’s hospitalization his devoted son was back and forth — at his father’s bedside all week home to Boro Park for Shabbos. He has siblings; there were generations of Wosner progeny — grandchildren and great-grandchildren — and multitudes of talmidim vying for the opportunity to serve the ailing gaon but Reb Yosef Tzvi was unable to keep away. When his father was well the son from Brooklyn was intimately attached to him; so too in illness. Yet over the last month since Rav Wosner’s prolonged hospitalization even Reb Yosef Tzvi developed a new appreciation for his father’s role on a national scale. “Great rabbanim came to visit mekubalim admorim. One of them burst into bitter tears and said ‘If we lose him who will protect us? We are frightened for our generation for our well-being if chas v’shalom he is taken from among us.’ ”