So many felt they had a special place in Rav Dovid Wolpin’s heart

Photos: Family archives

There were so many bereft students and relatives who felt they had a special place in Rav Dovid Wolpin’s heart, and were surprised after his petirah to find out how many others felt the same. But Rebbi, longtime mechanech and talmid chacham, who passed away a month ago on 3 Nissan, had room in his heart for all of them

When Rav Dovid Wolpin, a longtime marbitz Torah and mechanech in Monsey, passed away a month ago at the age of 81, it wasn’t just his family and community who were plunged into mourning. Generations of talmidim, who had been students of Rav Dovid’s decades earlier, felt the loss keenly. They were used to turning to Rebbi for advice, for encouragement, and just to share what was going on in their lives. Perhaps the secret to this enduring connection lay in the advice Rav Dovid gave his own four daughters before they went into chinuch: Treat each student as a “mamme's kind,” a mother’s child, he exhorted them.

He gave this same dedication and attention to each of his talmidim, and they responded in kind, establishing relationships that lasted long after they left the classroom.

Rav Dovid Wolpin was born in 1943 in Seattle, Washington. Both his parents, Reb Ephraim Benzion and Kaila (nee Krasnitzky), were children of emigrants from Russia who had crossed the ocean in the early 1900s. They got married in 1925 and had five children, four sons and a daughter.

Zeide Ephraim Benzion’s staunch refusal to work on Shabbos meant the family often went hungry. When he was offered a position as a melamed in a Talmud Torah in Seattle, then home to a sizable Jewish community, he eagerly accepted.

Zeide and Bubbe made the exhausting, three-day journey from the East Coast by train. They remained in Seattle for 30 years, raising their children there. Although they had minimal parnassah and were far from the major Jewish centers of the time, the Wolpins raised a Torah-observant family. The children went to a local school in the morning, and learned with their father in the afternoons. As the older sons, Reb Michoel, Reb Chaim Boruch, and Reb Nisson, reached age 15, they were sent to New York to learn in Yeshivas Torah Vodaath, coming home only once or twice a year.

When most of their children were already settled in New York, the Wolpins made the momentous decision to move there as well. Eleven-year-old Dovid aced his farher at Torah Vodaath and was accepted as one of the youngest talmidim in the mesivta.

“I was with Rav Dovid from when he was a young boy, newly arrived from Seattle,” recalls Rav Yisroel Simcha Schorr, rosh yeshivah of Ohr Somayach Monsey, who lived on Saddle River Road together with the Wolpins for decades, in an emotional conversation. “It was the year before Bais Shraga opened, and Rav Shea Schiff made a small classroom of three boys — including myself, Rav Dovid, and another boy — and we learned together on the porch of Bais Medrash Elyon.

“He was a true marbitz Torah in every sense of the word. He davened all the years in Tiferes Gedalya and Bais Medrash Elyon, standing before the amud with such varemkeit. He continued davening Neilah for us even last year, despite his age, standing throughout the tefillah until the end.”

After Rav Dovid’s marriage in 1965 to his eishes chayil, Chava (nee Bursztyn, daughter of the renowned Dr. Naftali Hertzel Bursztyn of Williamsburg), the young couple settled in Monsey, where Rav Dovid learned in Bais Medrash Elyon. He forged a close connection with Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, consulting with him frequently, as well as with other prominent Monsey Torah personalities such as Rav Mordechai Schwab, Rav Gedaliah Schorr, and Rav Shmelka Taubenfeld.

The Wolpins raised their 11 children in a humble home that miraculously had room not only for their large family, but also for dozens of guests and those who had nowhere to stay. Rebbetzin Wolpin was a mechaneches for many years, and served as the beloved longtime principal of Bais Rochel High School.

From 1970 to 1985, Rav Dovid was a mesivta rebbi in Yeshiva Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in Washington Heights (Breuer’s). Many talmidim who graduated from Rav Dovid’s class over 50 years ago kept in touch until his petirah, including Rav Asher Dovid May shlita, rav of Beis Tefillah in Monsey, who explains that the enduring rebbi-talmid bond was forged through the tremendous cheshkas haTorah that Rav Dovid instilled in his talmidim.

“Rabbi Wolpin was my ninth-grade rebbi in Breuers,” says another talmid. “I had my struggles, and Rebbi was so encouraging. Several years passed, and I visited him in Monsey. It was as if we had remained in touch all this time — Rebbi wanted to know everything about me, and took me under his wing. I remained his talmid through today — I’m now in my sixties. I consider him my primary rebbi.”

When Yeshivas Kol Yaakov, a kiruv yeshivah in Monsey, opened its doors in the early 1980s, Rav Dovid joined the staff. For the next 25 years, Rav Dovid was a father to hundreds of young men, not only teaching and guiding them, but marrying them off and walking them to the chuppah. And his involvement didn’t stop there; he attended their children’s brissin and helped them enroll in schools, and remained available for his talmidim for consultation and advice.

“He wasn’t just a rebbi who doled out compliments,” recalls a former talmid. “Rav Dovid made us learn, helped us grow, and gave us the geshmak of Torah. This was not watered-down learning. It was the real thing.”

Shmuel Dovid Drasman, another former Kol Yaakov talmid, remembers how as a chassan, he was under a lot of stress. “It was nearly Pesach, and I had to buy a strand of pearls for my kallah, but I couldn’t afford to,” he recalls. “I remember asking Rebbi — Rav Dovid Wolpin, my second father and role model — if I really needed to buy a necklace. When Rebbi answered in the affirmative, I asked, ‘How about if I simply go to the beis medrash and cry to Hashem to send me a strand of pearls? Can I do that?’

“ ‘Of course,’ Rebbi replied confidently. ‘That’s the way to do it. Hashem is your Father. You can ask Him anything.’

“I went back into the beis medrash, and put my head down on the table. ‘Hashem,’ I cried. ‘I gave up so much to choose a life of Torah , but now I have no money to buy my kallah a necklace for Pesach. Can You please send it to me?’

“At that moment, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was a neighbor of the yeshivah’s who happened to be a jeweler. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you’ he said, ‘do you need a gift for your kallah?’

“When I nodded, stunned, the jeweler said, ‘I have a beautiful strand of pearls. Come to my showroom and I’ll give it to you.’ And, just as Rebbi had said, I got a strand of pearls for my kallah!

“One day during shiur,” Shmuel Dovid continues, “Rebbi was explaining a complicated concept in the Gemara, and I didn’t understand. I kept asking questions, but Rebbi wanted to move on. After the shiur, he called me into a side room and gave me a pat on the cheek, saying, ‘I’m proud of you, Shmuel Dovid. You really want to understand. That’s the way to learn!’

“He was my Rebbi, my role model, my adopted father. I owe Rav Dovid everything.”

“He was not stam a rebbi, but a father to us,” adds Mrs. Shoshana Drasman. “He remained our rebbi after our wedding, always available for whatever we needed, up until his petirah. As he often expressed to my husband, ‘Your children are my grandchildren.’ We really felt it.”

The Drasmans aren’t alone in that sentiment. “From the moment I met Rav Dovid in Kol Yaakov, I knew I’d found my rebbi,” echoes Binyomin Segall, today a well-known therapist in Lakewood. “He cared about me and about my growth, constantly encouraging me to learn more, to reach my potential,” Binyomin recalls. “During my yeshivah years I craved a family structure, and found it at the Wolpin home. Even after I left Kol Yaakov to learn in Chaim Berlin, he remained my primary rebbi. When I was in shidduchim I would discuss every shidduch prospect with him.

“Rav Dovid was involved in my shidduch and had such nachas at my vort. He remained my guiding light throughout the years. I looked forward to visiting him and getting a ‘knip’ on my cheek from Rebbi.

“Throughout the years, as we raised our children, we had Rebbi’s constant encouragement, understanding, advising, and guiding. He saw your maalos and he also saw what you struggled with.

“At the levayah, it finally dawned on me that I wasn’t the only one who experienced that special feeling of love. There were times I would call Rabbi Wolpin — maybe once a week or even once in three weeks — and he would pick up the thread from the previous conversation beforehand. He knew my children, and he cared. And if there was an issue that was really bothering me, he listened.

“I didn’t have the same upbringing as the Wolpins. On Shabbos afternoons, at home, I would think to myself, will I ever be zocheh to have a family like the Wolpins? And chasdei Hashem, Hashem bentshed me with a wonderful wife, beautiful children, and it’s thanks to Rabbi Wolpin. All that’s mine is yours!”

Rav Dovid’s ahavas Yisrael was real and tangibly felt. He remembered the birthdays and anniversaries not only of his own children, but of his numerous great nieces and nephews, as well as the offspring of his talmidim. He was blessed with a sharp memory, but the real reason for his phenomenal recall was that he really cared.

“He would ask me about all my relatives, and if I didn’t remember something, he’d gently chide me, ‘You’re sleeping on the job!’ remembers a niece.

“One of our cousins was only three years old when his father was niftar, and his older sister got married a short while later,” says Rav Dovid’s daughter. “He says his mother will never forget how my parents called immediately after the wedding, late at night, to schmooze with her about the simchah. They understood she was coming home to a quiet house and had that sensitivity to reach out.

“For my father, attending a simchah of a great-nephew wasn’t a burden, but a source of joy. His heart pulsated with love for every Yid. He didn’t just want to be there for nichum aveilim — he wanted to be at people’s milestones, to rejoice with them.” Rav Dovid and his Rebbetzin made over 60 shidduchim, including many talmidim, and derived intense joy from every wedding.

“He didn’t notice if someone was wealthy or dressed well,” says another talmid. “These things were completely irrelevant. They had no shaychus to him. The real things mattered — Torah and mitzvos and the pnimiyus of every person. All he saw was every Yid’s neshamah.”

“He connected with everyone regardless of where they came from,” adds a son. “His talmidim from fifty years ago recalled the masechta they learned with him. It was ingrained in their kishkes. He didn’t sell ‘feel good’ kiruv . Instead, he was the champion of authentic Yiddishkeit, and they gravitated to that, sensing the emes.”

“From elderly Yidden to young children, people instinctively gravitated to his warmth,” says a grandson. “He left us a yerushah of what it means to serve Hashem with inner joy,” adds a granddaughter. “Regardless of the circumstances, Zaidy always had a good word to brighten anyone’s spirits .”

Five years ago, Rav Dovid suffered a serious stroke. He was comatose for several weeks, and remained hospitalized for many months, yet ultimately merited a miraculous recovery.

Afterward, he continued learning and teaching Torah with the same youthful vigor until he was hit by a car as he was crossing the street near his home. Sadly, he never recovered, and was niftar several weeks afterward .

After over eight decades spent serving Hashem, teaching and reaching His children, Rav Dovid has moved on to the Yeshivah shel Maalah.

Yehi zichro baruch.

If anyone would like to share memories or stories with the family, they can be contacted via Mishpacha.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1059)