That desire to “do for the Jewish People,” was nurtured in the Wein home

Photos: Elchanan Kotler, Mishpacha and family archives

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o rav in our time had the same influence across the entire swath of Orthodox Jewry and beyond as Rabbi Berel Wein. His hundreds of history tapes were standard listening fare for commuters, his history books were guaranteed bestsellers, the tours he led around the globe were invariably over-subscribed, some of the documentaries and animated cartoons produced by his Destiny Foundation were viewed a million times, and many hung on his weekly divrei Torah.

He was not affiliated with any organization (though he headed the OU’s Kashrus Division for years), and thus he always remained his own man, free to call balls and strikes as he saw them. That freedom allowed him, on occasion, to perform the invaluable role of communal gadfly.

He was not afraid to say, “I have no idea,” as when asked on a Headlines show for his opinion on hostage negotiations. But when he did express an opinion, it was with the confidence of being thoroughly grounded in the world of the litvishe gedolim in whose daled amos he was raised, including Rav Chaim Kreiswirth; Rav Mendel Kaplan; his maternal grandfather and boyhood hero Rav Chaim Zev Rubenstein, a product of the Volozhin yeshivah and one of the founders of Hebrew Theological College (Skokie yeshivah); and his father Rav Zev Wein, whom Rav Avraham Yitzchok HaKohein Kook once referred to as “my bookshelf” for his prodigious memory; in his own vast and near photographic command of Torah (which served him well when his eyesight failed); and his vision of the grand sweep of Jewish history.

He spoke without rhetorical flourish, in the gruff, instantly recognizable Chicago accent of his youth, just as if he were speaking to you across his dining room table. That was part of his ability to connect to so many listeners, even in large forums. And no matter what the Torah subject, much of the impact lay in his observations, asides, stories, and mussar — again, just as one would spice the conversation with a breakfast guest. One young man wrote to the Destiny Foundation upon Rabbi Wein’s passing, identifying a series of comments that had proven life-changing for him.

He enjoyed enlightening his audiences that not everything that is de rigueur today was ever thus. When he was sitting shivah for his beloved rebbetzin, he mentioned offhandedly how he had sat next to the Novominsker Rebbetzin in the only religious elementary school in Chicago in those days.

On a more serious note, he once told me that the Torah world has undergone many changes in order to preserve its core values. Both chassidus and mussar, for instance, can be seen as mutations, in his words, in response to deep-seated communal needs. And as such, both had done much to preserve the vibrancy of Torah life.