At My Father, My Teacher

Elisheva Braun

 

Larger than life, leaders of men. Unique paragons of Torah, of chessed, of what it means to serve Hashem. 

Around their Shabbos tables, bein hazmanim, in missed-bus mornings and hectic erevs—what were they like at home? 

Three children remember. 

Rav Kalman Krohn

A daughter shares

Around the Shabbos table

Shabbos and Yom Tov seudos were major events. My father led the seudah like someone who was hired to inspire, uplift, and entertain a crowd of hundreds. As soon as he made Hamozti and took a bite of challah, as he passed the cut-up pieces down the table, he was already speaking. My father prepared questions and stories, scenarios that engaged and interested family members of all ages at the table. When I was a young child, my father would open his Chumash in front of him with a puzzled look on his face and asked me, the youngest at the table, “What parshah is this week?”

I would proudly respond with the correct answer and wonder how it could be that I knew something my father didn’t. He led the seudah in a very calculated way. While we were eating, he told fascinating stories, midrashim, or Gemaras. He didn’t mind if his own food got cold. After he took one bite so that everyone else could start eating, he would use the time that everyone was eating to share his thoughts and ideals. The thoughts he shared ranged from a Gemara he was in middle of learning, a midrash we never could’ve dreamed of, and oh, the stories! They were alive! He didn’t say them; he lived them. We would listen spellbound.

When he finished, he instructed the older girls to clear away and serve the next course while he led the zemiros. The singing was something special. He was very musical (he played several instruments magnificently). We have a whole playlist of songs that he composed at the Shabbos seudah together with my siblings. We all sang together, harmonizing highs, lows, and chords…it felt like Gan Eden.

In the zemer  “Kah Ribon Alam,” before the words that speak about Hashem taking us out of galus and bringing us to the glorious Geulah, he would say, “Now sing mit di gantzeh hartz (with your whole heart).” He would close his eyes, and with his hands outstretched, he would sing. It was magnificent and uplifting.

Woven into the seudah, there was listening, eating, and singing. Somehow, all ages were drawn to participate. Nobody wanted to miss even a little bit of the seudah. Most of what my father instilled in us happened at the seudos. Yom Tov was the same idea, just on a grander scale, and of course, he instilled in us what the treasure of that Yom Tov was.

On Sukkos, for example, my father challenged us to look up at the s’chach and find the letters of Hashem’s Name. We all claimed to see it. Our sukkah was decorated like a Judaica store, every inch on the freshly painted white walls covered with pictures of Eretz Yisrael, projects that we kids had made, sparkly store-bought decorations, and most of all, gedolim pictures. Oh, how he lovingly gazed at them. We had about five different pictures of the Rogatchover Gaon, each one giving my father more pleasure. One of us kids pointed to a strip of pictures lining the sukkah, “Why do we need so many?” they asked. With a twinkle in his eyes, he pointed to each one: the Bais Halevi, Rav Chaim Brisker, the Brisker Rav, The Alter of Slobodka, the five of the Rogatchover, and say, “This is my mother, this is my father, this is my sister, this is my brother, this is my uncle, and this is my zeide. You like looking at pictures of your family? Me too!” Nothing ever hung from the s’chach, because the s’chach was so heilig and you needed to able to see the Name of Hashem in it!

Watching my father delight in our sukkah was a highlight every year.

My father always told us that if you don’t love being in the sukkah, the sukkah chases you out. The sukkah only invites people that cherish being in it. I can write a whole book about the thrilling, special experience of each Yom Tov with my father.

One in a million

Growing up, I thought that all fathers were like this. Only when I got older and was way out of school did I realize that we had a special gift.

House themes

The theme in our house was Torah, Torah, and more Torah.

My father always told us that nothing exists or matters other than Torah. If you learn Torah, you have everything. When my father spoke to my brothers on the phone, whether they were in an out-of-town yeshivah or in camp or married and out of the house, the conversation was always the same. “Hello (stick in the son’s name). How are you learning? Good? Great! That’s the only thing that matters.” I remember him telling us that if he was ever put in jail, the only thing he needed (besides his tallis and tefillin) was his blue Gemara, a kartis (a card that he used as a pointer as he learned), and a lead pencil. If any of us kids wanted anything, all we had to say was that it would help us learn better, and it was ours.

Many times, I woke up in the middle of the night to see him sitting at the dining room table and learning. As little kids, he told us to keep a Chumash by our bedsides. “Right before going to sleep,” he said, “kiss the Chumash and say, ‘Torah, ich hub dir leeb—Torah, I love you.’”

He loved nothing more than he loved Torah. The Tanna’im and Amora’im in the little black letters of the Gemara were his best friends. He couldn’t get enough of spending time with them. He was always making siyumim at the Shabbos day seudah. The hadran that one says when finishing a masechta lists the 10 sons of Rav Pappa. Because my father made siyumim so often, we were quite familiar with the names.

When he would get up to that part of the hadran, he would pause, and we would all call out from across the table, trying to guess the correct names. It was so exciting! After the correct name was called out, he would say it and go on to the next name. That was my father. He swept us up in whatever his heart was involved in.

The second most important thing in our house was chessed.

My father would go around the Shabbos table and ask us all individually, “Are you ah gebber udder ah nemmer—Are you a giver or a taker?”

Of course, we all wisely said, “A gebber.”

Then he would smile. “Good! You gotta be a giver!”

When I was in first and second grade, my father drove my brother, my sister, and me to school almost every day. (I guess some of us didn’t always want to go to school…) Every morning, we quickly stopped by at Corner of Second, the grocery next to my brother’s yeshivah, and we all went in. As we quickly selected a nosh, a soda, and a Danish for ourselves, he always said, “Get one for Shprintzy and Shani and Chani also.” (He made up names!) We smiled and grudgingly took some more. As we waited in line to pay, my father would turn to the person behind us in line—usually another boy from the cheder buying himself a treat—and say, “Quick, run get some more nosh for you and another boy and I’ll pay for it.”

Even after he raised hundreds and thousands of dollars for his tzedakah organization, he still smiled with satisfaction at the chesed that he was able to do. But then he looked us in the eye and told us, “Remember, all this doesn’t come close to even one word of Torah. One word.”

Another thing my father constantly stressed to us was how we viewed ourselves. He asked us (at the Shabbos seudah, of course), “Are you a general or a GI? You gotta be a general.”

He explained to us that in the army, you can be a GI, a regular soldier, or you can be a general, a leader. A general cares for all those below him. He also isn’t afraid of people’s opinions of him and fearlessly does the right thing.

He lived his life like that, a real general.

A snapshot

When I picture my father, he’s sitting at the dining room table with his blue Gemara, his kartis, and his lead pencil, learning.

Expectations

He had very high expectations of us, but he was so much fun. Life around my father was one big party; it never felt intense. He truly embodied “Tov lev mishteh tamid.’”(For a person with a good heart, life is a happy party.)

The only time that was intense, and oh was it super intense, was Chodesh Elul. The awesomeness of the time was palpable. You felt it. Your entire life was being decided in a few weeks—you didn’t dare crack any jokes then. On Motza’ei Yom Kippur, with his face shining against the backdrop of his white kittel, my father looked like the kohen gadol coming out of the Kodesh Kadashim. That simchah and purity resulted from intense, month-long avodah.

Unforgettable

He was quick to say “Yes” to us. So much so that when we started saying, “Ta? Can I—” He would tell us, “Yes. Whatever you want, yes. The whole house is yours.”

We didn’t get too many “Nos” from him, but the few that we did get were unchangeable.

When I was in high school, my friends planned a shopping trip to Manhattan for midwinter vacation. My parents didn’t let me go, saying, “We don’t go shopping as a trip destination. If you need something, you get it, but we don’t go into the impurity of Manhattan for no reason other than a leisure trip.”

I cried many tears, but my father, with his overflowing love for me, didn’t change his mind. My friends went without me, and today, I’m grateful for the lesson he taught me.

I can write pages and pages about being the daughter of such greatness. His talmidim, chavrusos, and friends can write pages and pages about being connected to such greatness. He was so humble and so great. We wait for the day of the glorious Geulah, the one he always spoke about with such excitement, when we’ll be reunited once again.