Several decades ago, a newly married yungerman in Lakewood was dealing with a very sensitive issue. His wife of less than a week had been injured, and many halachic concerns cropped up as a result. As the vast majority of she’eilos in Lakewood at the time did, this question too landed on the desk of Rav Yitzchak Abadi. He handled the situation with the utmost sensitivity, guiding the yungerman and his wife through their ordeal in a reassuring and gentle manner. However, that wasn’t the end of the story.

 

Forty years after the story occurred, this yungerman—now a successful rav—visited Eretz Yisrael, where he happened to meet Rabbi Abadi. Despite the fact that they had lost touch, Rabbi Abadi remembered him, and they conversed for a short while. When they were done talking, Rabbi Abadi asked, “How is your wife doing?” Despite the passage of time and the numerous she’eilos that he had dealt with since, Rabbi Abadi remembered what had happened and continued to be concerned with this woman’s welfare.

 

This story personifies who Rabbi Abadi was. Yes, he was a tremendous talmid chacham with an encyclopedic knowledge of halachah, but that wasn’t the entirety of who he was. He was a rav who led with compassion, defusing difficult situations with gentleness and warmth. For him, it wasn’t only about the question but about the person asking the question.

 

On the occasion of Rabbi Abadi’s shloshim, The Voice spoke to two senior rabbanim—Rav Shmuel Meir Katz, senior posek in Beis Medrash Govoha, and Rav Gershon Bess, marah d’asrah of Kehilas Beis Yaakov of Los Angeles—who shared their memories of Rabbi Abadi and reflected on the legacy of this towering personality.

 

Humble roots

When he was born, no one could have envisioned the path that young Yitzchak Abadi would ultimately take. His background didn’t suggest a future as the world-renowned rav he would become.

 

He was born in 1933 to an irreligious family that had temporarily relocated to Venezuela from Teveria due to ongoing Arab violence in Eretz Yisrael. At the time of his birth, there was a dearth of mohalim in Venezuela, and it was difficult to find someone that was qualified to perform a bris. For that reason, many Jews in the area went without a bris. However, the Abadi family was adamant that their son would have a bris on the eighth day.

 

They somehow managed to find a mohel, and Rabbi Abadi was zocheh to a bris b’zmano. However, he wasn’t the only one to have a bris that day. His mohel performed many more brissim for others in the community who hadn’t yet had the opportunity to perform the mitzvah. Already as an infant, Rabbi Abadi was a catalyst for a strengthening of Yiddishkeit. Perhaps this was a precursor of things to come.

 

When he was two years old, his family returned to Teveria. It was there that the young Yitzchak Abadi began to come into his own.

 

He would frequent the shul in Teveria and soon caught the attention of the chief rabbi of Teveria, Rav Refoel Kook. The rav took an interest in this youngster from a non-religious home who seemed so interested in Torah and tefillah. After being under the rav’s tutelage for a number of years, he was sent to learn in a yeshivah in Tel Aviv. It was during this time that Rabbi Abadi forged a connection with the gadol hador, the Chazon Ish. It was a relationship that would impact the rest of his life.

 

The Chazon Ish took Yitzchak Abadi under his wing and acted as a father figure to him. Rabbi Abadi would visit the Chazon Ish on a weekly basis to be tested on his learning. Even when visits to the Chazon Ish were curtailed and the rebbetzin wasn’t letting anyone in, the Chazon Ish made sure that Yitzchak Abadi could enter his home.

 

Rav Shmuel Meir says that the influence that the Chazon Ish had on Rabbi Abadi was evident years later. “He [Rabbi Abadi] told me that he once witnessed the Chazon Ish saying Birkas Hamazon. He said that he had to hold onto the table to restrain himself from running away. He described it as being as if the Shamayim had opened up and the malachim were singing shirah. That’s how powerful the Chazon Ish’s bentching was.

 

“When Rabbi Abadi bentched, it was also a sight to behold. He had a face of total concentration, with his eyes closed and a furrowed brow. And it was the same with tefillah. When he was davening, there was nothing else in the world for him other than the Ribono Shel Olam.”

 

From Tel Aviv, Rabbi Abadi went on to Chevron Yeshivah, where he was roommates with Rav Moshe Sternbuch and Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg. That was the start of a lifelong friendship that Rabbi Abadi maintained with these future gedolim.

While learning in Chevron, Rabbi Abadi began experiencing health issues. The Chazon Ish sent him to learn in Montreux, Switzerland, where there was a protocol to treat his ailment. The yeshivah there didn’t work out for him, so the Chazon Ish sent him to learn in Lakewood. It was there, in Rav Aharon Kotler’s Bais Medrash Govoha, that Rabbi Abadi found the place he belonged. Rabbi Abadi thrived in the yeshivah’s rarefied atmosphere of intense, serious hasmadah and soon earned himself a name as one of its most distinguished talmidim.

 

Lakewood years     

“When Rabbi Abadi arrived at Lakewood, he met [the mashgiach] Rav Nosson Wachtofogel outside the building,” Rav Shmuel Meir recounts. “He was a bachur who had just arrived from Eretz Yisrael, without any family in America and not knowing any English. Rac Nosson turned to him, showed him the beis medrash, and said, ‘Go and learn.’ The dormitory and lunchroom weren’t important; learning was the only thing that mattered. That was Rabbi Abadi’s introduction to the yeshivah.”

 

And learn he did. He was chavrusas with some of the yeshivah’s best talmidim, including Rav Shneur Kotler and Rav Hillel Zaks. Within a short time of his arrival, he also became very close with the rosh yeshivah, Rav Aharon Kotler.

 

Alone, without any family on these shores, he became a ben bayis by Rav Aharon. In later years, he would remark that he could tell people exactly how Rav Aharon conducted himself on Pesach, because he would prepare Pesach for him. Rav Shmuel Meir says that he observed how Rabbi Abadi incorporated Rav Aharon’s hanhagos into his own Seder.

 

“I ate the Seder with Rabbi Abadi several times,” he says. “When it came to motzi matzah, he would break off bite-sized pieces from the matzah and eat them one after another for a kezayis in the allotted amount of time, as he had seen Rav Aharon do. Another hanhagah he picked up from Rav Aharon was to rise as a hiddur by shefoch chamascha and call out “Baruch Habah.”

 

The imprint Rav Aharon had on him was etched onto Rabbi Abadi’s heart. He loved his rebbi and venerated him for his gadlus.

 

“There was a time that Rav Aharon was in an accident and had to be out of yeshivah for several weeks,” Rav Shmuel Meir says. “When he returned to Lakewood, the entire yeshivah went out to greet him on County Line Road. Upon seeing him in the car, Rabbi Abadi made the brachah Shechalak M’chachmaso (the brachah one makes upon seeing a talmid chacham of extraordinary proportions).”

 

“I was once walking with Rabbi Abadi near Yeshivah, and we passed by the location that had once housed the yeshivah and Rav Aharon’s office. He told me, ‘If the Shechinah would rest in chutz la’aretz, it would rest here.” Such was reverence that Rabbi Abadi had for Rav Aharon and Beis Medrash Govoha.”

 

Leading and teaching

As the years passed, Rabbi Abadi became known as someone people could turn to with their she’eilos. “When I arrived in yeshivah,” Rav Shmuel Meir says, “he was from the most chashuve yungerleit there.”

 

Along with Rav Shlomo Miller, Rav Moshe Heinemann, and Rav Meir Hartstein, Rabbi Abadi was the go-to address for halachic queries. When two of those rabbanim moved out of town, that left Rabbi Abadi as someone that would handle the vast majority of she’eilos.

 

Rabbi Bess says that he did more than simply answer people’s questions. “He was very much a people’s person. He was very warm, very easy to speak to. When a difficult situation came to him that he couldn’t find a heter for, he would cry.”

 

It wasn’t only approachability and charisma, however, that set Rabbi Abadi apart. It was his venturing into areas that were beyond a strictly halachic purview.

 

“If anyone was experiencing any sort of marital issues,” Rabbi Bess says, “Rabbi Abadi was the address; he was the one people would go to for guidance. For the approximately six years that I was in Lakewood, there wasn’t a single get given. That was due to Rabbi Abadi.”

 

“He trained me to give chosson shmuessen. At one point, there were those who criticized his approach in these matters, so I visited the Steipler to ask his opinion. I told the shmuess over to the Steipler, and he said, ‘Genoi. Azoi mir daf zuggen (Exactly. This is what needs to be said).’”

 

He was a tremendous talmid chacham, with a breadth of knowledge that encompassed all different areas of Torah. At one point in his life, he was completing the entire Shulchan Aruch on a monthly basis and Shas every year.

 

“He was a person who really learned and learned,” says Rabbi Bess, “and was a very big talmid chacham.”

 

“When I was newly married, I came to him with a she’eilah, and he didn’t want to give me a direct answer. He asked me, ‘Do you want to bring this question to Rav Moshe [Feinstein]?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ In those days, you were able to drive into Manhattan and ask Rav Moshe a she’eilah. He said, ‘Okay. If you’re going, I have two other she’eilos I want you to ask him.’”

“He told me how he would pasken on each of those she’eilos. They were very complex questions that involved infinitesimal differences in specific scenarios that would affect the outcome. On each of the she’eilos, Rav Moshe told me how he would pasken, and it was exactly the way Rabbi Abadi had said! To be able to discern in such complicated matters as Rabbi Abadi had done—to me it was a mofes.”

 

The gedolim of the last generation held Rabbi Abadi in great esteem. Even when they disagreed with him, they acknowledged that he had the ability to render his psak. “He was very close to Rav Moshe, [and] I know Rav Shlomo Zalman [Auerbach] was very mechabed him,” Rabbi Bess says.

 

“There was a situation where he issued a psak that we disagreed with him on, and we weren’t so happy about it. After giving the psak, he visited Rav Gustman and discussed it with him. After his visit, I went into Rav Gustman and asked if he had met Rabbi Abadi. He answered, ‘Yes. He’s a gevaldig talmid chacham.’”

 

“I asked, ‘Did he discuss this psak? What is the Rosh Yeshivah’s opinion?’ Rav Gustman answered, ‘I told him that I personally don’t hold this way, but if you hold like that, you can pasken accordingly.’”

 

Rabbi Abadi didn’t suffice with paskening for others. He felt it his responsibility to prepare and guide the next generation of rabbanim.

“He began a halachah chaburah that included me, Rav Shmuel Meir Katz, Rav Herschel Brody, and Rav Shlomo Gissinger. All of us eventually took positions in rabbanus. His intent with the chaburah was to guide yungerleit in learning halachah and teaching them how to pasken.”

 

When he would pasken, Rabbi Abadi would see more than just a she’eilah in front of him. He would see the ramifications that could arise based on the psak rendered. “He would always say, ‘You need to pasken with seichel. It’s not only about knowing what the psak is; it’s about knowing what the next step is,’” Rav Shmuel Meir says.

 

His yedias haTorah was balanced by his yiras Shamayim. “Once, when he was a bachur in Lakewood for Pesach,” Rav Shmuel Meir says, “he ran over to Rav Aharon in a panic. He had found some crumbs in a bentcher and wasn’t sure what to do. Rav Aharon instructed him to put the bentcher back on the windowsill and not to worry about it.”

 

“He had tremendous kavod for sefarim. I once put a sefer down in a very secure spot, a place where there was no chance that the sefer would fall. Nevertheless, Rabbi Abadi told me to move it. He said, ‘If the sefer was worth $10,000, would you place it there?’”

 

Rabbi Abadi’s meticulousness regarding halachah in his personal life made a tremendous impression on Rav Shmuel Meir. “I once saw him taking out his garbage on Yom Tov. His yard was fenced in, and when he reached the gate, he made a sudden stop. He felt his pockets, pulled out a key, and took out the garbage. He wanted to be sure that he wouldn’t make a hotza’ah shelo l’tzorech.”

 

“If one mistakenly starts Atah Chonein [from the weekday Shemoneh Esrei] on Shabbos, the halachah is that he has to finish it. Rabbi Abadi saw a lesson contained in this halachah. ‘You don’t start speaking to the King about one matter, and then say, I’m sorry, I meant something else!’ he said. That was how he looked at davening.”

 

It’s difficult to convey who Rabbi Abadi was in a single article. He was a multi-faceted figure: a tremendous talmid chacham, a posek and mentor, and a close talmid of some of Klal Yisrael’s greatest gedolim. He was a man of great accomplishments and will doubtless be remembered for many different things. Yet, perhaps more than all of that, there was one thing that mattered to Rabbi Abadi above all. As Rav Nosson Wachtfogel told him on his first day in Lakewood, “Go and learn.” Learning Torah always remained his life’s focal point and that was what brought him the most satisfaction.