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Thursday, May 15th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Shlomo Greenwald writes:
Rabbi Henoch Leibowitz, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim: Rabbinical Seminary of America for over 65 years, passed away Tuesday, April 15.
The rosh yeshiva was born Alter Chanoch Henoch Leibowitz in the town of Selechnik, on the border between Poland and Lithuania. It is not entirely clear what year he was born, but his American passport says June 2, 1918.
Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim, officially known as Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yisrael Meir HaKohen, was started by Rabbi Leibowitz’s father, Rabbi Dovid Leibowitz, in 1933. It was named after the latter’s great uncle, the Chofetz Chaim, who died the same year. Still in his twenties, Rabbi Hencoh Leibowitz became rosh yeshiva when his father died in 1941.
Rabbi Leibowitz imprinted his stamp on the yeshiva for over six decades and so his legacy is closely tied to that of the yeshiva. Rabbi Hayim Schwartz, the yeshiva’s executive director, said that Rabbi leibowitz’s formal students number some 2,500, but when you count those whom he had touched and influenced, the number may well reach tens of thousands
Rabbi Leibowitz encouraged capable alumni to start yeshivas in communities with little or no formal yeshiva instruction in place. There are some two dozen affiliate yeshivas in the United States, Canada and Israel. There are also three affiliate girls’ schools.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Rabbi Leibowitz placed an emphasis on the rebbi-student relationship, inculcating in students the importance of mussar, of being good and decent, and of teaching Torah to others.
Judith writes:
I sensed my sadness and trepidation from the moment he rolled into the room. This time he didn’t ask to be pushed by his aide, but rather maneuvered his massive wheelchair using his chin on the joystick control. I saw his unsmiling face, his lips sealed shut and his always-twinkling eyes, glazed over.
I knew we were in for a difficult session, when Chaim K. doesn’t have the energy or drive to open the session; I know something heavy is weighing on him. Today, it is one week before Taanit Esther, one week before the yahrzeit of the cataclysmic event that changed his life forever.
As I sit with Chaim I sense the deep pain the car’s tires etched into his soul forever as it ran-over him, while he was on his home from his job of baking matzot, seven years ago. Yes, his life was saved many times over, and yes, Baruch Hashem and with G-d’s help, his brain was not affected. Though he can neither breathe on his own, nor move − with the exception of his face and one finger on his right hand – nor can he feel much sensation on his body, he is generally optimistic and exudes a unique life force.
But now two weeks after we have written an essay extolling G-d’s virtues and munificence which he called “B’SD” – which stands for b’siyata d’shamaya, with G-d’s help – I look at those days we discussed and wrote the article as the storm before the quiet.
Chaim has been heremany times before. By “here” I mean a place that is noiseless except for his whimpers of silent thoughts, dry except for his inner tears, whispers of anguish, and unmoving paroxysm of pain. It is a place to which he does not invite even his dearest friends and most loved family members. It is his Ta’anit Dibur − “Fast of Silence.”
In the over three years since I began meeting with Chaim, we (or I should say I) I have experienced few such sessions; he has had some such others while at home. That is to say, that though every nanosecond as a quadriplegic on a respirator is a lifetime of “what-might-have-been” vs. “what-is,” to Chaim’s immense strength and credit, and the love and support of his wonderful family, Chaim is a joy and inspiration to be with and learn from. Amidst this ineffable sorrow, the “every-day-outward” Chaim is always working to create an atmosphere of wholeness, which causes others to want to be with him out of joy and not chesed. His interactions with us “civilians” is, in reality, the chesed.
So today, when I see that he is sealed, closing himself from the environment, and especially to me, I try to give him space.
“Okay,” I say after about 45 interminable minutes, “I feel your power, your energy and your sadness. The article we wrote with Mimi and Jenny called ‘Mind, Body, and Soul in 24 Hours’ was published by that name in a special issue of The Jewish Press. There, you all discussed how the 24 hours in your new, since-the-accident existence, seems like years upon years long. The praying and wishing for time to go by, and for Geulah, the Redemption, to take place, is interminable.
“I thank you for sharing this small window of these feelings with me. These “sounds of silence” are noisily playing their cacophonic sounds in my head and heart. I know how lame this may sound to you, but your strength amidst the unplumbed pain is what shouts out and resonates within me in this quiet room. Thank you for sharing what must be so impossible to express in mere words.”
Our time is up. I venture: “See you next week, the day before Ta’anit Esther.”
Chaim hesitates and whispers with his parched voice, “We have nothing left to talk about, why return next week.”
“I don’t agree. We spoke for the whole hour of this session.” I look straight into his eyes, and think I see them saying “thank you.”
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