Although Maran HaRav Shach ztvk"l was best known to
the world for his activities in Israeli politics, this was
not the story of his life nor the main focus of his life,
even during the years in which he was politically active. It
is far from us to be able to in any way sum up HaRav Shach's
achievements, but it is clear that his greatest achievements
lay in the areas of Torah, yiras Shomayim and general
avodas Hashem.
To the Torah world, HaRav Shach's outstanding features were
his broad, deep and intense relationship to Torah and his
outstanding bein odom lechavero. For the overwhelming
majority of his life, HaRav Shach used his great talents and
penetrating insight in private avodas Hashem, learning
and teaching Torah, and helping individuals in any way he
could. These are what made him great and these are the main
components of what remains with us as memories and
inspiration.
The same talents and abilities that were, towards the end of
his life, expressed in his public activities, were for
decades intensely exercised only in HaRav Shach's private
life, which was characterized by an extreme ahavas
haTorah and complete mesiras nefesh to fulfill the
rotzon Hashem at every step of his life with not the
slightest hint of personal interest. It was this essence that
led to HaRav Shach's being accepted as the leader of the
Torah world. It was not his "cleverness" or "political
acumen" that convinced the great talmidei chachomim of
our time to defer to his judgment, but his clarity and purity
of purpose, and the assessment that his pronouncements were
truly the will of Hashem.
This is a matter of keeping our priorities straight and of
not confusing the trivial with the important. One publication
tried to sum up HaRav Shach as "a fiery soldier who was
willing to jump into the fray, . . . where kovod Shomayim
and the correct Torah hashkofoh were at stake." In
contrast, among his own talmidim and those closest to
him the stress is on his ahavas haTorah.
For one thing, his learning was his activity by choice;
politics were forced upon him by necessity. But more
importantly, his own main message in everything that he did
was that Torah and avodas Hashem are the only things
that count. And he was truly outstanding in these areas.
A veritable outpouring of material about Maran HaRav Shach
zt"l has deluged the community since his passing just a month
ago. A large part of this is "maiselach" that, for all
their truth, are not really worth the time it takes to read
them. But there is also a very large amount of telling and
reflection of great talmidei chachomim who were close
students of HaRav Shach, and whose words definitely fall
under the category of material that is eminently worthy of
study.
We strove to find the words of gedolei Yisroel and
talmidei chachomim that will bring out the aspects and
points that they saw in their rebbe and colleague, as they
saw them from their lofty perspective. In an earlier issue
(Toldos) we brought the thoughts of senior Torah
personalities. In this issue we are bringing the reflections
of great talmidei chachomim. Under no circumstances
should it be assumed that these are the "best," in any sense,
of what was written. The volume made it impossible for us to
review it all, and even if we had, we would not presume to
evaluate them one against the other, chas vesholom.
This is just a selection of the excellent material that is
available. This includes material based closely on
hespedim (HaRav Aviezer Piltz and HaRav Eliahu
Dessler) and other material, based on interviews, which
discusses more specific incidents in HaRav Shach's life
(HaRav Moshe Aharon Braverman and HaRav Meir Heisler). We
have also included an important piece discussing our
newspaper and explaining what HaRav Shach wanted from it and
how the Hebrew and English Yated published in Bnei
Brak is unique.
Overall, since HaRav Shach zt"l was no'eh doresh veno'eh
mekayeim, study and reflection about his life and actions
in the proper manner is as effective a means of spreading his
ideas as reading his words. May we all benefit from the
effort and use the insights properly, and may it be of
benefit to his great and pure neshomoh.
