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15 Sivan 5765 - June 22, 2005 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Opinion & Comment
A Lion in Hiding

by R' A. Chafetz

Written soon after his passing, we are publishing this for the first yahrtzeit of HaRav Gedaliah Nadel, zt"l, 16 Sivan.

There were those who thought it was proper to attempt eulogizing R' Gedaliah Nadel zt'l, but in vain. To those participating in his funeral there remained only the moments of parting from a sefer Torah about to be buried. In the laden atmosphere there hung a great cry: Rouse yourselves from your sleep to yet grasp on to the casket of one whose body and soul personified a true talmid chochom.

The children of the new generation who were not yet asleep at the late hour of night, the young married men or the youths whose hearts were still awake, were able to hear the roving loudspeaker announcing the funeral. They were privileged to accompany to his final rest one of the remnants of a distinguished generation which are slowly fading from the world scene.

"Run to grasp onto the pall of HaGaon Hagodol R' Gedaliah!" Touch with your fleshly hands the coffin of R' Gedaliah Nadel — a heavy wooden casket. Strong. Very much so. Thick and hard. A simple hardwood — so simple, in fact, that it screams from one end of the world to the other . . .

Some coffins are constructed from trees whose treetops can only be seen from a distance, but their trunk and roots are not visible to the eye. Here — the opposite is true: a coffin constructed from a tree whose roots and trunk hug the ground and could be seen up close. But its treetop was so far up, it stretched up so high that its peak could not be seen from among the cedars of Lebanon.

*

The particulars about his personal, private life were like sections of parchment of a superior sefer Torah. Who were they written by? The Chazon Ish.

Maran the Chazon Ish ztvk'l was the first one to inscribe the initial letters in that holy book and many were the people who so loved to peer into that `sefer Torah.' But they were not given permission to lift it up. He refused. And there were those who naively thought that when that sefer Torah would be furled and the ark would begin moving, then R' Gedaliah would permit it. He would sanction the kissing of the paroches, perhaps to kiss the fringes and sacred decorations.

But the gaon passed away and is no more. He wished to disappear in the dark of night, and did so on motzei Shabbos after midnight. Perhaps he thought that no one would take notice, no one would know to pay him his last respects. But who, indeed, did not come, all atremble with awe and veneration?

Tonight, my honored friends, we have gathered to bemoan and shed a tear over those Torah scholars who slam the door upon all the fleshly pleasures and delicacies of the material world. A genius who, in spite of his brilliant mind and head in the heavens, did not fathom the taste of honor, the pleasure to be derived from fulfilling desires, pandering to envy, enjoying the luxuries of a fine house and pleasing furniture, the amenities of life and even the permitted modicum of self pride. Who needed all those?

The black mantle of night swathes the thousands of people standing and weaving gently and fearfully, to and fro, before one who walked our very streets, at our very side, his both hands like the supports of the Torah scroll, without ascribing an iota of importance or even attention to anything in his vicinity. A lion in hiding — who destroyed all the rooms and inner rooms that cling to a person, reserving a mere `four cubits of halochoh' for himself. That and no more.

Within this space he lived — anything beyond that was "When a person dies in the tent . . . " The fountain gushed forth from him, with love and pleasures — only at the side of the large gemora which glowed with a supernal light.

Life did not succeed in enticing him even as far as the doorway of that four cubit compartment. R' Gedaliah banished all the allures. He would only stretch his hand from inside that precinct and agree to pluck a kav-measure of carobs from the tree of R' Chanina ben Dosa to sustain him for the week. That and no more. He invested the remainder of his vigor in Torah or "I loved that Hashem hear the voice of my supplication."

Even after the Shas was absorbed into his organs when he studied, for example, a delectable `morsel' of R' Chaim Halevi on the Rambam, he would say that if he didn't have a space of at least 6-7 consecutive hours, his study was not the real thing, it was discountable. He would say, "For at every stage of his words, one requires a minimum of time to think and rethink the sugya in detail, to inspect every angle, every nuance. And even after that, who could say that one began to understand what he was driving at?"

This was said over and above the magnitude of a brilliance that soared to the very heavens and beyond. His purified body trembled when he touched the hem of the garment of the mighty acharonim sages — and all the more so, to be sure, the rishonim who are like angels in comparison, and utterly sublime in their holiness. He reveled, more and more, over every iota he was able to illuminate for himself from their corners.

And towards the end of his days, when he already found it difficult to conceal himself even from the very chair from which he didn't budge, people could see how, with his final vestiges of strength, he would take a Tanach in his hands, open it, and read from it with deep adoration. Verse after verse, without commentary. Torah in its pure pristine form.

And then, his brilliant eyes would shed rivers of tears. His face glowed awash from the tears that cascaded ceaselessly, melting his heart with the simple study of those verses, "And the Maharshal wrote that they testified of the Maharash of Keinan that after he studied Kabboloh, he would pray like a day-old infant" (Mishna Berurah, Siman 25 . . . ). HaGaon R' Gedaliah studied word after word verily like a day-old infant, with incomparable devotion.

"R' Gedaliah is weeping!"

And now, he is no more; he has left this world and gone his way.

We really should wail but if not, let us at least weep over ourselves. For we don't have many of his like to escort. They disappear in the darkness, after midnight, and are interred in the very bosom of the big darkness, bereft of the pleasures of the world, not leaving behind as much as a small packet of candles to illuminate our way back from the cemetery . . .

And the darkness thickens increasingly, more and more. Who can possibly replace him?


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