The Kever
Such was Reb Moshe's profound respect for individuals. For a gathering of Jews, it was even greater. He once suffered a heart attack while he was delivering a discourse on Shabbos Hagodol. "I felt as though my heart was caught in a vise and was being torn from its place," he said afterwards. However, he did not interrupt the drosho.
The Limits of Selflessness
Reb Moshe was ready to forgo his own honor and comfort at any time. However, his concern for others went even further than this. During the decades that he headed his yeshiva, Tiferes Yerushalayim, he appeared at many fundraising events, at each of which he requested that people support all yeshivos, with no names mentioned. Moreover, he would accede to the request of any yeshiva that asked for his sponsorship for their appeal. Tens of fundraisers would visit the same donors, all in Reb Moshe's name!
A representative of Tiferes Yerushalayim once approached a certain philanthropist and persuaded him to make a very generous donation to the yeshiva, amounting to a fantastic sum. Shortly afterwards, the representative of a different yeshiva approached the man, also bearing Reb Moshe's recommendation. "I conceded to Reb Moshe's request," the man said, "and I made my donation. Let Reb Moshe decide who should receive it."
After consideration, Reb Moshe decided in favor of the institution whose representative had arrived second.
One of those who was active on the yeshiva's behalf arranged a meeting between Reb Moshe and a well known donor. During the lengthy discussion, the emissary of another institution entered. Reb Moshe interrupted his description of his own yeshiva and introduced the visitor and the institution he represented, describing its problems and troubles.
A Debt of Gratitude
When Reb Moshe felt a debt of gratitude to someone, he would go to great lengths to acknowledge it. A minyan would gather in his house on Yom Kippur. There was a break before Musaf, following which one of the members of the minyan was late in arriving back. After a protracted wait, during which the man had still not appeared, some wanted to proceed with Musaf. Reb Moshe stopped them.
"It is correct that I should wait for someone who does me the favor of coming to pray in my house until he arrives!"
Let us pause to consider our own debt of gratitude to Reb Moshe, who enlightened so many difficult fields of Torah knowledge for us and who guided us with his myriad psakim!
Halacha: The Parameter of Reality
Meticulous Care
On Har Hamenuchos, at the levaya of his son-in-law, HaRav Shisgal zt'l, somebody asked his nephew HaRav Michel Feinstein about his uncle's welfare and how the tragedy had affected him. "My uncle is completely holy," replied Reb Michel. "If halacha states that one should guard one's health, he guards it!"
No other phrase better sums up Reb Moshe. Completely holy. A shtik Torah!
He suffered endless persecutions at the hands of the Russians. His exit visa cost him dearly. For years, Russian Jews had to bear the oppressors' yoke, which weighed especially heavily upon Reb Moshe and the other rabbonim. Yet it was something else that Reb Moshe held against the Communists. "I do not forgive the Russians," he once said. "They compelled me to lie twice!"
The care he took over what left his mouth was matched by the care he took over what entered it. After a seudas mitzva in which he had participated, it became known that a drink had been served concerning whose kashrus there were certain doubts. It had appeared that Reb Moshe himself took a lenient view.
Reb Moshe's face paled. He went outside and vomited everything he had eaten.
Reb Moshe ruled that smoking in a public place is forbidden because of the damage it causes others and also deliberates over whether smoking constitutes neglect of one's own health. Before the publication of these teshuvos, somebody asked him whether he himself smoked. Reb Moshe replied, "I have never put anything into my mouth purely for enjoyment."
Reb Moshe was also extremely careful about what he looked at. Once, one of the Steipler Rav's associates approached Reb Moshe at the request of the former, to discuss a certain urgent matter. In the course of fulfilling his charge, the emissary wanted to show Reb Moshe an item printed in the religious Israeli newspaper Hamodiah. Reb Moshe apologized and said that he had never yet looked into a newspaper. If it was important, he said, the item should be read out to him.
Once Reb Moshe was consulted by an avreich about the dilemma he faced when walking from his home to the beis hamedrash. Was he allowed to contemplate divrei Torah as he walked the streets of New York during the summer months? Indeed, perhaps it would be better for him to learn at home since, if he had such an alternative, maybe he was not permitted to walk on the street at all?
Remembering that Reb Moshe took the very same route every day he asked upon what he based his conduct. "What do you say?" Reb Moshe responded, amazed. "Are there forbidden sights there? I have never seen them."
So deeply was Torah enmeshed with his very existence, that when he fell sick and lost consciousness, neither knowing nor remembering anything, he would unknowingly tug at his cuffs so as not to touch anywhere that was normally covered, which would have prevented him from learning. Conduct forbidden by halacha was as out of reach as though a physical barrier held him back from it, as shown for example, by the following well known story.
An urgent phone call for Reb Moshe from Eretz Yisroel once reached the yeshiva. Reb Moshe had to take the call in the beis hamedrash. However, between him and the telephone stood a bochur who was in the middle of saying the Amidah. The Rosh Yeshiva stopped in his tracks and waited, despite the passage of minutes and the mounting cost of the then expensive international call. "What can I do?" he said. "There is a wall here!"
On a number of occasions, his responses were based on his concrete belief that there is no facet of existence which is not dealt with somewhere in the Torah.
On writing a letter of congratulations to a talmid who had been blessed with a son, he wrote that while there were many different blessings which occurred to him to wish the new father, Chazal had coined a formula for the occasion: "May you merit to raise him to Torah, marriage and worthy deeds." The fact that Chazal were used to bestowing these wishes in particular, Reb Moshe noted, is an indication that every possible blessing in the world is encompassed in these three. He then proceeded to cite many examples.
When man stepped onto the moon, the possibility of signs of life being found there was hotly debated. When asked his view Reb Moshe answered decisively, "They will find nothing." Asked how he could be so sure he replied, "Because there is not a hint of it in Chazal!"
The Fullest Possible Fulfillment
In the same way as he drew everything from halacha, he was careful to fulfill halochos in their original form. For example, if women called him to ask what time the Shabbos candles should be lit, he was happy to tell them. He himself however, did not make use of the printed times.
He would open the window and examine his tzitzis to see whether the time had arrived in the morning for donning the tallis. When it was time for tefillas Ne'ilah, he would look outside to see whether the sun had descended to the tree tops.
Reb Moshe was especially careful about saying tefillas Musaf with a minyan, although there are various opinions about the strength of the obligation to do so. His son HaRav Reuven relates that on the last Shabbos of his life, there was not a full minyan. Reb Moshe asked that extra people be sought. When the search proved fruitless, he nevertheless asked for it to be continued. "Why?" asked someone, "Why not say Musaf individually?"
"No," answered Reb Moshe, "One has to snatch as many mitzvos as one can."
To watch the ailing and wheelchair bound Reb Moshe bowing and bending over during the Shemoneh esrei was an amazing sight.
Once, during the period of the Yomim Noraim, one of the mispallelim in the yeshiva confessed that he was not in the habit of saying krias Shema together with the rest of the congregation, as he was unable to tear himself away from the sight of the Rosh Yeshiva accepting the Divine yoke.
Similarly, Reb Moshe's talmidim would observe, "If you wanted to see an embodiment of the principle, "One should view oneself as standing before the King," all you had to was contemplate the Rosh Yeshiva standing in prayer."
Reb Moshe credited others with conducting themselves totally according to the Shulchan Oruch, just as he himself did. During a stay at summer camp, when he saw bochurim rising late and praying on their own, on a morning when the Torah had been read (and he himself had risen very early, despite his advanced age) he remarked to them, "Ah, you must hold like the Mordechai, whose opinion is that Krias haTorah is an obligation which only the tsibur as a whole are obliged to fulfill!"
When the Poseik is not Consulted
In an address, he once wondered out aloud why people would ask him for guidance on every subject in the world except for training their children and the giving of tzedaka. When it came to these areas, everyone felt himself competent to formulate his own rulings.
When asked once by a talmid chochom about worthy practices (in excess of the minimal halachic requirements), which one had performed three times, Reb Moshe asserted with uncharacteristic force, "One should be careful to say bli neder before every worthy practice. People play games with the most serious issurim!"
Once, one of the parties in a dispute demanded that a certain avreich support his cause, arguing that the matter was `a dispute for the sake of Heaven.' The avreich turned to Reb Moshe for advice. Again uncharacteristically, Reb Moshe banged on the table in anger. "A quarrel is a matter of life and death! Only the Sanhedrin can rule on questions regarding quarrels! Everyone sees himself as an halachic authority and decides that his intentions are pure, while the truth is that it could be a matter of murder!"
As well as the lessons to be learned from Reb Moshe's comments about questions that go unasked, there are also those to be learned from his reluctance to answer a different type of question. He was once asked about using tokens which had fallen from a broken telephone at the end of a call. "I don't like answering such questions," said Reb Moshe. "One should refrain from practices which border on deceit."
To end, we come full circle with another incident regarding guarding one's health, which illustrates which other considerations come into play when a generation's leading poseik must consider Klal Yisroel's welfare as well as his own. Eight years before his petiroh, the doctors were insistent about implanting a pacemaker in Reb Moshe's heart.
It was a simple operation that carried no risk, but he asked for time to consider it, even though he usually made decisions quickly and firmly. A few days later, the doctors again urged their request and he again asked for more time. He was asked why.
"Look," he said. "Soon Moshiach will be arriving and the Sanhedrin will be convened. I know that I am competent to sit on it. However, the halacha is that someone with a blemish may not be appointed to the Sanhedrin. I am weighing whether or not someone who has a pacemaker inside him is considered a ba'al mum."
He considered the matter and decided that he was permitted to undergo the procedure.
But in our sins, he was taken from us before Moshiach arrived!
