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14th Tishrei 5787—Seventy-eighth Yahrtzeit — The Pedagogue: HaRav Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky zt'l
By Zeev Steiner
Part III
This was originally published in 1993.
For Part II of this series click here.
For Part IV of this series click here.
Part III
Upright In The Eyes Of Man And Of Hashem
Every word and every step—that was why he insisted that the bochurim ensure that their clothing was always tidy and perfectly clean. When they came to his room to be tested on their learning, they underwent an additional examination as the Rosh Yeshiva's sharp eyes surveyed every bochur from top to toe. Woe to whomever was dressed untidily or even was wearing dusty shoes.
The usual rebuke was short and sharp: "HaKodosh Boruch Hu gave you, and every other person, two faithful servants—your two hands. Why don't you use them to take care of your clothes...?"
Once, on his way to deliver the shiur, Mahary'tz spied some orange peels scattered in one area of the corridor. He would not begin that day's shiur until he had extracted a promise from the talmidim that such a sight would never appear again in the yeshiva building.
Refined behavior, order, cleanliness—they were all-important. They were themes he kept coming back to when he spoke. In one such shmuess, he addressed his audience with great feeling, "Beloved of my soul, see what chazal said in Yoma—that Heaven's Name should become loved through your actions. "When someone's deeds are correct ...what do people say about him? Happy is his father who taught him Torah, happy is his teacher..."
Who can read this gemora without considering whether all his own actions are such as to cause a Kiddush Hashem? Everyone needs to shed bitter tears over this!"
On another occasion he posed a question based on the same piece of gemora. To a man who learns Torah and deals faithfully with others, causing Heaven's name to be loved by all who see him, the gemora applies the posuk, "Yisroel, whom I glory in you." The word "you" is in the singular.
On the other hand, a man whose dealings with others give cause for complaint and who shames his father and teacher who raised and educated him, has the posuk, "These are Hashem's people and they have gone out of His land," applied to him. In this posuk, the sinners referred to are a group.
Why is it, Mahary'tz asked, that the bestowal of praise is on an individual while denigration is dealt out to the whole group?
He would explain that this was an accurate reflection of human nature. When people see a bochur who excels in his learning, his yiras shomayim and his relations with others, they don't praise the whole yeshiva on his account, thus the first posuk brought by the gemora is in the singular. If however, one bochur behaves badly and departs from the correct path, people will draw conclusions about the entire yeshiva; that is why the gemora brings a posuk which refers to a group.
The yeshiva in Jerusalem
A Searching Look
When interviewing new students for the yeshiva, he would determine whether their motives for joining were solely in order to improve their learning. He would make inquiries about each applicant, taking his background and character into account.
Talmidim who came from the Lower Hungarian Provinces, the Unterland, were subjected to particularly close scrutiny before being admitted into the yeshiva. The communities in this area adhered to the minhagim of the chassidim with the men growing long payos and dressing in the customary chassidic fashion. Pressburg and it's surrounding communities, however, situated in the Upper Provinces, the Oberland, had no such tradition.
Mahary'tz was always initially suspicious of boys from the Unterland for he feared that their true intentions for joining his yeshiva may only have been to enable them to clip their payos and adjust their outer appearance so as not to appear too chassidishe. For boys like this, discarding what for them was the traditional garb of religious Jews was liable to be the first stage in a spiritual decline.
This was not the case with students from homes in the Oberland, where the chassidishe customs were not kept. A bochur from the Unterland had to give his word that while he learned in the yeshiva, he would continue to dress according to the custom of his father's home, not changing to adopt the local minhag.
With his characteristic, penetrating insight, Mahary'tz was able to size up those who stood before him or evaluate situations and their likely outcome. Many a time, when a visitor had just left his room, he would declare the person's inner character did not match the behavior which he showed to others. Often his reaction would be the opposite; he would comment on the greatness of people whose outer appearance seemed perfectly ordinary and unexceptional.
The original Oberland part of Hungary
Once, at the end of a semester, a talmid came to Mahary'tz requesting the customary "ksav"—a letter reporting his recent progress in learning—for him to show his father. HaRav Dushinsky paced up and down, then he turned to the talmid and cried out, "Lies! You don't need the ksav for your father at all! Tell me which yeshiva you are planning to go to!" Stunned, the talmid left the room. Rav Moshe Mordechai Dushinsky, the Rosh Yeshiva's brother, asked why he had treated a fine conscientious bochur in such a fashion, but the Mahary'tz refused to discuss the matter.
Things became clearer when, at the beginning of the following semester, a letter arrived from the Av Beis Din of Wurtzburg in Germany, asking for information about the bochur who had requested the ksav. While he appeared to be an excellent bochur, the lack of a ksav had signaled to the Wurtzburger rav that something was amiss. The Mahary'tz replied that he sensed that this bochur wanted to study other disciplines. While it was true that in Germany there were gedolei Torah who consented to such studies, continued Mahary'tz, they would pose a serious problem to a bochur who had been educated in the atmosphere of the Hungarian yeshivos and would threaten drastic spiritual deterioration. The rav from Wurtzburg accepted Mahary'tz's argument and sent the bochur away from his yeshiva.
HaRav Dushinsky also noticed the signs of future greatness in bochurim. A young talmid from Frankfurt once arrived at his yeshiva in Galante. Dressed in the attire that was usual amongst German bochurim, he stood out like a sore thumb amongst the Hungarian talmidim, who for their part, looked upon him slightly askance due to the stereotyped idea of German Jews which was common in that region.
To their amazement however, from the day the German talmid arrived in the yeshiva, Mahary'tz gave him special attention. He would turn to speak particularly with him, offering him further explanation and generally treating him with great respect. In time, this talmid became famous as the gaon, HaRav Yechiel Michel Schlesinger zt'l, the founder and head of Yeshivas Kol Torah.
HaRav Moshe Yehuda Schlesinger shlita, son of HaRav Yechiel Michel Schlesinger
A Seeing Eye
As for the Mahary'tz himself, he accepted none of the credit for his own sterling qualities and teaching abilities. In complete seriousness he would remark that these abilities had been given him solely on account of his pupils, to enable him to educate them and lead them onto the path of truth.
Many a time, he astonished his talmidim with his uncanny knack of noticing the exact time that each one of them had arrived in the beis hamedrash for tefillah, despite the fact that he used to stand immersed in his own prayers, never turning around for more than a few seconds. During the shiur in Shulchan Oruch, Orach Chaim which he gave after shacharis, he would turn to one or other of the talmidim and ask, "How did you manage to finish davening so quickly? You came in very late—are the pages of your siddur stuck together?"
To another talmid he would remark, "You arrived in the middle of pesukei dezimrah," and to another it would be, "You came in after borchu and your friend came in the middle of the repetition of the Amidah!"
Reacting to his brother's amazement at this phenomenon, Mahary'tz explained, "You probably think I possess ruach hakodesh but that isn't necessarily the only explanation. Really it's quite simple. Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai said that had he been at Har Sinai, he would have asked to be given two mouths; one to use for Torah and prayer and the other for worldly needs. Later on he reconsidered though, saying that if people sin so much having only one mouth, it would be far worse if they had two—it's better to misuse one than to misuse two!
"You should know that the same holds true for the eyes and the sense of sight. If a man merits it, he can see things that are very far away—he is granted insight, he can see to the ends of the earth and beyond. However, as a result of our sins we have forfeited all of this. If we aren't particular about guarding our eyes from what is right in front of them, what will we gain from having the ability to see behind ourselves?"
"However," he continued, "since someone who spreads Torah is accountable for the deeds of his talmidim, he is helped by Heaven. Hashem employs various ways and means to enable him to get to know what they are doing, even if they do it privately, behind his back, so that he may return them to the straight path. It is not so much in the merit of my own righteousness that Hashem enables me to see all that I can, rather then the merit of the holy flock for whom I am responsible."
There were also other occasions when he played down what seemed to be extraordinary intuition on his part. For example, two of his talmidim who had entered the business world became partners. Some time later a dispute arose between them over a certain sum of money and they wrote to their rebbe asking him to decide the case for them. The Mahary'tz replied that due to the hardship involved in his travelling the great distance to where they were, he would only agree to judge the case if their was no other choice.
At the end of his letter he offered his own proposal for resolving the dispute. His idea was a brilliant one which dealt with every aspect of the case. He suggested that the two partners consider his compromise; if they accepted, a din Torah would be unnecessary. Mahary'tz's reply was written on a Thursday night and the talmid to whom it was entrusted for posting did not manage to send it off before Shabbos. When this was reported to Mahary'tz, his response was that since it had worked out that the letter had not been sent right away, it should be kept back. Probably, he said, the two litigants would arrive at some compromise by themselves; better to wait a few days longer.
And indeed, the following Tuesday brought another letter from the two talmidim to say that there was now no need for a din Torah as they had found a suitable compromise. They wrote out the details of the solution they had worked out and it turned out to be nothing short of an exact replica of the suggestion that Mahary'tz had written to them! In great excitement, this second letter was hurriedly shown to Mahary'tz. He, however, did not exhibit any surprise.
"What is so amazing?" he asked. "What's new? The seforim write that once one person has developed a new idea in learning, it is relatively easy for someone else to arrive at the same idea, since this particular chidush has already come down to the world."
End of Part 3
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