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The Ish Ha'emes, Rabbi Shimon Schwab

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Eliyahu Meir Klugman THE ISH HA:EMES: The Man of UnimpeCKhable Integrity RABBI SHIMON SCHWAB Frankfurt, 1915: A six-year-old boy "Remember, Yungerman! One must is sent by his mother to the store to be very careful to safeguard the honor buy groceries. With the change he of Rav Hirsch, the tzaddik of Frank­ buys himself some chocolate, which furt, for he was a living mussar sefer." he eats on the way. When he arrives home, his mother asks him for the Washington Heights, 1994: In the change. "Here it is," the boy answers. last winter of his life, the young "But where is the rest?" his mother .Frankfurt lad, now Rav of the largest asks. German Jewish Kehilla in the world "I must have lost it," the boy re­ and a leader of Torah Jewry, calls in plies. But his mother notices a choco­ a wealthy benefactor of the kehilla. "I late wrapper in his pocket. don't have much time left on this "Oh," she says, with a look that he world," he said, "and I will be going to will remember for the rest of his life, Gehinom. The Yeshiva's deficit is close "you didn't tell the emes." to a million dollars and most of it is in Later that day his father comes the unpaid salaries of its melmndim. home. He does not hit him or send I am Rav of the kehilla that teaches him to his room. "What is this I hear Radin, 1930: The young Frankfurt Torah im Derech Eretz. Where is the that you didn't tell the emes? Your boy, now a Mirrer Yeshiva bachur, derech eretz if we haven't paid our punishment will be that tonight, Fri­ comes to visit the Chojetz Chaim. teachers for months? It will not be day night, I will not bent.sch you. No, I When the elderly sage is told that he long before I will be called to give a din won't bentsch you tonight." The is "a Frankfurter bachur," he takes his vecheshbon for my actions and I will young boy never forgot that lesson. hand in his own and caresses it gen­ be going to Gehinom for this. I'm beg­ tly. "A yeshiva bachurl How fortunate! ging you. Please take me out of As the subjectoftlJis appreciation loathed even the merest whiff of exaggeration, I have attempted to So many are drowning today. Only Gehinom." avoid embellishment. which is unnecessary in any through Torah can one survive. How case. In keeping with the statement of Ghazal fortunate that you are learning!" Rabbi Klugman grew up in Washington Heights. (Yerushalmi. :Eiruvin 2:5) that one does not erect where he enjoyed a close relationship with Rabbi monuments for righteous men. as their words are Schwab. He currently lives in Jerusalem where he their memortal. the thoughts and dfureiTorahcon­ Marienbad, 1934: The Mirrer ye­ is a maggid shiur in a yeshiva gedola. He is a fre­ tained herein are all, unless otherwise indicated. shiva bachur, by now a Rav in Ger­ quent contributor to these pages, most recently Rav Schwab"s own. To facilitate reading. we have many, pays a visit to the saintly with "The Hebron Disaster-A Torah Perspective." often dispensed with quotation marks. April "94. His biography on Rabbi S.R Hirsch is Gerrer Rebbe. The Rebbe tells him, soon to be released by ArtScroll. The Jewish Observer, Summer 1995 11 The man is shaken. After giving the matter some thought, he agrees to cover the entire deficit in teachers' salaries, in weekly installments to be completed before the yeshiva's annual dinner. The last payment is made on the Friday before the dinner. The Yeshiva's dinner is on Sunday night. The following evening, Rabbi Schwab passed away. o was this man who lived life of such adherence to W:onesty and integrity? _l'::rEUf What is this potent combination of Rabbi Shimon Schwab (right) with parents and brothers in Fran.Jefurt. 1931 the ideals of Rabbi Samson Raphael child-rearing? The Schwab brothers Hirsch, architect ofTorah Orthodoxy were fond of telling of the sedernight in the Western world, and the intense when their father asked his children Despite his poverty, he commitment to limud haTorah that is which of the four sons they would the legacy of the great Lithuanian like to be. Most of them answered auctioned off in 1943 his yeshivos? What can we learn from his "the chacham," as could be expected; only possession of value, life to enable us to make this heady young Mordechai responded that he blend the reality of authentic Torah would like to be the "tam." The father a sefer Torah that he had life in America? Specifically, what ex­ then addressed his children in a ample did he set for the American ben stern voice: "If any of my sons be­ brought with him from Torah, whether engaged in full-time comes a rosho, even if only deviating Torah study or as a working man? from a single din or a minhag, I say Germany, and gave the to him 'li, velo lo, I will have nothing I. GEOGRAPHY OF ALIFE to do with him.' I love my children proceeds of $2,000-a more than anything in the world, but I love the Ribborio Shel Olam even substantial sum at the Boyhood inFranlefurt-am-Main more." His father's yiras Shamayim. Rabbi Schwab said decades later, time-to the Vaad himon Schwab was born in chilled his bones. Frankfurt on 7 Teves, 5569 He grew up in Frankfurt as a nor­ Hatzalah for saving S (1908), to an old German­ mal child, with no hint of the great­ Jewish family. In the 1850's, his ness he would attain. He often Jewish lives in Europe. great-grandfather moved from a stressed that many gedolim were not small Bavarian village to Frankfurt, accomplished ta1midei chachamimat emes as the guiding light of his life soon after Rabbi S.R. Hirsch had be­ age thirteen or geniuses in their obtained in communal matters as come rabbi, so his children could youth. Many who were amei ha'aretz well as in Torah study. For the rest of study in Rav Hirsch's Realschule. at that age, later became Torah lead­ his life, Rabbi Schwab always saw Like his father and grandfather, ers. This awareness. he felt, should himself, in his words, as "talmid Shimon Schwab studied in the be an encouragement to many lads talm.ido" of Rabbi S.R. Hirsch-his Realschule, which went only until who are nothing special at their bar disciple's pupil-and, indeed, he was the ninth grade. There he received mitzva, yet have the potential to be­ suffused with Rav Hirsch's spirit. his only formal secular education. come great talmidei chachamim and In 1926, the Ponevezher Rav, His parents, Leopold and Chana Torah leaders. Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman vis­ (Erlanger) Schwab, were erliche, re­ After completing the Realschule, ited Frankfurt and delivered a shiur spected baalebattim, who were active Shimon learned for two years under in Rav Breuer's yeshiva. The young in the life of the Frankfurt Kehilla. the Frankfurter Rav and Rosh Ye­ Frankfurter boy was entranced both They produced five sons, each of shiva, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Breuer, by the shiur and by the derech them a man of note in his own right. son-in-law of Rabbi S.R. Hirsch. halimud. He wanted more. The Three of them were world famous--in There he absorbed the joys of yegias Ponevezher Rav suggested Telshe, addition to Reb Shimon, there was haTorah, the delight of intense effort with its emphasis on seder and its Reb Mordechai, renowned as a in trying to ascertain the correct approach to education, as most ap­ tzaddik, and Reb Moshe, Mashgiach pshat, and an absolute commitment propriate of the Gateshead Yeshiva. (See JO, to finding the emes in the dvar Shimon Schwab was among the May '94, and April '81.) Hashem This strong commitment of first German bachurim in his time to What explains their success in Reb Shlomo Breuer to unadulterated study in a Lithuanian yeshiva, and a 12 The Jewish Observer, Summer 1995 considerable number followed his imprint on him. Reb Chaim Ozer sug­ lead. But many who had left Ger­ Noting a lack of the spirit gested that he go to study in the many to study in the East ceased to Mirrer Yeshiva in Poland, whose appreciate their Mesores Avos. the of the Lithuanian yeshiva mashgiach, Rabbi Yeruchem hallowed traditions of minhag Levovitz. would be the perfect mentor Ashkenaz, when they beheld the sub­ in German Jewry, Rabbi for the Frankfurter bachllr. lime grandeur and tasted the intoxi­ So in Elul, 1929, he went to the cating sweetness of the blatt Gemora. Schwab attempted to Mir, where he developed an unusu­ Rabbi Schwab clung to every detail of ally close relationship with Reb his rnesora. the continuation of close establish a yeshiva there, Yeruchem. There too he was a to two millennia of Torah life in Ger­ trendsetter for the many German many. channeled into the post-ghetto but the local Nazis closed bachllrim who followed. Several years world by Rabbi S.R Hirsch and his later, Reb Yeruchem delivered a regu­ colleagues. it on the day it opened. lar Chumash Shiur exclusively for these "oislanders," as they were A Yeshiva Bachur in Lithuania called. Reb Yeruchem's Daas Torah asm of a seventeen-year-old yeshiva on Chumash contains much from uring the three years he bachllr for the Rebbis sweet person­ those shiurim.
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