THE ARON, THE MESORA, AND RAV ANEMER ZTZL

As we have discussed previously, Shavuos is a time to think about the mesora. We are reaccepting the Torah again, more than three thousand years after Matan Tor ah. I would like to share some of Rav Hirschs thoughts regarding the aron, which relate to the concept of mesora. I will conclude with some thoughts about my reb be, Rav Anemer ztzl, who was niftar two years ago. Rav Hirsch notes that the luchos were made of stone, which does not change, to t each us an important lesson: The Law is not meant to progress or develop, having been given in its final form , engraved on tablets of stone. Not the Law, but we ourselves are the tree that can and should develop in never ceasing progress and self-refinement. The Law is the fountain of living waters near and through which we mature and flourish. The Torah, like stone, does not change; it always stays the same. Just as the ar on contains the stone luchos, it is our job to guard the never-changing Torah. The aron was made from a combination of gold and wood. Gold symbolizes perfectio n, as it is the most precious metal. Rav Hirsch writes, Gold and silver are consi dered the most precious possessions and are most eagerly sought by man. The Torah particularly emphasizes the centrality of pure gold regarding the aron : vetzipisa oso zahav tahor, and you should overlay it with pure gold. Thus, on the one hand, the aron represents perfection and purity. At the same time, the aron is made of wood, which symbolizes growth: The tree is the most natural metaphor for any long, continued, steady process of maturation. It symbolizes hope that will find its realization over a long perio d of time and through dedicated effort. However, the blossoming, the progress, a nd the life span of the tree are dependent on external factors, particularly the availability and proximity of water and whether the tree can absorb that water in sufficient quantities. Hashem and His Law represent the well-spring of living waters, and man as the tree that draws from them his strength, his substance, h is life, and his good fortune, without which he would wither and die. Am Yisraels job is to guard the perfect, pure, and never-changing Torah from outs ide influences. If we do that, as individuals and as a nation, then we will grow and flourish and develop like a tree. Rav Hirsch concludes: Purity and firmness, everywhere in life, these are the prerequisites, these the g olden limits within life, like a tree, must continuously grow and unfold from th e soil of the Law If Israel will only devote itself to proving its firmness and s trength by preserving the purity of its life, it will become immune to any attac k. The aron had two badim, two poles that were used for transporting it. The Torah records a prohibition against re-moving these poles Lo yasuru mimenu which means t hat even when the aron was at rest and not being moved, the poles had to remain attached to it. What is the message behind this prohibition? Rav Hirsch explains that the constant presence of the poles symbolizes the idea that the Torah is always ready to be moved and applied to new places and new rea lities. The mission of the Torah is not confined to the Mishkan or Eretz Yisrae l, nor is it limited to any particular era in history. No matter where or when a Jew lives, he must always be ready to apply and use the Torah in his daily life . Rav Hirsch is known for his fierce opposition to the Reform movement. The Reform movement, building on non-Jewish ideologies, developed the notion that we have to update and modernize the Torah to fit into the new realities of the modern wo rld. The old Torah cannot be used in the modern world. This, of course, was a trag ic mistake. Rav Hirsch explains that in fact, we have to adjust our lives to fit

the old, never-changing, golden-pure Torah. And if we do that, we will succeed. After one leaves yeshiva/seminary, one faces the realities, opportunities, and c hallenges of the outside world. The goal must always be to apply the message of the aron and badim to use the never-changing Torah as a guide for navigating the highway of the outside world. One has to consistently ask himself, Am I making app ropriate positive changes in my life to fit the Torahs standards, or am I, chas v eshalom, adjusting and making changes in the Torah to fit my life? This is a challenge all of us face to maintain the old, pure mesora within the m odern world. We have to know that our job is to preserve. If we live our lives t he way our great-great-grandparents did, we are going to be okay; we will surviv e and continue to serve our purpose as the Am HaNivchar, as the guardians of Has hems Torah until Moshiach comes, bimhera beyameinu. I am fortunate to have had a rebbe who instilled within me this commitment to th e mesora, Rav Gedaliah Anemer ztzl, who was niftar two years ago. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss some aspects of his life and his impact on me. Rebbe Rav Anemer was a maggid shiur at the Yeshiva High School in Silver Spring for mo re than forty years. As a maggid shiur, he taught over a thousand talmidim how t o learn. His approach was the old style to learn the pshat of the gemara and the Rishonim in depth, we would read Rashi and Tosafos inside and then we would lea rn the Maharsha and the Maharam. In some circles, this is not considered a razzle dazzle way to learn and teach, but this is certainly the best way to teach if yo u want your students to learn how to read and analyze the gemara properly. Rav A nemer would also emphasize the importance of getting to the halacha lemaaseh. I can testify that the students in Rav Anemers shiur knew how to learn. He gave u s a great gift the ability to read a Tosafos inside, not just to talk about it. He gave us the ability to read a Maharsha and he taught us to understand the imp ortance of knowing what it means to read a Maharsha. He had the particular talen t of making the Maharsha and Maharam very exciting. And then we would learn long pieces of the Ran and Rosh keseder. When I was in his shiur, we would sometimes read pages and pages of these Rishonim together in shiur. Nowadays, most talmid im would consider this boring, but he added insights to every paragraph and taug ht with so many practical examples, emphasizing to us its importance, that no on e was ever bored in shiur. Rav Anemers shiur was given on a very high level. Some of my friends who returned to visit Silver Spring many years later would stop in to listen to shiur. It is an established fact that Rav Anemers shiur at a high-school level prepared many, many talmidim to go on to the highest level shiurim in Eretz Yisrael and across the United States. Rav Anemer would often liven up shiur with plays on words and puns, which we enj oyed very much. This was a kiyum of vehaarev na, making the learning sweet. I remem ber that when we were learning Gittin, we studied the gemara that says that a sh eid, a demon, doesnt have tzeil, a shadow. In shiur, Rav Anemer would say things like, A sheid is a shady character, or, a sheid has no shadow. It was a wonderful ti me in shiur. One year at graduation, the girls in the yeshiva gave Rav Anemer a book called Sefer HaPonim, a list of his favorite puns during the year. He would similarly often put in small humorous comments in his shiurim, which ad ded a lot and made them even more pleasant to listen to. Every day in our shul b etween Mincha and Maariv, there were a few minutes of learning halacha until afte r shekiya. Hashgacha had it that I was in attendance for one of the last session s that Rav Anemer taught. He was teaching the halachos of Sefiras HaOmer. He men tioned that although we dont listen to music during Sefira, many poskim say that if youre learning how to play a musical instrument, it is permissible to practice during Sefira. He added with a smile that normally when children practice, they dont enjoy it much anyway, so its not going to bring them any problematic simcha. That is a typical comment he would make to add to his shiurim. Rav Anemer was very proud of his students in the yeshiva. When I was there, seve ral times a year he would bring outside Rabbonim in to test us on what we were l

earning, and he had such simcha when we knew the gemara, Rashi, Tosafos, Maharsh a, Maharam, Rosh, and Ran. Seeing that simcha motivated us to work harder and to continue to learn. Aside from being a rebbe in the boys division of the high school, Rav Anemer als o taught in the girls division. As far as I know, he primarily taught halacha. I am fortunate enough to teach some of the graduates of Yeshiva High School, and I can attest that Rav Anemer taught two full generations of women not only halac ha, but also the respect one must have for halacha and the necessary reverence f or the halachic process. That is as far as the style of the shiur itself. More important than that, howev er, was the kesher Rav Anemer developed with his talmidim. Many of Rav Anemers students feared him; he commanded respect, not by demanding i t with words, but by the way he carried himself. There was a tremendous dignity about him. In my own experience (which has been confirmed by many other students of his), if he was walking through the halls near where you were, you would sta nd up a little straighter and carry yourself in a better way. This is the awe an d respect one has for a towering, halachic, and religious figure. At the same time, his students loved him. We would do anything for Rav Anemer if we had the chance. We felt a tremendous kesher with him. Where does this come from? Perhaps one reason his talmidim felt this connection and this love for him was because it was a reflection of his love towards us. Al l of Rav Anemers talmidim knew how much nachas he derived from his students accomp lishments. We knew he would mention these things to his family members. All of t he seforim on chinuch say that if you want to be a successful teacher and rebbe, you have to love your students. As the posuk says, kamayim haponim laponim. Rav Anemer was kimat yachid bedoro in this regard; the tremendous kesher he felt tow ards us, we felt towards him. When he would see his students children living religious lives, learning Torah, b ecoming ovdei Hashem and talmidei chachamim, he always smiled and had a nice com ment to make. All of us knew this. Each year that we came to the United States f or Pesach, I would always make sure that my kids would see Rav Anemer. Aside fro m being a source of chizuk for them, it was a great source of chizuk for me to s ee him smile. When you feel that your rebbe cares about you and has genuine sim cha in your accomplishments, it inspires you to work hard and to do more and it gives you a lot of chizuk. It is impossible to put into words what it means to m e that I had a rebbe who I knew was proud of what I do. It is a great source of chizuk to have that in ones life, and I am fortunate to have had that kesher sinc e I was a young boy. To give just one personal example, I was once giving shiur on a topic that I had learned with Rav Anemer. It was a difficult sugya (Pesachim 4a), with a Maharsh a and Maharam, and when I learned it with my talmidim in shiur, one of them pose d a question that I did not know the answer to. I called Rav Anemer, and while I was on the phone, he told me to wait one minute. He took out his notes and foun d that my talmids kashya was written there, and he had a teretz. I said it over i n shiur, and it had a big impact on my talmid. My mother told me later that she heard that Rav Anemer had derived much nachas for weeks afterwards. That story h as been giving me chizuk not for weeks, but for years, as that episode combined the mesora, Torah scholarship, and bringing nachas to ones rebbe all at once. This is a lesson that anyone in chinuch should learn you have to feel and expres s love for your students, smile when they bring their children to you, and have a positive comment to make about your students activities, lives, accomplishments , and families. Another reason why Rav Anemer had such a strong kesher with his students was tha t we knew that he understood where we were coming from. A rebbe has to be able t o relate to his students where they are holding and then try to make them grow f urther. Rav Anemer had great insight into his community in general and into his students in particular. He knew when to push for more and when to recognize that this is where his students were holding. Sports is a good example. Rav Anemer did not follow sports, but he knew enough t o be able to relate to us and use his knowledge when necessary. Two examples com

e to mind. We had school on Sunday until 12:40, and the Washington Redskins were on our min ds. One year, the Redskins began their season 8-0, and the following Sunday, we werent learning particularly well during chazara. He said to us, You call this cha zara? You are not learning seriously enough! I think the Redskins might lose thi s week. Well, the Redskins lost, and our reaction was twofold. First, we declared Rav Anemer a navi. Second, for the rest of the season, Sundays chazara seder was the strongest learning time of the week. This is a perfect example of understan ding ones talmidim and using that understanding to inspire. Another somewhat humorous example comes to mind as well. One year, the Washingt on professional basketball team was in the playoffs. Several boys in the high sc hool had a crazy idea to actually go to the playoff game in Philadelphia on a sc hool night. Somehow, they received proper permission more or less and they went. Obviously, they returned home very, very late, and the next day they were all v ery tired in shiur. Seeing that half the shiur was sleeping, Rav Anemer asked wh at had happened, and one of the boys explained that they had gone to the game th e previous night. Rav Anemer said, Wait a second the game was in Philadelphia! He couldnt believe wha t he was hearing. He then asked one of the straight arrows in the shiur, Where were you last night? and the talmid said, We went to the game in Philadelphia. Rav Anemer started laughing, impressed by the creativity that his students had s howed. Instead of giving mussar and coming down hard, he recognized that what wa s done was done, that this is the kind of thing that high school boys do; at lea st they had made it to yeshiva! With that positive reaction, I believe that he was koneh that group of talmidim. They recognized that as great as he was and as serious as he was about Torah, a vodas Hashem, and the mesora, he was able to laugh with his students and appreci ate who they were. Because of episodes like that, his students turned to him for advice and counsel many, many years after leaving high school. Sermons Rav Anemers sermons were filled with content, a vort or a mehalech in the psukim in the parsha or in a maamar Chazal. (I have included one of my favorites, his mehalech in the parshiyos of Shema.) R av Anemer used beautiful language and an extensive vocabulary, despite the fact that he did not have a secular education past high school. He worked hard to dev elop these speaking skills because he knew that it would add to his influence on his community. His drashos for Shabbos HaGadol and Shabbos Shuva were legendary and often inclu ded inspirational stories. From a very young age, Rav Anemer was a baal mussar. H e received that mesora from his Rabbeim, and when he would give mussar in these drashos, it was very powerful. Only a person with a heart of stone would not be moved by these drashos, and a person with a sensitive soul would be moved to tea rs. I had the zechus of hearing Rav Anemers last sermon, in which he discussed the Kl i Yakars perush regarding the cheit of Nadav and Avihu. He spoke about having not only respect, but also reverence for the halacha. He explained that respect imp lies following the halacha, while reverence entails being extra careful not to c hange things. I think it is fitting that this was the topic of this last sermon because this was a recurring theme in all of his sermons. Rav Anemer always emph asized the idea of the mesora, the old-time religion, as he called it, the idea th at one has received his Torah traditions from his parents and grandparents and h e has to pass it on to his children and to his students. He would discuss this t opic often in his sermons. There was another way that Rav Anemer would get this message across as well. Whe never he gave a drasha at a simcha, he would begin by mentioning the parents and the grandparents by name. Sometimes, when you hear a Rav speak, this part of th e speech is almost perfunctory; it is mentioned, but one gets the feeling that h e is saying, Mazel tov, and now lets move on to the content of my speech. But I alw ays noticed that Rav Anemer would specifically speak with the same slow pace and tone in this part of his presentation. His tone and demeanor made clear that th

is was not an introduction through which he was trying to be yotzei an obligatio n it was part of the sermon itself. It was part of his message that the bar mitz va boy or chosson was part of a family that played a role in the shul. If Rav An emer knew the grandparents, he would talk about them as well. By emphasizing the family background, he was inculcating this message of the mesora. On the Shabbos of his final sermon, there was an aufruf and a bar mitzva in shul , and Rav Anemer spent several minutes talking about the family backgrounds of t he baalei simcha. He also joked about how many candies were thrown as a result of the double simcha. This was a classic introduction; this was part of the approa ch that was evident in thousands of introductory remarks at simchas. One personal and powerful example of this took place at my eldest nephews bar mit zva about ten years ago. I was already living in Eretz Yisrael at the time, but I very much wanted to come. The first reason was that it was a very special time for my family, but a close number two was that I wanted to hear Rav Anemers introductory remarks at the sermon. Rav Anemer knew my great-grandfather, and he spoke about what it means to be at a bar mitzva of a boy from a family in which he personally witnessed five generations of Orthodo xy. These were beautiful and very powerful comments. There was not a dry eye in my fathers row in shul, and I am sure many others felt the same way. Communal Leader As the head of a large community, Rav Anemer shouldered many of the tzaros of th e shul members; he was a true nosei beol im chaveiro. I know this from personal e xamples of my family and friends, and I can safely assume that it is possible to extrapolate to hundreds, if not thousands, of others. He was always available t o listen, to counsel, and to pasken the most difficult shaylos. He set aside a t remendous amount of time for this part of his life. During the hespeidim after h is petira, many of these stories became public knowledge. After hearing the stor ies, one wonders how he had time for anything else. Rav Anemer knew how to guide, lead, and even take strong positions on issues wit hout generating unnecessary machlokes. Unfortunately, there is often politics with in Jewish communities. Those of us who were fortunate enough to grow up in Silve r Spring know that considering the size of our community, we had much less of th is than was to be expected. One major reason for this was the way Rav Anemer con ducted and carried himself. He had positions and opinions, but when a machlokes was brewing, he knew how to deal with it. I teach students from all over North A merica and elsewhere, and in some communities, small machlokasim tend to snowbal l into huge problems. But for the most part, our neighborhood has been fortunate enough to avoid that. This is one of the reasons Silver Spring was such a pleas ant place to grow up. One example of this attempt to avoid machlokes is evident in the history of the first fifteen years of the Yeshiva High School. Although in general, high school includes ninth through twelfth grade, for many years, the Yeshiva High School s tarted with tenth grade because the local day school at that time concluded with ninth grade. Although Rav Anemer felt it would have been beneficial if the stud ents at the ninth grade level learned gemara more intensely and in a stronger en vironment, he realized that it would create a big machlokes to suddenly start a competing school. (At a certain point, as the com-munity grew, both schools felt it was the right time to expand.) This is a classic example of building and gro wing while trying to keep the tension in the neighborhood down. It is something every person, especially every shul Rav and communal leader, can learn from. Chazal tell us that just as there is a mitzva to say things that will be listene d to and heard, there is also a mitzva not to say things that will not be listen ed to. Rav Anemer had very strong opinions and, when necessary, he was extremely firm in his guidance of the community. One famous example took place around twe nty years ago when one of the local bakeries was charged with a serious kashrus violation. The very next day, Rav Anemer declared that it was not kosher and it lost its hashgacha. Kashrus is kashrus, Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy, halacha is halac ha, and this would not be tolerated. In guiding the shul, especially in the early years, Rav Anemer was very firm in order to establish himself as the leader so that in the future his positions wou

ld be taken seriously. I recently heard a story in this regard. One Shabbos duri ng the early weeks of his rabbanus, there was a seuda shlishis. It was getting la te, and some of the men wanted to leave; they were not used to a long break befo re Maariv. In order to move things along, one of the baalabatim at the table broug ht Rav Anemer a cup of mayim achronim. He said, Thank you very much, and drank the wa ter! As I noted earlier, however, Rav Anemer also knew what not to talk about, and he knew how to avoid unnecessary confrontations. This is a skill that rabbanim hav e to develop and Rav Anemer excelled at. In retrospect, I recognize that there a re many topics that he did not discuss. When I was younger, I did not think abou t this, but when I grew older, I wondered why he avoided these topics. Now that I am even older, I understand; he felt that the community was not ready for thes e matters, and speaking about them would just create unnecessary tension. His ap proach was to build and build and teach and emphasize traditional Orthodoxy, the mesora, and the sheker of the non-Orthodox world. He chose to emphasize educati on and preach the value of education in our homes, knowing that many of the othe r things would follow and they did. Many of the topics that Rav Anemer purposely did not discuss from the pulpit are naturally observed by the next generation. This is another important quality that shul rabbis have to develop know what not to say as well. Rav Anemer was a person of great integrity. The community trusted him entirely w ith their tzedaka funds and kashrus issues. This is the way its supposed to be. A round twenty years ago, one of the local news stations did some sort of report a bout Rav Anemer that stressed all the power invested into one person; it was not a very positive report. Many members of the community called in and insisted, Th ats the way we want it to be! We want to know that if we go into a store, we can trust that its kosher, and we trust Rav Anemer to make sure that its kosher. And w e want to know that if we give tzedaka that its going to get to the local aniim. J ust the opposite; we want the authority entrusted into one person. That way, the whole system runs more smoothly. This is the way the system is supposed to run, based on the assumption that you can trust the Rav. This is something that Silve r Spring had for over half a century a Rav we could trust, a person of integrity . The mishna teaches, Asu siyag laTorah, make a fence around the Torah. Rav Anemer al ways defended and promoted traditional Orthodoxy. As I mentioned before, he woul d often talk about the old time religion and that it is our job to maintain the tr aditions that we have received from our parents and grandparents. When he ran th e shul, he made sure that the halachic practice and customs in the shul were all entirely based in traditional Orthodoxy. But there is another way to build a fence around the Torah and safeguard the Tor ah to ensure its survival, and that is by building. Rav Anemer was a builder. Fi rst, he built the old shul, then the new shul, and he built the Yeshiva High Sch ool as well. Building Torah institutions and establishing them firmly is an impo rtant way to safeguard the mesora and traditional Orthodoxy. This is what Rav An emer did for the Greater Washington area. He did not do this alone; he involved many baalabatim. My father, he should live and be well, is one of the many baalabatim who were zocheh to be a partner in thi s building. This is what a community leader like a shul Rav has to do. You have to gather the kochos and the abilities that your congregants have and inspire th em and motivate them to use these abilities for the benefit of the community. Th is feeling of community is very strong in Silver Spring, and it came from the to p. The way Rav Anemer carried himself, and especially the way he dealt with machlok es, helped to create this sense of community. When there is a machlokes, some pe ople get up and publicly create more machlokes, or they use certain language or act in an undignified manner. Even when there was a machlokes, Rav Anemer always acted with dignity. This helped keep the level of machlokes lower and strengthe n the sense of community. When you are part of a shul and a community and you feel

that sense of achdus, you are more likely to get involved. This is one of the r easons he was so successful in inspiring his congregants to play an active role in building the community. It is very important for children to have authority figures in their lives. Thei r parents hopefully serve this role, their teachers hopefully are supplementary authority figures, and if theyre fortunate, their local shul Rav is also an autho rity figure in their lives. To live in a community where the head of the kehila is such a great talmid chacham and tzadik auto-matically or almost automatically helps create more yiras shamayim, a greater sense of commitment t o tradition among the children of the community. Those of us who grew up in Silv er Spring in the last half a century were fortunate to have that. This is something I try to pass along to my children because of the impact Rav A nemer had on my life, because of this tremendous bonus and benefit of having my shul Rav serve as an authority figure for me. When our local shul Rav in Israel gives a drasha, I try to say over what he says at the Shabbos table so that my c hildren learn the importance of listening to what the Rav says. This is somethin g I grew up with. Those of us from Silver Spring should be grateful that we had and continue to have this, and we should pass it along to our children. The truth is that this is not an automatic response to having a shul Rav. The wa y the children of a community respond to and look to the shul Rav depends largel y on how their parents treat the Rav. I was blessed that my parents were very cl ose with Rav Anemer and had tremendous respect for him. When I grew up, it was a natural part of my life to look up to Rav Anemer. I feel very fortunate for this, and Im very thankful to my parents for providing that atmosphere in our home. This combination of having a person whom one can look up to as a model at the head of the community and having paren ts that encourage one to model behavior after the shul Rav is something all of u s should strive to emulate. Psak and the Fifth Chelek of Shulchan Aruch There are really five parts to the Shulchan Aruch, not four. The fifth part is h ow a posek says over a psak. When a posek gives a psak, it is not just like math ematics: 2+2=4. A posek is talking to a person, who has feelings and difficultie s in his life. The psak he is giving has to blend into the questioners life, and a great posek not only has the scholarship to know the correct psak, but also th e sensitivity and ability to present it in the appropriate way. Rav Anemer excel led in this regard. He tried to understand the person he was talking to and make them feel comfortable, especially when it was a difficult topic. Many times whe n I discussed delicate shaylos with him, he knew just how to say things, and man y people tell me that they experienced this as well. On the day of Rav Anemers levaya, I drove to Ben Gurion Airport. I wanted to try to be melaveh the aron from the airport because I did not think I would be able to go to the actual levaya in Yerushalayim and make it back in enough time befor e Shabbos. As Hashgacha had it, I drove someone from Silver Spring there. This p erson told me that he was not a talmid of Rav Anemer and originally was not so c lose with him. One time, he had to discuss a very sensitive halachic question wi th Rav Anemer. At the meeting, Rav Anemer related to him so well that simply as a result of that interaction and the psak that he was given, he felt a tremendou sly strong kesher with Rav Anemer. From that time on, he would davka call him mo re often to discuss other shaylos and other things in general. This is an incred ible koach that Rav Anemer had. After Rav Anemer was niftar, Hamodia published a beautiful article about him. Th e author recounted a story of a woman whose mother was confined to a wheelchair. This was before there was an eruv in the neighborhood, and the woman was told t hat she couldnt bring her mother to shul in the wheelchair. She asked Rav Anemer about this. How can it be that Hashem would rather my mother be at home than in s hul davening on Shabbos, just because she is in a wheelchair? The article doesnt s ay what Rav Anemers response was, but it does say that the woman became more obse rvant after hearing his answer. I can picture Rav Anemer explaining the importan ce of Shabbos and how this challenging case fits into a broader system. This is the fifth chelek of the Shulchan Aruch.

I would like to mention one personal example. One of my children had a severe te ndency to dehydrate (which baruch Hashem has since improved), and we always trie d to make sure that he had enough to drink. We knew that he would have a very di fficult time fasting, and the doctor told us that it was actual sakanos nefashos for him to fast. My wife and I knew that he would not be able to fast on Yom Ki ppur. This child happens to be a stickler for doing things exactly the right way , and we knew it would be very difficult for him to be told that he couldnt fast. How could we explain this to him? Immediately, I knew that the person I could t urn to was Rav Anemer. I had a family simcha to attend in New York, and we decided that this child shou ld come along. I planned to have an extra day available so that we would be able to take the train to Silver Spring for the day; I felt that it was better to sp eak in person than over the phone. Somehow, I knew that Rav Anemer would have t he right approach. After we presented the question, he answered with the followi ng mashal. A story is told of a Chassidishe Rebbe who set his table on Yom Kippu r and put out nice dishes, as if he were preparing for a Yom Tov meal. His talmi dim asked what he was doing. The Rebbe answered that since he was not well that year, he had to eat on Yom Kippur not because he wanted to, but because he had t o, as the mitzva of pikuach nefesh overrides the mitzva of fasting on Yom Kippur . For me, he said, eating today is a mitzva. And just like a person is besimcha whe n he is able to fulfill the mitzva of fasting on Yom Kippur, so too a person has to be besimcha when he is able to fulfill the mitzva of vechai bahem on Yom Kip pur! This was the response that my child needed to hear. At that moment, my son was s miling, I was crying, and I felt a tremendous burden lifted off my shoulders. I know of many other examples of psakim like this, and I am sure one can multipl y this story by hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Rav Anemer had a unique ab ility to deal with people and explain things the way the person needed to hear i t. Not to change the psak, chas veshalom, but to give over the psak in the way t he person needed to hear it. This is the fifth chelek of Shulchan Aruch, and thi s is something that not every posek is zocheh to have. In my opinion, this was o ne of Rav Anemers greatest qualities. My siblings and I, as well as many of my friends, enjoyed asking Rav Anemer shay los. This was a result of a combination of the way he answered, which I describe d earlier, as well as the feeling of confidence and security we felt when hearin g the answer. He was our baal mesora. One example in particular comes to mind. My sister was studying for the year in Israel and she was learning hilchos brachos . She was studying the question of whether the proper bracha on granola bars is HaAdama or Mezonos. (I once emailed two of the leading kashrus organizations abo ut this; one wrote back that it is definitely HaAdama while the other wrote that it is definitely Mezonos!) My sister called my mother and asked, Mom, please cal l Rav Anemer for me. I need to ask him a question. My mother answered, Sure, what is the question? My sister explained that she wanted to know the correct bracha o n granola bars. My mother asked incredulously, Arent there any Rabbonim in all of Israel you can ask your question to?! My sister replied, Of course, Mom, but I nee d to hear Rav Anemers opinion. I have done exactly the same thing many, many times. If I knew there was a wellknown machlokes haposkim about something, I would ask Rav Anemer, and that was t hat. He was our baal mesora. Rav Anemer was a great talmid chacham, and he therefore knew enough to be meikel . It is very easy to be machmir in psak; it is much more difficult to be meikel. One has to be a great posek to pasken lekula on the most difficult shaylos, as Rav Anemer sometimes did. You could ask him about his psakim and he would explai n his opinion. He was not afraid to pasken a certain way if he felt it was corre ct. He had one particular kula regarding how to reheat dry cooked food on Shabbos. I once asked him about it and he showed me that it is based on a comment of Rav Aharon Kotler ztzl, quoted by Rav Eider ztzl, and based on a diyuk in the Mishna Berura. I have quoted that particular kula to many of my own students. Many fam ilies are interested in having hot (dry) food on Shabbos day and my students are

concerned that things should be kehalacha. Since my students know of Rav Anemers stature, they are comfortable relying on his opinion. He has thus helped many o f my students blend back into their families in a smoother way. This is just one example among many. If, however, something was not done, then it was not done. I remember once being a little surprised by a psak Rav Anemer gave. My sister once posed a shayla in hilchos yichud, and I was aware that Rav Moshe Feinsteins opinion was lehakel. I mentioned this to my sister and I thought that this would solve the problem. When she mentioned this to Rav Anemer he said, No, we do not do that. Well, that was the end of that. If its not done, its not done. That particular kula of Rav Moshe has not become the m ainstream psak, and Rav Anemer did not feel a need to leave the mainstream, desp ite the fact that it would be difficult for the questioners family to accept the psak. This is part of the derech of maintaining our mesora and traditional Orthodoxy. We do not look for a kula just for the sake of finding a kula. Kulos exist, but the applications of kulos must always be balanced against the maintaining of tra ditional practice and traditional Orthodoxy. Rav Anemer, as a great posek and as one who understood the community well, knew how to balance these two points pro perly. Rav Anemer would often talk in shiur and in his sermons about the failure of the Conservative movement, the complete lack of continuity it engendered. He would contrast this to what we find in the Orthodox communities, with grandfathers and fathers and sons continuing in the mesora. At an evening of memorial speeches i n honor of Rav Anemer, one congregant said that a few months before, Rav Anemer had made the following comment in a shiur: If I leave the mesora as I found it, I will have had a successful life. This precisely captures his approach to guiding his students and congregation. Talmud Torah Despite everything I have said until now, I have actually left out the crucial b ase of Rav Anemers life. That, of course, was talmud Torah. Rav Anemer learned in Telz for many years, and during those years, he mastered Shas and Shulchan Aruc h, the very base of his life. During my time in his shiur, Rav Anemer did not talk much about his years in Tel z, but I remember one time when he did mention his younger years of learning. We were supposed to be doing chazara and we werent learning very seriously, and he was a little upset. He said to us, Do you call this chazara? When I was younger a nd I did chazara, our rebbe told us that for every blatt gemara we memorized, we would receive a dollar. At the time, it cost $5 for a round trip ticket from my home back and forth to Telz, and baruch Hashem, I didnt have to pay for the trai n very often. Although Rav Anemer did not talk about himself much, his actions sp oke very loudly. Rabbis of large shuls have many responsibilities and often have very little time to learn for themselves. Once in a while, Rav Anemer mentioned that he learned very early in the morning because that is when he had time. He also often gave m ussar about using ones time well, noting that people waste a lot of time waiting at the doctors office. He told us that he set aside a sefer that he would learn onl y while waiting for the doctor or dentist. He said he finished an entire sefer i n the course of a year or so. These stories had a strong impact on me. All of the aspects of Rav Anemers persona that I have discussed carry more weight because of his stature as a talmid chacham. When you have a teacher who takes p ride in your accomplishments and who shows genuine love for his students and tha t same teacher is also a great talmid chacham, it adds tremendously to the chizu k. When you can go to a Rav for advice and you know that behind his counsel is S has and Shulchan Aruch, that contributes greatly to the strength and confidence you have in the advice. When a Rav wants to build something new in the neighborh ood and he asks his congregants for help, and they know that this person is an e xpert in kol haTorah kula, it creates more inspiration to lend a hand. People respond to greatness, and the awe with which we viewed Rav Anemer and the

love we had for him were interconnected with his greatness in Torah learning. There are many successful mechanchim who have to defer certain questions to posk im. There is a great feeling of security in knowing that there is someone you ca n call for advice about anything, from hashkafa to a complex halachic question, and this creates a stronger sense of connection as well. It always bothered me that Rav Anemer wasnt more famous. He wasnt on national boar ds and he wasnt known for his psakim (at least not that I knew of). As I grew old er, I understood that thats simply not what he cared about. He cared about his fa mily, community, congregants, and students, and all he wanted was to build and b uild and build for them. He cared about his role in preserving and transmitting the authentic mesora, and nothing else. Rav Anemer had the special zechus of being buried very close to Shabbos, creati ng a rather strange situation; there were not so many people at his burial becau se many people living outside of Yerushalayim would have had a difficult time re turning home before Shabbos. (Some did go and made it back in time; others, like myself, were too nervous.) Perhaps this was fitting. His whole life, he built T orah and a community betznius. There is a difference between being great and bei ng famous; Rav Anemer was a great person, but he didnt look for the publicity. He didnt have the time. He was too busy running the Beis Din, overseeing kashrus, b uilding a community, building a shul, building a school, and building me and hun dreds of people like me. It was fitting that he merited a very special burial th at, as far as publicity was concerned, was quite modest. That was a fitting buri al for this great builder, this great tzadik, this great baal mesora.