2008 Woodie Awards
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The Rav as an Aging Giant (1983-1985)
Howard Jachter
Issue date: 1/22/07 Section: Legacies
The Rav's modesty was astounding. His apartment in the Morgenstern dorm was the height of simplicity and he treated every visitor young and old with the utmost respect. There was not a trace of arrogance in his personality, in accordance with the Rambam's teaching in Hilchot Dei'ot that even a bit of haughtiness is intolerable. I recall one Thursday in the fall of 1983 when Rav Ovadia Yosef visited YU and was driven by members of the Sephardic community in a beautiful black limousine, as is appropriate for a Torah giant. The Rav, on the other hand, was more than content to be driven to LaGuardia airport in a talmid's battered fifteen year old car. The Rav's assistants were deeply moved by his breathtaking humility to the extent that each finds arrogance distasteful. We think if the Rav exhibited no arrogance, what right anyone has to be arrogant. This is not to say that the Rav did not dress in a dignified, albeit modest, fashion. On the contrary, the Rav once gently chided me that I should dress in a more formal and dignified manner.
Despite the infirmities of old age, the Rav indefatigably pursued David HaMelech's challenge to "sing to Hashem a new song". I was astonished when the Rav announced a few weeks before Pesach of 1984 that he would devote his shiur to topics relating to korban pesach, a topic he said that he had not yet delivered shiurim. Surely the students would have been satisfied to hear Rav Soloveitchik deliver thoughts on Pesach that he had delivered in the prior forty years of lecturing at Yeshiva. The Rav, on the other hand, had different plans. There were new trails to blaze and frontiers to conquer even at age eighty. One day in November 1984 one of the Talmidim pointed out to the Rav that in yesterday's shiur he had explained a passage in the Rambam in a different manner than he had explained that day. The Rav without batting an eyelash responded "never mind what I said yesterday." For the Rav, the Torah was ever fresh, as if it was presented by Hashem to His people anew every single day (see Rashi to Devarim 6:6).
Despite the infirmities of old age, the Rav indefatigably pursued David HaMelech's challenge to "sing to Hashem a new song". I was astonished when the Rav announced a few weeks before Pesach of 1984 that he would devote his shiur to topics relating to korban pesach, a topic he said that he had not yet delivered shiurim. Surely the students would have been satisfied to hear Rav Soloveitchik deliver thoughts on Pesach that he had delivered in the prior forty years of lecturing at Yeshiva. The Rav, on the other hand, had different plans. There were new trails to blaze and frontiers to conquer even at age eighty. One day in November 1984 one of the Talmidim pointed out to the Rav that in yesterday's shiur he had explained a passage in the Rambam in a different manner than he had explained that day. The Rav without batting an eyelash responded "never mind what I said yesterday." For the Rav, the Torah was ever fresh, as if it was presented by Hashem to His people anew every single day (see Rashi to Devarim 6:6).
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