Rabbi Avraham Friedman - Remembering Rabbi Berel Wein zt"l

I was asked to say a few words about Rabbi Berel Wein, a great man and one of the most famous alumni of our Yeshiva. He studied at the Yeshiva from the young age of ten until he was twenty-two, when he received his semichah. Rabbi Wein, a world-renowned Jewish historian was so talented, a tremendous talmid chochom, who shared his great knowledge through his sefarim and his shiurim. He recorded hundreds of lectures on Jewish History and always made the subject so interesting! My rebbe, HaGaon Reb Aron Soloveichik, stated that history usually is boring. But Rabbi Wein, because of his unique sense of humor, made it ‘’geshmack’ to listen to.

I didn't know Rabbi Wein so well on a personal level, but I listened to his recorded shiurim for many years, feeling a love for this man’s wisdom and kindness and compassion. I met him for the first time when he came as a young Rav from Miami. I listened to the recordings that he made on Jewish History when I would travel to the East Coast with my family for Pesach. The entire trip of almost twenty hours was so entertaining for the mishpacha as we had Rabbi Wein weaving us through our heritage in such a colorful manner.

I also feel a tremendous “kesher’’ with Rabbi Wein, because not only was he a talmid of the Yeshiva where I studied, and where my brother, Rav Chanoch, studied, but also where my father studied, almost one hundred years ago. Rabbi Wein’s grandfather Rav Rubinstein, actually was the founder of our Yeshiva. It started in his home on the South Side of Chicago with five students. He spoke about Reb Herzl Kaplan, who was also my rebbe, my brother’s and even my father’s. He described how Reb Herzl would bring in the newspaper because he wanted the boys to teach him how to speak English. He spoke about Reb Mendel Kaplan, Reb Herzl’s younger brother, and how he, too, would bring the newspaper to the shiur in order to explain to them about ‘’fake news’’ – much before President Trump. Rabbi Wein vividly remembered Reb Mendel’s Chumash shiurim on Friday nights which started at 11:00 PM and ending at about 1:00 AM. Reb Mendel would lock the door at 11:00 PM, so if anyone came late they couldn’t attend. Rabbi Wein said that this was like being in ‘’olam haba’’.

Rabbi Wein talked about Rabbi Rogow, whom he described as being above this world, totally spiritual. He said that the Yeshiva had a ‘’minhag’’ on July 4th where the entire Yeshiva went to Sox Park for a doubleheader with the Yankees. But who was going to tell Rabbi Rogow that they weren’t going to have shiur that day? Sure enough, everyone attended shiur that day. He said that Rabbi Rogow was so nice. For example, he would

never give ‘’mussar’’ to a student in front of the other talmidim, he would always do it privately.

When he described Rabbi Kreiswirth, he said that every shiur was like ‘’hagbah’’ on a Sefer Torah, because every shiur basically traveled through all of shas. He said Rabbi Kreiswirth called him ‘’my Berele’’. Rabbi Kreiswirth convinced Rabbi Wein to leave his law practice and become a Rav. He said there were enough Jewish lawyers.

Rabbi Wein loved to tell how the Chief Rabbi of Israel at the time, HaGaon HaRav Yitzchak Isaac Herzog, came to the Yeshiva and told the bochurim how he had asked the Pope to return the ten thousand Jewish children hidden by the goyim in Poland during the Holocaust. The Pope refused, because he said that once someone was baptized, he can’t be returned to another religion. Rabbi Wein spoke of how he saw Rav Herzog shed copious tears. Rav Herzog said, “I can’t do anything more about those children but what will you youngsters do for Yidden”? Rabbi Wein described how this event made an indelible impression on him and from that moment forward he always thought about what he can do the Jewish people.

He loved to speak about the fact that his grandfather learned in Volozhin under the Netiv, and that his father studied in Grodna under Rav Shimon Shkop. Because of this, Rabbi Wein said he felt like he was connected to Volozhin and to Grodna. He could feel it and those who heard him could also feel it.