Remembering Rabbi Berel Wein On His Yahrzeit
By: Judah Gross
Today I sent my newly married son and daughter-in-law off to Eretz Yisrael. As I watched them leave, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a connection to the fact that today is also Rabbi Berel Wein’s, zt’l, first yahrzeit.
To answer that question, I think we have to go all the way back to 1989. That was the year I made what seemed like a rather unremarkable decision to attend Rabbi Wein’s yeshiva, Shaarei Torah. I was the only one from my class at MDS to go. Looking back, I have no idea how a 14-year-old managed to make such a mature decision. (I think the next one was marrying my wife, Rookie. I hope you’re reading this.) It wasn’t a religious decision. When I visited the yeshiva, it simply felt like a small, warm environment where I was sure I would be noticed for the good things I did.
My four years at Shaarei Torah were relatively uneventful. There was, however, one summer before tenth grade when I might have made a choice that could have taken me in a very different direction. This resulted in my missing the first few weeks of yeshiva that year. I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss too much because that was before FOMO was invented. During that time, some behind-the-scenes negotiations (with no money changing hands, all rumors to the contrary notwithstanding) were taking place to determine whether I would continue in the yeshiva. Baruch Hashem, Rabbi Wein prevailed. Looking back, I hope I justified his confidence in me.
Fast forward to the middle of twelfth grade, when representatives from the Eretz Yisrael yeshivas came to recruit students. My rebbe advised me to choose one of the yeshivas that had come to visit. I listened. I was accepted, and I went there, where I learned for three and a half years, eventually returning for another three and a half years in kollel.
Only recently did I come to appreciate something.
From 1989 to 2003, I don’t remember making a single major decision about where I would learn Torah. Unbeknownst to me, the day I walked into Rabbi Wein’s yeshiva was the day I was placed on a track. I more or less stayed on that track throughout high school. When it came time to continue learning, I asked my rebbe what to do, and he directed me to remain on that same path. I simply kept following it.
Thirty-seven years later, I can finally appreciate what was happening.
I often think we imagine life as a series of independent decisions. But sometimes Hashem places us on a track, and one good decision—made almost innocently—determines dozens of future decisions that we don’t even realize we’re making.
So, what does all of this have to do with me sending my son off to Eretz Yisrael today?
Everything.
Had I not walked through the doors of Shaarei Torah as a fourteen-year-old in 1989, I would not be the person I am today. I would not have married the woman I married. I probably would not be living where I live. I almost certainly would not be watching my own son leave for Eretz Yisrael today.
One decision made at fourteen quietly shaped the next thirty-seven years of my life.
The train that left the station in 1989 never stopped going. At each station along the way—Eretz Yisrael, kollel, marriage, family, community—another piece of my life was added to the journey. Every stop can be traced back to one seemingly ordinary choice made by a teenager who had no idea where the tracks would lead him. That’s the connection to Rabbi Wein’s yahrzeit.
The greatest impact a rebbe has is not always the shiur he gives. Sometimes it’s simply putting a talmidon the right track and allowing the momentum of Torah, great rebbeim, and hashgachah to carry him for a lifetime. Today I watched my son board a train of his own. Only Hashem knows where his stop will be. But watching him leave made me realize that, in many ways, his journey began the day mine did.
May Rabbi Wein, zt’l, be a meilitz yosher for all of Klal Yisrael.
