לזכות ידידי אהובי רבי אפרים אבא בן מרים שושנה וכל משפחתו היקרה לברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיהם!!!
An amazing new sefer was recently published with vignettes and anecdotes about Rav Moshe Feinstein, according to the order of the psukim of the parsha. Mamesh pearls and rubies!! Here are a few:
Related Rabbi Aharon Ehrman [who may or may not be related. I dunno]: In about 1965, Rav Moshe was at the Zucker hotel [what they charged for a week is probably what a soda in the lobby of a hotel costs today. On that note - Rav Moshe was once giving an example of how much people are immersed in gashmiyus: They drink soda:-)]. and was talking about the pasuk מה טובו אהליך יעקב and said the following:
"וואס איז אמאל געווען די ניסיון פון השכלה אפיקורסוס איז היינט די ניסיון וואס מען דארף אלץ".
[Once the test was "enlightenment" and heresy but now the test is that people must have everything.]
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There was a woman in Eretz Yisrael who had to do chalitzah with her brother in law in New York. The Chazon Ish told her to go to Rav Moshe and he will do it. She came and the brother demanded five thousand dollars [this is the late 40's early 50's. My mother recently told me about a couple she knows who bought their house in Far Rockaway back then for five thousand dollars! Today that is what you pay to put your car in the lot for a month or two... Or for two tickets to the Knicks game and dinner:-)]. The woman agreed.
After the Chalitzah was properly executed, the man said that he doesn't want the money. He explained that his late brother had come to him in a dream the previous night and asked him not to take money because his neshama gets such a great tikkun because Rav Moshe was presiding over the Chalitzah.
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There was a certain Jew who was in a po$ition of great influence who spoke in a disparaging and defaming way about Rav Moshe [there were more than a few of those]. After this person's Rav passed away, they had eulogies in Rav Moshe's Beis Medrash.
Rav Moshe heard some of the avreichim talking before the event and asked what they were talking about. They said they were deciding how to handle this guy when he comes to the Beis Medrash. Should they throw him out, how etc. Rav Moshe said with תקיפות [sorry for the Yiddish - that was what Rav Moshe spoke]:
"דער וואס מיינט ער נעמט זיך אן פאר מיין כבוד וועל איך ער ארויסווארפן פון ישיבה".
{Anybody who thinks that he is acting in my honor - I will throw him out of the Yeshiva].
When this man came he sat in the "mizrach" and Rav Moshe gave him the same kavod he gave to all of the other dignitaries as if nothing had ever happened.
