By Yisroel Besser
This coming week marks the first yahrtzeit of Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, on Rosh Chodesh Tammuz.
My work on his biography was very connected to my day (and night) job at Mishpacha. If you’re reading this magazine and enjoying it, it’s because of Rabbi Zlotowitz, who essentially fathered this industry — creating sophisticated literature for the frum public — and stood as a mentor to us at Mishpacha until his last days. He ushered in the glory era of frum publishing: quality books with attractive graphics, translations that were warm and vibrant rather than clinical and academic.
Aside from his global impact as the founder of ArtScroll, his personal story is deeply moving and very relevant. It’s the sort of narrative that will make me you a better spouse and parent, a more conscious boss and a more loyal friend.
Why? Because the story of Reb Meir is a story of real-world greatness.
He was an overweight teenager with a stuttering problem for whom sports or acting wasn’t an option, but he found his calling in summer camp, where dreams were planted deep in his heart. He struggled to make a living into his thirties — not the candidate one might vote most likely to change the world — but he kept those secret teenage dreams alive anyway.
We all had dreams, once upon a time. Reb Meir’s life story is a reminder of what happens when a person has the courage and determination to access those dreams, even without connections and resources.
Reb Meir didn’t erase the more difficult periods of life from his hard drive; it was precisely those memories that made him so perceptive when it came to the needs of others.
In later years, someone once accused Reb Meir of being “too generous,” unable to turn down anyone who appeared to be in need. Reb Meir commented that he could never forget how, during the years when he was struggling for every dollar, he was once seated at a simchah surrounded by a group of acquaintances. They were discussing what to buy their wives for the upcoming Yom Tov, complaining how hard it was to find the right gift.
He was struck at how tone-deaf they sounded, how oblivious they were to the real challenges facing others; while he was wondering how he would purchase food for Yom Tov, they were distressed about which sort of gift to buy. At that moment, he promised himself that if he were ever in a position to help others, he wouldn’t forget what it was like to be worried about buying basic necessities.
“It’s not that I have a better or more generous nature than others,” he’d later explain, “it’s just that I have a good memory!”
At its core, Reb Meir’s biography isn’t a book about ArtScroll or its impact, but about the father, husband, and friend. It’s a book about being a mensch, about smiling and encouraging, about knowing how to act and react.
I’ve always wanted to share some deeply revealing personal detail in this column, like the great writers do, the sort of information that makes readers say, “Wow, I never knew that.”
I don’t have too many secrets, though, and the ones I do are sort of boring. Like, that I cry at chuppahs, no matter whose. Every single time, my eyes get wet. Or that I have sweaty palms. I’m the guy who, when you’re dancing at a chasunah and you grab my hand, you politely do a circle so as not to embarrass me, and then beat it.
But here’s a real personal disclosure. (After reading it, please don’t think less of me, though you probably should.)
No one likes waiting on line, but some people deal with it better than others. I’ll sometimes do things I’m not proud of to shorten the wait.
This past Motzaei Pesach, I went to buy pizza for my family. Now, Montreal isn’t Brooklyn, and more than three people on line is considered busy. More than ten is a crisis. That night it was packed, the single-file line snaking along the counter, wall, and the rear of the store. (We may not be great at filling orders quickly, but we do have etiquette.)
My heart sank. It was easily an hour’s wait. (I thought of going home and giving my children the you don’t need pizza two hours after Yom Tov, you can wait till tomorrow speech, but then I remembered how the stalwart ones back home were packing up dishes and thought that the line didn’t look so bad.)
A few minutes later, I was feeling claustrophobic and bored and the line had barely moved. I got a text from a friend who’d just reached the counter. He wanted to know what he could order for me, we’d work out the money later. I furtively texted him my order.
It was all good. Five minutes later, he was done and I went to take the pizza box from him. As I triumphantly headed to my car, an earnest young chassidish gentleman stopped me.
“I need to tell you that I saw what you did and it was wrong. I had a brother-in-law in line ahead of me, and I could have done that too, but I didn’t, because the people who are waiting ahead of you should be served first.”
I nodded uncomfortably, hoping my children didn’t hear him, and went home and forgot about it.
A few times over the next few days as I remembered the incident, I felt a stab of unease, like, he’s probably right, but who says? Was it really so bad? Come on, live and let live. Don’t give mussar to others. Whatever.
Then, while I was doing an interview for the book, a young askan recalled Reb Meir arriving at a dinner for Yeshivas Mir. This gentleman took him by the hand and led him into the room where the rosh yeshivah was receiving people. Reb Meir looked in, then excused himself.
The next day, he e-mailed the young man.
Dear —
When people wanted to bring me to the rosh yeshivah and introduce me, I knew it meant jumping the line, so I demurred. I NEVER jump a line. It lacks kavod for all of those who had patiently been in line, and I always avoid it.
Reb Meir, a frequent traveler, continued: Even when I get a first-class upgrade, I never let the staff walk me past the people waiting in the jetway to board the plane. It’s not right.
And ever classy, Reb Meir ended with a brachah.
That’s why I didn’t want you to bring me to the rosh yeshivah when so many people were waiting there. So continue your wonderful askanus gezunteheit, and may your entire family benefit from the zechuyos accrued for your support of the largest mossad haTorah in the world.
Of course I was wrong. I had known all along I was wrong, but this story, an unending stream of dignity and respect — like so many others I’ve heard over the last year — brings the ideal into the real world.
The tale of Reb Meir, who wouldn’t drive along the street where his parents lived if he wasn’t able to park and go visit them, who never missed a call from a child or grandchild, unless he was on the phone with Rav Dovid Feinstein, is a tale of a person who didn’t need kavod, but understood kavod, bestowed kavod, sensed kavod, and thus, gave his people a gift of the ultimate kavod.
He was struck at how tone-deaf they sounded, how oblivious they were to the real challenges facing others; while he was wondering how he would purchase food for Yom Tov, they were distressed about which sort of gift to buy. At that moment, he promised himself that if he were ever in a position to help others, he wouldn’t forget what it was like to be worried about buying basic necessities.
“It’s not that I have a better or more generous nature than others,” he’d later explain, “it’s just that I have a good memory!”
At its core, Reb Meir’s biography isn’t a book about ArtScroll or its impact, but about the father, husband, and friend. It’s a book about being a mensch, about smiling and encouraging, about knowing how to act and react.
I’ve always wanted to share some deeply revealing personal detail in this column, like the great writers do, the sort of information that makes readers say, “Wow, I never knew that.”
I don’t have too many secrets, though, and the ones I do are sort of boring. Like, that I cry at chuppahs, no matter whose. Every single time, my eyes get wet. Or that I have sweaty palms. I’m the guy who, when you’re dancing at a chasunah and you grab my hand, you politely do a circle so as not to embarrass me, and then beat it.
But here’s a real personal disclosure. (After reading it, please don’t think less of me, though you probably should.)
No one likes waiting on line, but some people deal with it better than others. I’ll sometimes do things I’m not proud of to shorten the wait.
This past Motzaei Pesach, I went to buy pizza for my family. Now, Montreal isn’t Brooklyn, and more than three people on line is considered busy. More than ten is a crisis. That night it was packed, the single-file line snaking along the counter, wall, and the rear of the store. (We may not be great at filling orders quickly, but we do have etiquette.)
My heart sank. It was easily an hour’s wait. (I thought of going home and giving my children the you don’t need pizza two hours after Yom Tov, you can wait till tomorrow speech, but then I remembered how the stalwart ones back home were packing up dishes and thought that the line didn’t look so bad.)
A few minutes later, I was feeling claustrophobic and bored and the line had barely moved. I got a text from a friend who’d just reached the counter. He wanted to know what he could order for me, we’d work out the money later. I furtively texted him my order.
It was all good. Five minutes later, he was done and I went to take the pizza box from him. As I triumphantly headed to my car, an earnest young chassidish gentleman stopped me.
“I need to tell you that I saw what you did and it was wrong. I had a brother-in-law in line ahead of me, and I could have done that too, but I didn’t, because the people who are waiting ahead of you should be served first.”
I nodded uncomfortably, hoping my children didn’t hear him, and went home and forgot about it.
A few times over the next few days as I remembered the incident, I felt a stab of unease, like, he’s probably right, but who says? Was it really so bad? Come on, live and let live. Don’t give mussar to others. Whatever.
Then, while I was doing an interview for the book, a young askan recalled Reb Meir arriving at a dinner for Yeshivas Mir. This gentleman took him by the hand and led him into the room where the rosh yeshivah was receiving people. Reb Meir looked in, then excused himself.
The next day, he e-mailed the young man.
Dear —
When people wanted to bring me to the rosh yeshivah and introduce me, I knew it meant jumping the line, so I demurred. I NEVER jump a line. It lacks kavod for all of those who had patiently been in line, and I always avoid it.
Reb Meir, a frequent traveler, continued: Even when I get a first-class upgrade, I never let the staff walk me past the people waiting in the jetway to board the plane. It’s not right.
And ever classy, Reb Meir ended with a brachah.
That’s why I didn’t want you to bring me to the rosh yeshivah when so many people were waiting there. So continue your wonderful askanus gezunteheit, and may your entire family benefit from the zechuyos accrued for your support of the largest mossad haTorah in the world.
Of course I was wrong. I had known all along I was wrong, but this story, an unending stream of dignity and respect — like so many others I’ve heard over the last year — brings the ideal into the real world.
The tale of Reb Meir, who wouldn’t drive along the street where his parents lived if he wasn’t able to park and go visit them, who never missed a call from a child or grandchild, unless he was on the phone with Rav Dovid Feinstein, is a tale of a person who didn’t need kavod, but understood kavod, bestowed kavod, sensed kavod, and thus, gave his people a gift of the ultimate kavod.
