I had a dream last night,” Rabbi Trenk once told a friend, “and in my dream, Mashiach came… everyone was dancing, but Mashiach was looking around, as if trying to find someone. Finally, he asked me, ‘Where is everybody? Where is everybody? Where are all the rest of the people?’ I didn’t have an answer, but that’s my job in this world… to make sure that when Mashiach comes, everyone is there to greet him…”
It wasn’t just an attitude or ideology, but a calling. Rabbi Dovid Trenk was on a mission: He wanted each and every bachur to have access to the beis medrash, to feel welcomed in the beis medrash, to be cherished by his rebbeim. Regular attendees at the annual Torah Umesorah convention were familiar with the loud, somewhat raspy voice that would issue from the back of the room, a call for more compassion, more tolerance, more patience with the young people of Klal Yisrael.
Reb Dovid didn’t require a microphone and it made no difference to him if his name was on the official schedule of featured speakers: they were talking chinuch and he would share his vision of chinuch as well. At a panel discussion with leading roshei yeshivah, the moderator asked a question about expelling a troublesome bachur from yeshivah.
It seemed intriguing enough. The roshei yeshivah on the panel sat silently, formulating their answers as the audience at the Torah Umesorah convention session leaned in to hear. The stillness of the moment was interrupted by a roar. “A Yiddishe neshamah! A Yiddishe neshamah! A Yiddishe neshamah!” Reb Dovid Trenk was jumping up and down, protesting the question, the topic, the fact that expelling a bachur was being discussed.
From the dais, Reb Elya Svei looked down at the distinguished “heckler” with undisguised respect. “We don’t argue with Reb Dovid Trenk,” he said.
