Before his talmidim went to public buildings, whether the post office, hospital, or Department of Motor Vehicles, Rabbi Trenk would remind them that even though wearing a hat during tefillah is halachah, wearing it in public buildings could be seen as a sign of disrespect, so they should remember to remove their hat and hold it in their hands.
In the beis medrash, a bachur sat learning in his seat, but he was not wearing socks, just flip-flops. Rabbi Trenk felt this was disrespectful, and wondered aloud why the young man wasn’t wearing shoes and socks. “Oh,” the boy looked down and smiled, “because these are in style, everyone’s wearing them.” The rebbi considered his words. “But why can’t you wear them with socks?” asked Rabbi Trenk. The boy laughed at the question. “Because there’s a piece of plastic that goes between the toes.” The boy lifted his foot to show Rebbi. “You can’t wear flip-flops with socks.” Rabbi Trenk nodded and le the beis medrash. He returned several minutes later and handed the bachur a rolled up pair of socks. “Here, I made you a pair of socks with splits in the toe, so now you can wear the flip-flops, be in style, and also learn with proper dignity…”
Late one night, there was action in the yeshivah kitchen, which was meant to be locked. Rabbi Trenk headed over and saw a boy scrambling eggs for a group of friends. This was against the rules, and Rabbi Trenk was upset. He sent them out and relocked the kitchen, ending the party. A few weeks passed. On a Motza’ei Shabbos, the bachurim went to play basketball at the JCC, as usual. Rabbi Trenk was driving them back to Adelphia, and he casually looked at the bachur he had “caught” just a few weeks earlier. “Mordechai, the boys love your eggs, you make delicious eggs; can you make eggs for everyone when we get back to yeshivah?” That was it. It became Mordechai’s job to make eggs after that, and he enjoyed this task immensely, proudly preparing eggs every Motza’ei Shabbos — because while Rebbi had to react to the breach of rules, he had also found another talent to celebrate in one of the talmidim, and so he used it to its fullest, allowing the boy to shine.
One Erev Shabbos, a bachur seeking a ride to Lakewood came to the Trenk home, knowing that even if Rebbi couldn’t drive him, he would help him find a ride. Rabbi Trenk was washing the floors for Shabbos, and he handed a mop to the bachur. “I will drive you once the floor is done, let’s go,” Rabbi Trenk said. They worked side by side, and Rabbi Trenk smiled and commented, “I’m not thanking you, because you’re not doing me a favor. I’m doing a favor for your future wife, im yirtzeh Hashem, because you will know how to mop a floor and that it isn’t beneath you.”
He had no tolerance for gossip. If a bachur came to share something negative he had seen in a friend or classmate, Rabbi Trenk would react with disappointment — in the one who had tattled on a friend. A bachur needed a ride to Brooklyn, and he called the Trenk house late one night to ask for Rebbi’s help. It was close to midnight, and Rabbi Trenk pointed that out. “You need to know that it’s not okay to call a house after 11 o’clock at night,” he said, and then hung up. The next morning, Rabbi Trenk found the bachur and made it a personal mission to find him a ride, but the night before, there had been a different priority: chinuch in derech eretz. Once the lesson was taught, he made it his business to fulfill the request.
A bachur was suspended from yeshivah and told to go home. Rather than put him on a bus, Rabbi Trenk drove him home. Throughout the trip, the boy kept muttering, “My father is going to kill me, he’s going to be so angry. I’ll never survive this.” They reached Brooklyn, then turned onto the boy’s block. “My father’s going to kill me,” the boy said miserably as they pulled up. “Go, sit down on the steps, you have to go home,” said Rabbi Trenk as the car slowed down in front of the house. The boy shuffled out of the car and sat down on the steps as Rebbi had instructed him. Rabbi Trenk pulled away, then reversed the car after a few moments and stopped the car in front of the house. “Get back in. You went home. The suspension is over,” he said, and headed back to yeshivah.
Rabbi Trenk came into the dormitory to hear music playing from a portable player known as a “boom box,” which was prohibited in the yeshivah. He approached and lifted the device high, then brought it down and broke it. The music stopped suddenly and it was quiet in the room. Still holding it in one hand, Rabbi Trenk reached into his pocket with the other hand, pulling out his wallet. “Here,” he said, handing a $50 bill to the owner of the music player, “this is what you paid for it, you don’t have to lose out.” Another time, he encountered a boy using a similar device, and Rabbi Trenk felt that a different course of action was called for. “There are rules, there are rules,” he said. “I must take it away. Those are the rules,” he said, reaching for the appliance. Then he paused and looked at the bachur. “Now that I took it away, can I ask you to be my shomer, and guard it for me? Can you make sure it’s put away and never again seen on yeshivah premises?” He returned it to its owner, having made his point by enforcing the rules — and showing compassion for his talmid as well.
There were no conventional methods and unconventional methods of teaching: it was just Rabbi Trenk being himself. He taught boys deep into their teens, but he had no problem “reading” to them. Every day, he would pick up his favorite book, All for the Boss, and read several paragraphs to them, animated and involved as if he had witnessed the stories himself. It wasn’t a traditional mussar classic, but to Rabbi Trenk, this was mussar seder: he wanted them to dream big, to live Yiddishkeit to the fullest. He understood that many of them would go on to become not rabbanim or mechanchim, but lay people. In the pages of the book lived the model for the lofty spiritual levels of a baal habayis, a working man, and he hoped they would internalize that. Rabbi Trenk’s beloved granddaughter, Frumie Engelson, was very sick, and for close to a full year, his talmidim davened for her as if for a younger sister. When she passed away, the talmidim attended the levayah. Their rebbi, who usually stood tall and strong, seemed to have wilted. He stood near the fresh kever, completely bent over and barely able to speak. But then he seemed to notice them, the talmidim, and something flickered in eyes. He had an achrayus! “Rabboisai,” he cried out, “you gave us so many tefillos, so many precious tefillos. All those heartfelt tefillos were gathered by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and He has them in a special place. He knows when or where to use them best… but they were not in vain,” Reb Dovid sobbed. “They were not in vain.” He was a grandfather mourning his precious granddaughter. He was a father broken at the pain of his children. But he was also a rebbi teaching his talmidim, always teaching his talmidim.
A boy from a chassidishe background joined the yeshivah. He had rebbeim and chavrusos who helped him adapt to the style of learning, but Rabbi Trenk did something else. He took the boy out to the basketball court and taught him to play. Rabbi Trenk sat with him on the sidelines and noted the expressions that the other boys used, teaching the talmid each word and phrase so that he could not only join the game, but also take part in the social experience as well. The yeshivah’s alumni often kept in touch with him, maintaining the close connection even after they had left to learn elsewhere.
One former talmid wrote a long letter from his new yeshivah, describing the shiurim and friends. Reb Dovid wrote back, thanking him for the report and wishing him well. Then he added a few questions: You didn’t tell me… when do you eat the seudos on Shabbos? Do you get a chance to play ball? A chance to swim?… Meir Dovid, keep on smiling and being on time and most of all, please keep me informed that you’re being matzliach… Dovid Trenk
Yisroel Besser - Artscroll
