It was March of 1956. I was nearing the completion of my first year in the Rav's shiur. According to the rules, I was eligible to study Chulin the next year and Yoreh Deah the following year and present myself for my semikha bechina. However, it was exactly at that time that the Rav announced the three year plan by which he expected to teach the senior students for three years: Gitten and its counterpart in the Shulchan Arukh, Hilchot Geirushin; Kiddushin and Hilchot Kiddushin; and then Yoreh Deah along with Chulin. I was a little older than most of the students because I had gone to Columbia College and begun my rabbinic studies later than they did. Could - or should - I afford the extra year? I went to consult with Dean Samuel Sar, of blessed memory, who gave me the best advice I could possibly have received. He told me that I had had only one year with the Rav at that point and that Providence had given me an opportunity to have three more years. It was certainly worth the extra year I would have to spend in the Yeshiva. To this day I am grateful to Dean Sar. My whole life was different because of his advice.
As a personality, the Rav affected me more than any other human being except for my father. They both modeled for me what it was to be a learned Jew, devoted to God and committed to the Jewish people. To have been brought up by one and taught by the other was a double blessing that has profoundly influenced my life.
I remember the Rav very well as a teacher. How could it be otherwise? Four years, and then many shiurim and lectures and listening to tapes and reading the Rav's written works; all of this was entirely transformative for me.
I remember vividly when I managed to struggle through "Ish Ha-Halakha" in the original. It was extremely hard work but it was also thrilling. I found myself marveling at how closely his thought, his perceptions, and his conclusions paralleled my own thinking.
Then I remember laughing at myself. It wasn't he who was agreeing with my weltanschauung; it was I whose whole thought process had been molded by him over the years so that I actually thought these ideas were mine when I read them in "Ish HaHalakha." That's how powerful his influence was as a Rebbe.
I learned many things from him as a teacher. Among them was his striking integrity and his impeccable honesty. During my four years in his shiur I recall three occasions when a student - it happened to be me in one case - respectfully pointed out to the Rav that a whole analysis of his (sometimes two hours long) was at variance with something that we had learned sometime before. Think of it: a young student challenging the greatest mind of our generation. He could have destroyed the student with a look or with a word and easily defended his position. But he didn't. I can still hear him saying: "Lookstein is correct; I am incorrect. Do you hear this class?: He is correct, I am incorrect. I have to go home and relearn the whole sugia and present it again."
I have no difficulty, when teaching a class, to be able to say to a student "What a great point! You are absolutely right. I made a mistake." I saw the greatest teacher of our generation do exactly that three times. I was fortunate to have had a number of close encounters with the Rav which left me with indelible memories and, in a way, a world view. Let me cite three of them.
On one occasion, in the early 1980s, I went to him with a list of questions that had been bothering me. The first on the list was the use of an elevator, operated by a non-Jew, on Shabbat. When I asked him the question he looked at me and said: "What did your father do?" I said that my father lived on the 11th floor and when he came into his apartment house on Shabbat the doorman knew to operate the elevator for him. He looked at me again and said: "So why do you have to be more religious than your father?" I was stunned and somewhat embarrassed. I told him that I certainly used the elevator in my father's house and I was not trying to be impudent by asking the question. I reminded him that in the year after I received semikha I used to attend his shiurim on Masechet Shabbat and I had actually heard his heter for the use of an elevator when it's not possible otherwise (he said above the fifth floor) and it was for a d'var mitzvah. Under those circumstances, since he paskened that the operation of an elevator was only a rabbinic violation, it was permissible to ask a non-Jew to operate it for a Jew. I explained that, in view of the fact that most of the religious world doesn't use an elevator, I was just trying to find out whether he still felt the same way, especially since elevators in the days of the shiur (the 1950s) were manually operated while by 1980 most of them were automatic.
He said his views had not changed and that the p'sak remained the same. But in his initial response to me: "Why do you have to be more religious than your father?" I heard in one question the essence of Dr. Hayim Soloveitchik's article on the Mimetic tradition.
That's exactly what he was saying to me. He knew that I grew up in a religious home and he didn't feel that I had to be more frum than my parents. On another occasion, in the late '70s, I also went to him with a series of questions. After listening attentively and answering them, the Rav asked me: "Tell me, Chatzkel, how is Ramaz?" I understood the question was motivated by his being the founder of the Maimonides School in Boston. I told him that Ramaz was doing very nicely. He asked me: "How is your enrollment?" I replied: "Fine, thank God." He pressed further and asked: "Do you have more applicants than you have spaces?" I replied that "Yes, thank God, we have more applicants than we have places."
He then said to me: "That's because you haven't changed." I was perplexed and asked him: "Rebbe, what do you mean we haven't changed?" He looked at me and said: "You haven't moved to the right; don't let them pull you to the right." Ramaz was always a centrist, Modern Orthodox institution. That's the way my father founded it and that's the way it has continued. But those words from the Rav gave me further confirmation that we were on the right track. I have had occasion to quote them many times in my talks to Ramaz parents.
A particularly poignant exchange between us occurred after I had attended a Rabbinic Alumni convention and heard a very prominent rabbinic scholar discuss the issue of Tay-Sachs testing. That scholar advised against any kind of testing for reasons which he explained. Furthermore, he said, once a woman was pregnant there is certainly no reason to test because even if the fetus were found to have Tay-Sachs disease there is nothing that can be done about it. One may not abort. I was concerned about that approach and, as luck had it, I had been invited to have dinner that evening at the home of a member of the Rav's family at which the Rav was going to be present. He was scarcely in the door when I described to him the view that had been expressed earlier that day and I asked him what his opinion was. He said very firmly: "You can abort a Tay-Sachs fetus through the sixth month." I said nothing but he must have noticed a quizzical look on my face as if to say - which, of course, I would not - what was the basis for the p'sak? I will never forget what he told me. He said: "Chatzkel, did you ever see a Tay-Sachs baby?" I replied that I had not. He said: "We had a Tay-Sachs baby in Boston. I tell you that you can abort a Tay-Sachs fetus through the sixth month." I saw at that moment a gadol in action, deciding a difficult question of Jewish law with absolute confidence and courage, based upon his scholarship and experience.
A final recollection. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, my father invited the Rav to give a public lecture in our Main Synagogue. Over one thousand people sat in rapt attention for more than an hour listening to the Rav expound on his theory of community - knesset Yisrael. My father and I were sitting in the front row. I was busy, as usual, stenographically transcribing every word of the Rav so that I would have his thoughts permanently available to me. When he finished his lecture, he said: "Now I would like to say a few words about my friend, Rabbi Lookstein," referring, of course, to my father.
He proceeded to praise my father for his pioneering efforts in Jewish education, in religious Zionism, in homiletics, and in a number of other important areas. When he had finished his beautiful tribute he looked at me and said: "Chatzkel: You want me to say something about you too?" I lowered my head in embarrassment and wished there had been a trap door through which I could disappear.
But I will never forget his next words. "Chatzkel: your father I respect; you I love." I knew what he meant and I will forever be grateful to him and to God for those feelings.
