One time a person called Rav Perr about a shidduch with a certain Novardoker’s daughter. Reb Yechiel told him, “I really don’t know the girl, but the father is extraordinary.”
“What is he? Is he a mashgiach?” the man inquired.
“No, he’s not a mashgiach.”
“Is he a rosh yeshivah?”
“He’s not a rosh yeshivah. He’s a serious talmid chacham, but not a rosh yeshivah.”
“So then what is he?” the man wanted to know. Rav Perr thought for a moment or two and then said, “You know what he is? He’s the kind of person to whom it does not matter at all if you know what he is.”
The line went silent for a minute, and then the caller asked: “You mean such people really exist?”
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Rav Perr’s position never led him down the path of egotism and ga’avah. He recalled his father-in-law’s vort about rabbinic kavod: “When you’re invited to a chasunah, do you think they really want you there? They just need a kapoteh (frock) there. They don’t need you.” Rav Perr expanded upon this: “I could just send them my kapoteh on a hanger or a mannequin. I’m nothing more than a prop to show the audience that the baalei simchah are a frum family in good standing, complete with a frocked clergy member. The meal needs candles, and the chuppah needs a gray-bearded overweight man wearing rabbinic garb.”
