By Yisroel Besser. Jerusalem’s Rechov Ha’Ameilim is not a residential street. The buildings house metal-workers, with scenes of orange sparks flying off blowtorches, and wood-workers, their sawdust blowing out with the gentlest breeze. There is a bakery, its massive oven piping hot well before the sun rises, and a silver-restoration workshop, where precision and concentration are necessary all day, every day.

It’s a street where toil is in the air, where effort and exertion criss-cross the bumpy road like winter’s puddles. A street of ameilim — literally, “toilers.”

There is but one residence on the street, and in terms of sheer hard work, it towers above the line of shops at its side.

The home of Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Rosh Yeshivas Mir.

They labor and he labored….

They labor and receive their recompense: crumpled bills. He labored and found life, joy, an ecstasy so profound it defined him — and impacted thousands of people who saw themselves as his talmidim. 

Until just a week ago, there lived a man whose being testified to the words of the Mishnah — The Torah gives him kingship.

He proved that the Torah cloaks those who learn it with majesty, grace, and dignity. That a figure rendered helpless by physical limitations could exude strength and focus, power and limitless ability.

The face of Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Rosh Yeshivas Mir, was testimony that the Shechinah rests among Yisrael.

Like the western lamp of ancient times, the greatest modern-day citadel of Torah, Yeshivas Mir of Jerusalem, had a ner tamid, a perpetual, constant light. Consistent: seder after seder, blatt after blatt, chavrusas overlapping with their replacements. And the light? His smile could illuminate the darkest room, awaken the most dormant soul.

I never saw eyes that could dance as his, or a countenance so suffused — despite unmistakable lines of exertion and travail — with nobility.

Now the ner tamid, the brilliant light in a most imperfect vessel, has been snuffed out. 

A Shmuess and a Song One of the highlights of the week during my own time at Yeshivas Mir was Rav Nosson Tzvi’s Friday shmuess, delivered in his dining room. Since he spoke in English, the crowd was somewhat different from the standard audience. Rav Nosson Tzvi seemed different too: he was more relaxed, and he spoke with a certain freedom and candor.

There would be a sefer open on the table when we filed in — more often than not, Chofetz Chaim al haTorah — and he would share an insight or thought, using it as a springboard to other topics, often anecdotes and incidents from the preceding week.

But always, he would return to the same theme. The same word, really.

Torah.

No composer, no poet, has ever invested a word with more feeling than he infused into that word. “Tey-reh,” he would say, his voice lyrical, an ode of yearning and love.

His heart was a like a guitar, each string sensitive and awake to hisorerus, and on those Fridays, he’d share the inspiration with us.

During the week marking the yahrtzeit of his revered father-in-law Rav Beinish Finkel, he described how Reb Beinish succeeded in keeping all his holy fire inside of him, showing nothing to the world. Rav Nosson Tzvi used the words of a zemer that his father-in-law would sing on Leil Shabbos, “Libi uvsari yeranenu l’Keil chai,” to express the avodah of Reb Beinish, whose innards sang.

Then the Rosh Yeshivah stopped, mid-shmuess, and began to sing the words “Libi uvsari, libi, libi uvsari,” to a niggun composed by Rav Meir Shapiro. Instantly, everyone began to sing along, and for several minutes, we tasted — if only temporarily — what it means: Libi uvsari yeranenu …

During those weeks that he’d met with gedolim, come Friday he would allow us a glimpse of his impressions. This week I met Rav Shmuel Wosner, he told us, and he spent the shmuess describing the incredible yishuv hadaas he’d seen, the way the Shevet HaLevi measures each and every word before he speaks, the tranquility that envelops him.

He told us of observing Rav Elyashiv before an appointment, and illustrated the simple, almost childlike way the gadol hador learned the Gemara, chanting, “Amar Abaye … what does Rava answer? You hear Abaye? What do you say to that? And you, Rava, how will you respond to Abaye’s claim?”

One week, he described how as a yungerman, he was walking along with Reb Chaim Shmulevitz, engrossed in learning. They walked up the road across from Yeshivas Mir, passing by a strip of stores, and Reb Chaim suddenly stopped in front of one of them. It was a shoe store, and in the doorway was a large basket filled with little children’s footwear, a mountain of tiny shoes. Reb Chaim was silent for one minute, two minutes, and then a tear fell from his eye.

Rav Nosson Tzvi was bewildered. Reb Chaim explained. “I saw the pile of little shoes, shoes that will be purchased by mothers for their own toddlers, most likely the first pair. I started to think about the feelings of a mother buying that first pair of shoes for her child and the joy that will fill her tender heart as she prepares to equip him for the path ahead. Contemplating her joy, I feel it too, and therefore I cry.”

That was the shmuess. That day, we cried along.

And sometimes, he would tell us about his youth, about the teenager who came from Chicago to visit his great-uncle, the Mirrer rosh yeshivah, Rav Leizer Yudel Finkel.

He would often describe how he slept in Reb Leizer Yudel’s own home, in a curtained-off section of the living room. Reb Leizer Yudel would arise early, four o’clock in the morning, and learn eight blatt before Shacharis, knowing that he’d be consumed with yeshivah duties all day. The nephew from Chicago would often feign sleep and watch his uncle’s entry to the room.

“He would tiptoe in so as not to wake me, still in his shirtsleeves,” Rav Nosson Tzvi recreated the scene years later. “He wore a wide smile, and as he approached the seforim shelf, he spread his arms apart. He leaned over and embraced the seforim, kissing lone volumes, saying the names to himself, like a mother saying ‘good morning’ to her children.”

Then Rav Nosson Tzvi stopped, his own face pained with nostalgia, and listed off the names, saying each one slowly. “Teshuvos HaRosh, Ri Migash, Rav Akiva Eiger, Afikei Yam …” We, his listeners, wanted nothing more than to run and master those seforim, so melodious was his voice.

Rav Nosson Tzvi would tell about his first winter zman in yeshivah, after Rav Leizer Yudel had convinced his parents to allow him to remain in Jerusalem for a few months.

“The rosh yeshivah arranged six chavrusas for me, three groups of two, with each two teaching me a different twenty blatt in Masechta Bava Kamma. They chazzered it with me three times each, so that I reviewed it six times with chavrusas. Then, I reviewed those same sixty blatt seven more times on my own, for a total of thirteen times. After that, I felt like I’d entered Bava Kamma.”

The Rosh Yeshivah would smile. “You know what? Bava Kamma is still so special to me…”

There was something he didn’t tell us. Rav Leizer Yudel had approached the most prestigious yungerman in the yeshivah, Rav Chaim Kamil, and said, “I am trusting you with developing a diamond. Don’t let me down.”

Ultimately, Rav Chaim Kamil would become rosh yeshivah in Ofakim, in the Negev, but he remained the rebbi muvhak of Rav Nosson Tzvi until his own passing, just a few years ago.

And one last story from the Friday shmuess: The Rosh Yeshivah had married off a son that week, in Bnei Brak. Of course, we’d all gone to the wedding — not out of a sense of duty, but with the excitement reserved for family and close friends. The chasunah was something special, an outpouring of love and reverence for a rosh yeshivah of thousands, from thousands.

“I want to share something with you, gentlemen,” the Rosh Yeshivah began the Friday shmuess that week. “After the chasunah this week, my new mechutan said to me, ‘I never saw a relationship like the one you have with the Mirrer bochurim; zeh k’mo okyanus shel ahavah, it’s an ocean of love.’”

Rav Nosson Tzvi looked around the room, his eyes shining as he focused on each and every person. Then he continued, “I just wanted to say thank you.” 

My Talmid It’s a unique feature of the relationship the Rosh Yeshivah had with his talmidim: there was no elite subset of bochurim that were “his type.” Each of them, the more yeshivish and less so, the intellectually gifted and the more emotional ones, the cynical and the sincere and the back-off types, they all felt close to the American-born descendant of the Alter of Slabodka, who had journeyed to the small Yeshivas Mir in Jerusalem and found himself at its helm. Yerushalmim and Israelis and Americans and Europeans and South Africans all had “their” special connection with the Rosh Yeshivah.

Sure, they would observe him — the illness, the exhaustive schedule of shiurim, the personal chavrusas that piled up against each other, the crushing budget, the bureaucracy of running the world’s biggest yeshivah — and wonder, “Does he really know me?”

And always, he answered the question.

He had private weekly chaburos with the alumni of the many yeshivos that were represented in the Mir, and one talmid, whose chaburah met each Wednesday, had the job of approaching the Rosh Yeshivah on Wednesday morning and confirming whether the chaburah would be running on schedule.

Years later, that bochur was learning in Lakewood, and the Rosh Yeshivah came for a visit. At the massive kabbalas panim, the bochur waited in line with hundreds of others, wondering if there was any point. The Rosh Yeshivah looked wan, tired from his trip, and the line seemed endless.

His turn finally came, and the Rosh Yeshivah grasped his hand, his voice a whisper. “We miss you on Wednesday,” Rav Nosson Tzvi said.

Chaim, a talmid, traveled to New York from an out-of-town community for the yeshivah’s annual dinner, simply to say “Shalom aleichem” and greet his rosh yeshivah. He too studied the line ahead of him and was consumed by doubt. The Rosh Yeshivah doesn’t even know who I am, he thought. He has six thousand new talmidim in yeshivah and it’s been a while since I left. I wasn’t even that close to him when I was there.

The thoughts plagued him, and he considered leaving. But I’ve come all this way, what can I lose? he asked himself before the questions returned again.

He waited it out, and his turn came.

The Rosh Yeshivah extended his hand, reaching for the talmid’s cheek. He kept his hand there for a long moment, and said two words.

“My Chaim.”

For the fathers of the Mirrer talmidim, it was no different. They too waited in the hope of hearing an encouraging word about their son, evidence that this gadol was familiar with their children.

One father introduced himself.

“Oh,” said the Rosh Yeshivah delightedly, “I know your son, he does bircas Kohanim near my seat every morning. And by the way,” the Rosh Yeshivah added with a smile, “he can use a new hat.”

There was a bochur in yeshivah whose older sister was having trouble finding her match, and his father asked him to request a brachah from the Rosh Yeshivah for the girl. At the annual dinner in America, the father came to greet the Rosh Yeshivah, and Rav Nosson Tzvi looked at him. “This year, im yirtzeh Hashem, she’ll become a kallah.”

Of course, it happened, but that’s not what’s extraordinary about the story.

At the beginning of a zman, a personable bochur approached the Rosh Yeshivah. “I know that the minhag is that the Rosh Yeshivah accommodates every single talmid who asks for a chavrushaft with him, but I feel bad to burden the Rosh Yeshivah,” he said. “I have a request: I want my ‘kevius’ to be that each morning, just after Shacharis, I will come wish the Rosh Yeshivah a ‘good morning.’”

The Rosh Yeshivah happily agreed.

At the dinner that year, the boy’s father greeted the Rosh Yeshivah and received the following message: “Please tell your son I missed his ‘good morning’ today.”

A talmid returned to yeshivah after spending Pesach with his family, still feelings pangs of homesickness. He had enjoyed the comforts of home and Yom Tov with his family and it felt strange to be back in yeshivah.

After Shacharis, the Rosh Yeshivah suddenly stopped by his seat. “It looks like your mother fed you well over Yom Tov,” he said.

“And,” recalls the talmid, “that was the moment when I knew that the Mir was my home.”

A bochur had established a weekly seder with the Rosh Yeshivah; he’d walk Rav Nosson Tzvi home once weekly and on the way, he’d share a dvar Torah on the parshah. One Friday, at the shmuess, the Rosh Yeshivah looked around the room until he located that bochur.

“I heard a beautiful thought from a good friend of mine this week,” he said, before sharing that vort.

There was a bochur who was a late riser, resulting in his repeated tardiness at first seder. His chavrusa finally told him that if he arrived after 9:30, he wouldn’t learn with him.

One day, the bochur arrived at 9:32, and the chavrusa stood firm, refusing to learn. The bochur begged for compassion, but the chavrusa was steadfast. They argued and eventually agreed to a “din Torah,” to be adjudicated by the Rosh Yeshivah.

“If someone would call you each morning before Shacharis, would it be easier for you to wake up?” asked the Rosh Yeshivah.

The bochur said that it would.

Someone called him the next morning: Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Rosh Yeshivas Mir.

The Rosh Yeshivah also learned with him for a few minutes after davening, a minhag he repeated every single morning throughout that long winter zman.

[Read more in this week’s Mishpacha Magazine]