Remnant of a Generation

Reb Shmaryahu, who passed away a few days before Chanukah, was renowned as a genuine “Shas Yid,” a prolific mechaber seforim and one of the last remnants of a generation that has long passed, a man greatly admired by gedolei Yisrael already 70 years ago, whom Rav Moshe Feinstein referred to as Hamaor Hagadol and whom he addressed in many of his teshuvos.

While I was only zocheh to know him for the last five years of his life, a chance encounter on a Friday night developed into a relationship for which I am forever grateful. Being connected to a talmid chacham of such stature and a link to a different generation was priceless. Stories of gedolim I had read as a child were substantiated after meeting someone who actually knew them. They were no longer names from a book or pictures on a wall, but real live people Rav Shulman would talk about as if he saw them yesterday.

Rav Shulman was one of the early talmidim of Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman, from whom he received semichah, and was one of Rav Aharon Kotler’s first talmidim in America. He recalled as a youngster seeing Rav Elchonon Wasserman Hy”d on his visit to America in the late ‘30s, and another fond memory was when he, along with three of his friends, were awarded a cash prize from Rav Eliezer Silver upon Rav Silver’s visit to Ner Israel in 1942. He recalled hearing a shiur from Rav Yitzchak Herzog, the chief rabbi of Israel, about whose brilliance Rav Ruderman raved. He would often speak in learning with Rav Michoel Forshlager, the talmid muvhak of the Avnei Nezer of Sochatchov, who somehow found himself in Baltimore. As he left yeshivah, he developed close relationships with Rav Moshe Feinstein, Rav Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, and Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveichik.

Once he left yeshivah, he served as rav in the Kesher Israel and the Shomrei Shabbos kehillos in Washington, D.C., in Jersey City, and in Norwich, CT. When he joined the Agudas Harabbonim while still a bachelor, he was the youngest member and one of the only American-trained rabbanim. He would say that he only got in due to the recommendation of Rav Naftali Riff, and even so, he was given a bechinah by Rav Yehuda Leib Zelcer before being admitted.