I
t takes many years of diligent and profound Torah study and great wisdom and wide erudition plus personal qualities of integrity and discipline to become the head of a major yeshivah and to be recognized as the rosh yeshivah.
Nevertheless this week in one brief shining moment I became a rosh yeshivah. I was trying to squeeze out of my parked car when a passerby stopped reached in grabbed my arm and helped me negotiate the narrow door opening. I thanked him profusely but protested that he didn’t have to go to so much trouble. He replied: “Would you deny me the mitzvah of assisting the Rosh Yeshivah?”
He had obviously mistaken me for my brother who is here inJerusalemfor a brief visit and is in fact the rosh yeshivah of a major yeshivah in theUS and who shares with me a certain physical and facial resemblance.
I chuckled to myself: Not bad I have become a rosh yeshivah the easy way without having had to work for it. If everyone mistakes me for my brother that could have interesting consequences. For one thing people will now show me great respect and deference. In shul I will be asked to sit in the front row will be given a choice aliyah and everyone will stand up before me as I walk by. Perhaps my new title will henceforth be “HaGaon” — although that is rather prosaic these days. HaGaon HaGadol might be more appropriate.
