Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky — The House at the Bottom of the Hill   

It was the albums that were my undoing. A visual history of our family lives in the plastic-covered pages. And scattered throughout, like the flash of so many luminous, distant stars, is the story of my father’s relationship with his rebbi muvhak, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky ztz”l.

Photos show Rav Yaakov standing in our backyard, siddur in hand, reciting the bircas ilanos on our cherry tree adorned in blossoms of bridal white; Rav Yaakov speaking at my brother’s bris; standing at the window, menorah in the background, at my sister’s vort. (I had forgotten that it was on Chanukah, all those years ago.) Rav Yaakov a few months later, officiating as mesader kiddushin at her wedding. My father bent over, platter in hand, to serve his rebbi at her sheva brachos in our home, his entire being bespeaking awe and reverence, k’eved lifnei rabo, a servant before his master.

There is one more photo, lovingly framed by my mother and displayed for many years on her desk. Looking at it, I can smell the tang of autumn in the air, hear the crunch of the fallen leaves underfoot. In the background is a small house: 38 Saddle River Road. Rav Yaakov’s house. The lodestar of our family’s spiritual identity.

My father was the gabbai of the small minyan that met every Shabbos in Rav Yaakov’s basement. My childhood is inexorably bound with the creak of those steps as I made my way down to daven behind the lace curtains that topped the wooden mechitzos. The Rebbetzin presided over the women’s section, and I often heard the swish of her skirts as she passed by on her way to the front of the room. When I close my eyes, I can hear the melodious baalei tefillah of my youth, Rabbi Shimon Rosengarten, Rabbi Dovid Muehlgay, Rabbi Nochum Frankel; now I am running up the steps to meet my brothers at the door to the kitchen, where they eagerly enter to receive the Rebbetzin’s cookies that Rav Yaakov withdraws from the domed metal cookie jar, with the smiling directive to “mach ah brachah.”