In a simple suit, looking like a “regular guy,” Rav Yitzchak Goldstein managed to hide his brilliance and his major contributions to the Torah world.
His son Rav Yaakov summed up his father’s unique disdain of kavod this way: “If he were alive to hear this he would get up and run away” (Photos: Mishpacha archives)
M onday 29 Tishrei 5777/2016 Jerusalem
The day’s early calm was broken by wailing ambulances racing through the quiet streets pulling in at 2 Machal Street in Maalot Dafna. Paramedics hurried into the building summoned to the apartment of Rav Yitzchak Goldstein who had never wakened that morning. After intensive but unavailing resuscitation efforts the paramedics had no choice but to leave. Rav Goldstein at a few weeks shy of age 64 had slipped out of the world in the same quiet unobtrusive manner that typified his life.
Considering the esteem in which his teachers colleagues and friends held him he ought to have been famous. His phenomenal memory and powers of insight qualified him in their minds to be one of the gedolei hador. But he hid himself well: Even most of the 40-odd families that lived in his apartment block weren’t aware of his talents. He ran from honor and publicity his entire life. He dressed simply and comported himself with humility. Only upon hearing the hespedim did his neighbors get a small inkling of who this unassuming man really was.
His son Rav Yaakov summed up his father’s unique disdain of kavod this way: “If he were alive to hear this he would get up and run away from here.” The sentence encapsulates the secret of this gaon’s life.
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