By the Warmth of the Sun

           Seven years later, Rav Moshe Shapira’s teachings still light the way

Rav Moshe Shapira never let the world around him color his clarity. His warm heart and all-encompassing knowledge in both the revealed and hidden Torah, brought him to unique heights, taking his talmidim along and opening vistas for them, too. In Looking into the Sun, by longtime talmid Rabbi Menachem Nissel, Rav Moshe — who passed away seven years ago on 10 Teves — comes alive again for students old and even new

Iwas a young yeshivah bochur from England when I approached Rav Moshe Shapira for the first time. It was 1981 and he had just joined the faculty of Yeshivas Mishkan HaTorah on 41 Rechov Sorotzkin.

The yeshivah had previously broken off from Yeshivas ITRI (playfully called “Splitri”), and bringing in Rav Moshe was considered a master stroke to put the yeshivah on the map. Rav Moshe was still in his forties, yet his reputation as a man who had mastered kol haTorah kulah preceded him. His face radiated the hadras panim of a previous generation, of one mining the depths of the penimiyus of Torah, and harmonizing it with the outside world.

So I was delighted to finally meet this extraordinary person. I asked him a question on the Gemara we were learning. He asked me my name and then answered with magnanimous patience and clarity. I left feeling like a million dollars.

The next day I went back to him with a different question. This time he looked at me with his piercing eyes and said, “Did you look up the Rashba?” I said no. “Rav Akiva Eiger sends you to a Gemara in Yevamos — did you look it up?” I said no. Then he paused and said, “So why are you wasting my time with your unprepared questions?”