Only a 15-year-old who doesn’t know his place would continue the conversation at that point. And so, I continued
A personal interaction from my youth with this gadol taught me that the depth of his humility was of the same magnitude.
In the early 1970s, when I was about 15 years old and in tenth grade, the plight of Soviet Jewry was in the forefront of everyone’s mind. A major rally had been organized to take place on a Sunday in front of the UN, and tens of thousands of Yidden were expected to attend. I very much wanted to participate and lend my young voice to the chorus of “Let my people go.”
In those days, the yeshivah high school that I attended in Forest Hills, Mesivta Chofetz Chaim, was in session until 3 p.m. every Sunday. When a friend and I approached the menahel at the time, Rav Gavriel Ginsberg ztz”l (no relation) and asked him if we could leave early to attend the rally, he insisted that we wait until yeshivah was over at 3 p.m. and then go. We explained that the rally would long be over by the time we got there.
Though my friend gave up, I was persistent. I said that there must come a time when caring about Acheinu bnei Yisrael takes precedence over an hour of learning. Of course we assured him that we would make up for the missed hour on our own time.
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