I first saw Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel ztz”l around 30 years ago at the chasunah of a chavrusa who had been in his shiur at Yeshivas Mir. I had no idea who he was. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. A half-smile never departed from his lips the entire time I observed him. It conveyed goodness and love and joy in a talmid’s simchah. I remember asking my chavrusa later “Who was that man who looked like an angel?”
When I started learning afternoon seder in Yeshivas Mir a few years later Rav Nosson Tzvi was giving at least two hour-long shiurim and a chaburah each day. And he was available to learn b’chavrusa with anyone who approached him except on Thursday evenings when he traveled to Ofakim to learn all night with his rebbi Rabbi Chaim Kamil ztz”l.
My chavrusa at the time had come to Yeshivas Mir from Ohr Somayach and had a chavrusashaft with Rav Nosson Tzvi almost from his first day in the Mir. On the first Monday of BaHaB his second week in the yeshivah he could not find Selichos in the unfamiliar siddur. His embarrassment grew by the second until Rav Nosson Tzvi who had somehow noticed his discomfiture from his place came over with a siddur opened to Selichos. Such acts of chesed could be told by every single one of the tens of thousands of talmidim who came within Rav Nosson Tzvi’s dalet amos.
I want to emphasize that these memories go back to long before the debilitating Parkinson’s which took such a heavy toll on the Rosh Yeshivah during his 22 years heading the Mir. In those days if you wanted to talk to him the best time to do so was walking to or from his apartment in Geula nearly a mile from the yeshivah.
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