Nothing but the Truth

The Jerusalem sun was low in the western sky as my photographer and I waited on the steps of the beis din at Kikar Zupnik, the center of the old chareidi yishuv. This spot is often the scene of protests, demonstrations, clashes, and funerals, but this afternoon it bore the quiet monotony of routine.We were to meet Rav Yaakov Yeshaya Blau ztz”l, one of the elder dayanim of the Eidah HaChareidis and one of its most respected leaders — a communal leader who served as a rav and halachic guide for the masses, both those within and without the ranks of the Eidah.

If Rav Blau had not shunned honor, his name would have been accompanied by a string of titles reserved for the most illustrious gedolim of the generation. But Rav Blau, who passed way last week at 84, preferred to remain behind the scenes, although he was considered the Torah world’s foremost expert on monetary law, and as rav of the Sanhedriah neighborhood in Jerusalem, he was accessible to anyone who needed his psak, receiving the public without using gabbaim as intermediaries and without having set reception hours.

Back to the steps of the beis din: I was on an assignment about the Badatz and Rav Blau had agreed to speak to me. As the Rav climbed up the steps, he watched as the photographer alongside me did his job from a safe distance. “This is the photographer’s parnassah,” I hesitatingly told the dayan, nervously anticipating his reaction. But Rav Blau was exceptionally pleasant. He stood still for a moment or two, smiled, and straightened out his coat, as if in an effort to help the photographer improve the quality of his picture, even if it displeased some of the other askanim who looked on with displeasure.

“Nu, you took the picture?” he asked the photographer in that blunt, raspy, nicotine-coated voice of the old-style Yerushalmi Yid. Upon being answered in the affirmative, Rav Blau hurried to join the Minchah minyan that preceded another grueling session in the beis din.

As I was still standing on the steps, two distinguished-looking figures appeared on the beis din’s porch: Rav Chaim Weiss, the shamash of the beis din, and Rav Yitzchak Shlomo Blau, the beis din’s scribe and Rav Yaakov Blau’s grandson. “Rav Blau asked us to tell you,” they said somewhat apologetically, “that you can’t write about the beis din, in order that you shall not sin or cause others to transgress the prohibition that blinds the wise and corrupts the words of the righteous.”