“A spiritual Holocaust,” was no mere metaphor for Rav Noach, but a living reality
A successful biography of a major Torah figure must avoid the formulaic and convey what is unique about the subject and assess his historical impact. The subtitle Torah Revolutionary (for which I fought) hints to both facets of the biography.
Rav Noach did not found the first yeshivah for baalei teshuvah. Both Dvar Yerushalayim and the Diaspora Yeshiva preceded Shema Yisrael, which Rav Noach established together with Rav Mendel Weinbach ztz”l, and Rav Nota Schiller. The latter gave birth to both Ohr Somayach and Aish HaTorah.
But Rav Noach, more than any other single individual, burned the imperative of bringing Hashem’s children back to Him into the collective consciousness of Torah Jewry. There could be no greater chillul Hashem, he felt, than the fact that more than 90 percent of Hashem’s children know little of Him or His Torah.
“A spiritual Holocaust,” was no mere metaphor for Rav Noach, but a living reality. Once he was walking around an Ivy League campus with a talmid. The talmid commented on the beauty of the surroundings. Rav Noach replied, “I smell the smoke of Auschwitz.”
Create a free account to keep reading.
