Buried Treasures

One kever that holds personal meaning for Rabbi Bamberger is the grave of his own rebbi and teacher, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, the great Yerushalmi posek and rosh yeshivah of Kol Torah. “He was always positive, princely, and overwhelmingly brilliant. As a talmid I was enamored by him,” Rabbi Bamberger shares. “When I once went to visit his kever on Har Hamenuchos, his son Rav Shmuel Auerbach was there, so I stood back to wait for him to finish davening. It was fascinating. His father was a towering giant and everyone clamors to daven at his grave, but when Rav Shmuel turned toward his mother’s kever — that’s when he sobbed like a child. Rav Shmuel was a grown man, one of the leading rabbanim of his generation, and it was his mother’s grave that brought all this emotion out of him.”

The moment stuck with Rabbi Bamberger and guided him as he wrote the book. “Especially after seeing Rav Shmuel daven at his mother’s kever, it became very important to me to feature as many women as possible.”

Rachel Imeinu, the mother of the Chasam Sofer, Sarah Schenirer, and Sulika Hachuel each has a chapter. If there were room, he would have included even more.

“There’s a Midrash [Midrash Tehillim, chapter 20] that brings a mashal of a father and son walking on the road,” Rabbi Bamberger says. In the Midrash, the son was getting tired from the travels and asked his father, “Are we almost there yet?”