Now it was the third week, and almost all the bochurim had come. It was already a minhag
Late on Thursday night, the rosh yeshivah was sitting in the dining room, surrounded by a huddle of bochurim.
Originally, he had thought that doing a formal hashkafah shiur would somehow mark the yeshivah as less mainstream, so he let it go, but over the winter, he had developed the perfect format. It wasn’t an official shiur, but more of a conversation.
The yeshivah would serve cholent late on Thursday night, after night seder, and at Penina’s urging, Rabbi Wasser started joining. The first few weeks were awkward, and he made small talk with the boys, but then one week Dovi Korman had asked a question — perhaps out of compassion, Sholom Wasser thought, but still. He had wanted to know what made someone a gadol b’Yisrael, who decided, and how come there were no elections for the post.
Rabbi Wasser had comfortably settled into the answer, describing the chush harei’ach, the sense of smell with which Klal Yisrael is blessed, and bringing all sorts of historical examples of gedolim who lived in small towns, who had no prestigious titles, yet were sought out from all over.
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