Blinded by his Glow

Prepared for print by: Dovi Safier
Adapted from the Divrei Hesped delivered by Rav Lipa Geldwerth

At the levayah of Rav Berish Zuckerman, an eminent Torah scholar, Rav Moshe Feinstein delivered a hesped. I still remember his words, because he delineated two distinct types of greatness. There are gedolim, he said, known by the masses — and then there are gedolim who are known primarily by other gedolim.

With the passing of Rav Shlomo Fischer, Rosh Yeshivas Itri, renowned halachic decisor, and author of the Beis Yishai, just two months shy of his 90th birthday, we have just lost the second sort of luminary: the sort of gaon known and understood only by other geonim. It’s only a small cadre who can appreciate the staggering loss of this mighty intellect and towering scholar.

Rav Moshe Shapira, a stellar gaon himself and not someone who was easily impressed, would say that Rav Shlomo “looms seven dargos (levels) above the world’s greatest lomdim.” Rav Shmuel Auerbach described him as “gevadig in der Velt — out of this world.” Maran Rav Chaim Kanievsky rose when a visitor identified himself as one of Rav Shlomo’s talmidim.