Brilliant Mind, Golden Heart

This is the tribute I hoped I’d never write: “Remembering Rav Moshe Dovid Tendler, born 27 Av 5686, died Shemini Atzeres 5782.” He was so many things: brilliant, elegant, regal, sharp, intimidating., unflinching. But to me and my siblings and cousins, he was Saba. Saba was a force, a legend in his own time; he was everything to our family. And now he’s in a better place, and we are heartbroken. Saba, you were always so proud of my writing but admitted you weren’t a fan of fiction. So this time, Saba, a piece of real life

Back in the day, young Moshe Dovid Tendler was what today would be called a “golden boy” — handsome, blessed with extraordinary intellectual abilities, athletic, and fearless. When an Irish gang was bothering a classmate of his, Moshe Dovid strode over to the gang leader and said, “Touch him again and I’ll churn you into butter.” Taking one look at Saba’s calmly set face, the leader called his gang off.

He was born on the Lower East Side on August 7, 1926. He once referred to it as “a Jewish shtetl in every way, full of first-generation immigrants, who dressed, talked, and behaved as they did in Europe. But observing them and learning from them proved to be extremely valuable to me, as I had contact with authentic Judaism from an early age.” His group of peers, friends, and neighbors grew up to be renowned roshei yeshivah and rebbeim, the next generation of leaders.

His father, Rav Yitzchak Isaac Tendler (Zeidy Isaac), an immigrant from Poland, was a talmud muvhak of the Chofetz Chaim yeshivah back in Radin, and later, one of the roshei yeshivah of the Rabbi Yaakov Yosef yeshivah and rav of the Kamenitzer shul, the largest shul of the Lower East Side. His mother, Rebbetzin Bella Baumrind Tendler (Bubby Bella), was a mechaneches: She gave her famous Pirkei Avos shiur on the radio for many years and then continued them in person in her home for decades. She also possessed a correspondence degree in law that permitted her to act as her own attorney in real estate transactions, and she was a baalas chesed who organized funds, food, and clothing for the poor on the Lower East Side.