Everyone’s Mashgiach 

Rav Chaim Walkin’s feet were firmly planted on the ground, but his mind was busy with mussar — unless someone needed his attention, be it a longtime student or a child in shul. Born in Shanghai, raised in New York, he made his mark in Yerushalayim with thousands of talmidim. A remembrance on his first yahrtzeit.

Rav Chaim Walkin ztz”l, for more than 40 years the mashgiach at Yeshivas Ateres Yisrael in Yerushalayim, knew as well as anyone how much love is lacking in the world today. How much people need it. How they need a place that will accept them with without judgment, without criticism, without a sideways glance — a place where the mashgiach is not constantly watching over them.

I can say with near certainty that the Mashgiach would not have counted me among his five talmidim muvhakim. Or perhaps even among the top fifty.

He had hundreds of talmidim muvhakim. His students hold some of the most prominent positions in the Torah world today. Maybe one of them would have been a more appropriate choice to be writing this article. But he had such an ayin tovah, and he took such pleasure at anything that someone else produced.

Thousands who owe him their spiritual lives, even if those who do not serve as roshei yeshivah or meishivim or eighth-grade rebbis. He taught us that a person has to strive for excellence in everything he does, and to be a yerei Shamayim and oved Hashem while doing it.