Harmony through Opposites

Shavuos brought me back to Seed of Redemption, Rav Aaron Lopiansky’s superb adaptation of Nachlas Rus by Rav Yoseph Lipowitz, and with it to Rav Lopiansky’s poignant tribute to his mother, who passed away on the second day of Shavuos 5766 and to whom the sefer is dedicated.

I have long thought that Rav Lopiansky’s appreciation of his father, Rabbi Bentzion Lopiansky, which appears in his collection Time Pieces, is the most powerful hesped of a father by a son that I have ever read. The lessons Reb Bentzion taught his son about how to put oneself in the shoes of another are literally unforgettable.

Reb Bentzion once saw Aaron, then nine or ten years old, tagging along after a group of boys in the Bialystoker Shul on the Lower East Side, where he served as the shamash. The boys were teasing a homeless vagrant who slept in the shul’s furnace room, until he chased after them. Reb Bentzion called his son over, and spoke calmly and warmly as always.

“You see that man?” he asked. “He was born a cute little baby whose mother stroked him and nursed him. She cooed to him and delighted when he cooed back and smiled at her. His father fantasized about his infant son achieving all those things he had failed to attain.