“I’m starting to get tired of society viewing introversion as a disadvantage, while extroversion is looked at as praiseworthy”
I was delighted to read your lovely tribute to the late Congressman Herbert Tenzer, the first Orthodox Jew ever elected to Congress in 1964. While I did not personally know the congressman, never even met him, I did have a single telephone conversation with him, which without wishing to sound melodramatic, actually impacted my life.
Flash back, if you will, to the spring of June 1965. I was a third-year law student at NYU Law School and was suddenly informed that my final examination in Constitutional Law was to take place on the afternoon of the second day of Shavuos. Naturally that would be impossible for me, but for some reason, the law school would not schedule a makeup or a postponement. Worse, my failure to appear for the test would delay my graduation for a full year until the next time the test was to be given and delaying my taking the bar exam for a full year!
Nothing could change their decision. Someone suggested that I contact Herbert Tenzer. Aside from being a communal activist, he was a distinguished NYU alumnus and a member of the board of the Law School. I called him and told him of my dilemma. He was sincerely outraged and said he would call me back in an hour.
As good as his word, he called me to tell me he had worked out a solution. Basically, if I could be in the classroom when the test was being administered, and remain there till sundown, I could take the test after everyone had left. It was an imperfect compromise as it involved me walking five miles to the law school on Shavuos afternoon and sitting in the back of the exam room until sundown, but it was all I had. I grabbed it and took the exam.
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