We grace our walls with images of gedolim, men who shaped future leaders, wrote famous tomes, inspired and taught the masses. Rav Shmuel Shmelka Taubenfeld was a different kind of gadol
Walk up Monsey’s Route 306 where it intersects with Route 59 and savor the options: sushi or prime cuts of meat, upscale cafés or ice cream in a dazzling array of flavors. You can turn right, left, or go straight in Monsey, a capital of contemporary heimeshe gastronomy.
Sixty years ago, this very intersection was already a capital. Back then, it also featured diversity, breadth, and range, an incredible assortment of options, though not of the edible sort. Food was fairly limited — fresh baked goods imported from Brooklyn — but the tiny settlement boasted an assortment of unique gaonim. And like a gleaming display case in an epicurean heaven, it featured all sorts of scholars: some proficient in all of Shas, others capable of hairsplitting analysis. The penetrating self-awareness of Reb Yerucham’s mussar fused with the crackling warmth of Reb Shraga Feivel’s chassidus; there was room for everything in the display case that was the humble beis medrash of Beth Medrash Elyon, breeding ground of gedolim.
If you slip through the trees of Main Street, between the rustling leaves of Elyon Court, you can still see the old building, the rocks upon which Reb Shraga Feivel sat, talmidim at his feet, and shared mysteries of creation, the humble bungalows from which the first generation of kollel couples in America taught those that would yet come what the lifestyle demands.
And with a bit of imagination you might discern the impression left by a unique figure, humble in stature, carriage, and title while towering in genius and kindness.
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