Every year on Lag B’Omer I think about my rebbi Rav Nisson Alpert ztz”l.
For the last 20 years of his life he was a rosh yeshivah at Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchonon. Although he was born in the alte heim in Poland he was very at home in the American scene and I talked to him about anything and everything. I can still picture him sitting every morning in the small diner across the street from the yeshivah drinking a coffee (served in a large glass) and eating a black-and-white cookie while reading the paper. At these moments he was easily approachable and quite often I would take advantage of his breakfast ritual to ask him a question on any of the four sections of Shulchan Aruch.
After breakfast except when he was delivering a shiur he would be in his shiur room or his office learning surrounded by six or seven different seforim. His concentration was so complete and his focus on what he was learning so total I could never let myself interrupt him.
He was kind compassionate and friendly and I soon learned how “normal” he really was. As a young bochur I noticed that he’d often arrive at yeshivah from the Lower East Side in a taxi. I overheard one of the other rabbanim ask him how he could afford to take cabs so often. With a twinkle in his eye Rav Nisson replied “Just because I’m a poor man does that mean I also have to live like one?” That answer quickly alerted me to his wonderful and rich sense of humor.
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