Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg’s halachic mastery crossed every divide
Rav Shlomo Zalman would say: “I have a son-in-law who is a normaler illui — a normal genius.”
An eminent dayan shares: “Reb Zalman Nechemiah was a normal person. He was a gaon in normalcy. A Jew who lived a normal life, and from that, he was able to rise to the highest levels in brilliance.
“I’m already part of the new generation,” he says. “I remember once being in a car, with a driver. When we drove by the bus stop, I noticed Rav Zalman Nechemiah sitting and waiting. We stopped, but he refused to get in. ‘There’s a bus in half a minute,’ he said with a smile, and went back to his thoughts. I heard many shiurim from him — but that lesson is the one I remember best.”
He was a rav to regular people as well, not only prominent dayanim. “I’m not embarrassed to say,” says a Russian immigrant with tears in his eyes, “that he was my Abba. I took every step in my life with him. He always said to me, ‘We’re both immigrants from Russia. I came at age five. You came a bit later. But we’re the same thing.’”
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