Rabbi Beryl Gershenfeld is at the forefront of worldwide kiruv, riding the waves of its changing dynamic for over four decades.
Photos: Meor and personal archives
Let me begin with a disclaimer: I cannot write with total objectivity about Rabbi Beryl Gershenfeld, for there is no one who played a bigger role than he did in my wife’s and my original decision to extend our honeymoon in Israel by 45 years.
After a class taught by Rabbi Gershenfeld at Ohr Somayach’s women’s school, my wife, Judith, approached him to question some of the things he had said. His immediate response was to invite us for Shabbos.
During the course of that Shabbos, we connected and discovered that we were both the oldest sons in all boy families, both had mothers of wide-ranging intellectual interests — his mother was a nationally renowned psychologist — and grandfathers who were very active in the Conservative movement.
Indeed, we were supposed to enter Yale Law School in the same class. Alas, by the time we finally met six years later, Rabbi Gershenfeld had already learned through at least half of Shas, and I had not yet opened a Gemara, though at least I had decided to leave the practice of law.
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