Travel Tales

Growing up in the lap of the Telshe Yeshivah in Cleveland where my father was a rosh yeshivah, I was very familiar with the travel exploits that were part of his job. Every rosh yeshivah was assigned different areas where he traveled to raise funds for the yeshivah.

In my father’s case, since he was so adept at raising money, he visited many countries. For many decades, he frequented South Africa numerous times and became very familiar with its Jewish communities. He told us that the outstanding characteristic of the South African Jews, whether religious or not, was their respect for Torah and the rabbis that disseminated it, and he shared several anecdotes that illustrate this.

My father’s fundraising in South Africa was done in coordination with the local yeshivah in Johannesburg, which in a sense was a branch of Telshe, as it was run by former Telsher talmidim. The agreed-upon arrangement was that my father would collect in the small towns and villages, and leave the big city to the local yeshivah. Taking this route brought him to many Jews who had not seen a rav in years. Though their observance was nonexistent, many still retained a sense of awe and respect when meeting a rabbi.

At one memorable encounter, my father made a lively pitch about the benefits of his yeshivah and its difficult financial situation. The gentleman eagerly wrote out a generous check and then said, “Rabbi, I have a question. Why does shivah need money?” he asked. This Jew had never heard of a yeshivah. He thought that my father was saying “shivah,” a word he did know, instead of “yeshivah,” which was a foreign concept.