Rav Shlomo Brevda ztz”l was known as a maggid who traveled around the world giving shiurim, and his listeners knew they were in for a journey that would carry them to vistas overlooking all of human history and the cosmos.
Rav Shlomo Brevda ztz”l, who was niftar in Brooklyn on 26 Teves 5773/January 8, 2013, at the age of 81, was known to most people as a maggid who traveled the world giving shiurim — perhaps most famously his drashah on Purim and the Megillah. A shiur from Rav Brevda took the listener on a journey from the often prosaic immediate surroundings to a commanding vista overlooking all of human history and the cosmos — interspersed with wry observations and tart commentary along the way.
A recent visit to his son-in-law and daughter Rav Asher and Rebbetzin Estie Druk in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo revealed a deeper side to Rav Brevda, a side he mostly kept hidden from the world at large. Even the concealed parts of his life, though, served to buttress and support the drashos that made him a familiar name.
“My father [famed Yerushalmi darshan Rav Mordechai Druk] used to say that what we once called a drashah is today called a hartza’ah a ‘lecture ’” says Rav Asher Druk a son-in-law of Rav Shlomo Brevda ztz”l who passed away a month and a half ago after a prolonged illness. “The darshan the one giving the drashah was doresh from the tzibur he demanded something of them he made a claim on them. These days he doesn’t demand from them he gives them a hartza’ah — he wants to be meratzeh his friends to ‘appease’ them. My father-in-law was a darshan!”
“Above all my father was doresh from himself” reflects Rebbetzin Estie Druk Rav Brevda’s daughter. “He never spoke a lot at home. He left all the speaking for the drashos. He lived for speaking. Our whole life revolved around my father’s speeches — to the extent that I didn’t even have time to get engaged to my husband. It was during bein hazmanim and my father had drashos scheduled in advance one after another. He used to have six to eight a day. My husband and I met very few times and baruch Hashem it went very quickly. But my father couldn’t cancel all the drashos he had scheduled — in the Negev in the north. All these people were waiting for him. Finally there were two drashos one night that he was able to shorten and the first picture we have as a chassan and kallah was taken at 1:20 in the morning.”
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