In honor of my grandfather’s yahrtzeit, the 14th of Tammuz: I was sharing a memory of my grandfather zt”l (Lessons From a Stained Haggadah) with a friend, and he reminded me of a story I told almost twenty years ago:

My grandfather was giving me a horse-back ride on his back in 1963, when Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l entered the house. My grandfather turned to Rav Moshe and said, “I promised Simcha that I would give him a ride to the next room.” He finished my adventure, rose and went to properly greet the Gadol Hador, the greatest rabbi of the generation.

When I was older, I asked my grandfather why he did that, “Isn’t greeting Rav Moshe more important than giving a grandchild a ride?”

“Yes, but greeting Rav Moshe is not as important as keeping a promise to a child!” He then pointed out numerous examples in the Talmud and Halacha about keeping promises to a young child.

I was in awe of how his mind worked and how, even with a grandchild riding on his back, while he was on his hands and knees, he was making decisions based on Halacha!

And there was more: “I never forgot that story,” he said, “because I’ve always been worried that you would learn to treat Rav Moshe with just a drop less of respect. I carefully observe your interactions with him and how you speak of him to be certain that you were not negatively influenced by the story.”

If I was in awe of him before; I was now at an entirely new level of awe of a great Torah scholar. I believed that it was an insignificant story to him despite being so important to me. Yet, he not only remembered; he thought about it to an unimaginable degree! He understood that I may have been negatively influenced, “just a drop,” by the experience, and that it would affect my development. He saw things and thought about them in a way that was and is far beyond me.

It is not his learning I envy, but how the learning was expressed in everything he did; how it enhanced his awareness and sensitivity.

No wonder our Sages insist that we must spend time serving Torah scholars to truly acquire Torah.

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