The Last Day

It is told that Rav Schorr’s final day began like many in his later years. The school year was over, yet he went to the yeshiva to take care of private favors for several of the young men under his wing. Such kindnesses lay at the center of his sense of duty, whether he was acting as a Jew or as the head of a yeshiva.

While he was there, a conversation turned to a man who had been harshly criticized by someone else. Rav Schorr answered with his usual calm and humor. Keeping his composure was hard, but he refused to let anyone’s worth be belittled. The man he defended that Sunday would never learn of it. Rav Schorr did not reveal his good deeds to those he helped, since it would have shamed them, and he regarded helping another Jew as a debt owed to Hashem, not as a way of building up favors that bring power.

The following day might have been a historic one. Rav Schorr had become the recognized spokesman of the yeshivos in a fresh effort involving the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. Success could have eased the constant struggle to fund Torah education. He had called a gathering for the next day of yeshiva representatives and Federation officials. Convening meetings was not his way, but the institutions trusted him to speak for them, and with a modest shrug that seemed to ask whether they could not find someone better, he agreed. In a casual conversation with one Federation leader, his noble bearing, sincerity, gentle wit and charm had achieved an important breakthrough, and he was to meet another leading figure later in the week.

That evening, Sunday, the seventh of Tammuz, 5739 (July 1979), he attended the Sheva Berachos of a talmid and his bride, and he was asked to speak. The day’s irritations and the next day’s pressures dropped away as he entered the world he loved best. Most of the listeners were scholarly Polish chassidim, well able to appreciate his command of the Sfas Emes, Rav Tzadok of Lublin and the Maharal. Only days before, at the bris of a newborn son of a former talmid, now a leading educator, his most captivated listener had been a senior rosh yeshiva from one of the most respected Lithuanian-style yeshivos, a European talmid chochom steeped in mussar, who made no secret of his regard for the American-educated Rav Schorr.

As always, he spoke with his head tilted slightly and his eyes shut, as though the room did not exist. He was conveying Hashem’s Torah, and gestures, tone and drama meant nothing to him. His thoughts kept moving as he talked, producing new insights and asides. He avoided rhetoric, yet the beauty of his ideas often showed in graceful wording. That night he smiled and said that pardon for one’s sins on a wedding day is Hashem’s present to chosson and kallah. He had been unwell on both days, yet his audience noticed no weakness. Torah was his life and it gave him strength.

When he finished he sat down, visibly tired. The Polish-born rosh yeshiva beside him thanked him. A former talmid, now a friend and a grandfather, who had left Torah Vodaath more than twenty-five years before, came over with a smile and an outstretched hand. Rav Schorr had never learned to hold people at the distance that creates awe. The man shook his Rebbe’s hand and remarked that hearing him speak brought back his yeshiva days. Rav Schorr smiled and replied, “Takeh, takeh, emes,” meaning indeed, it is true.

Then his head dropped forward. America’s Torah world had lost the finest fruit it had produced, and Klal Yisroel one of its most well-rounded gedolim. Left behind was the unfinished task of uncovering the true picture of a man who spent much of his genius hiding his greatness even from his closest friends.