The Rosh Yeshiva and the Taxi Driver

Rav Dovid Nadav related an incident from 1984. When Rav Shlomo Zalman came to Kol Torah to give his shiur, bochurim often crowded around him, hoping to see him or ask a quick question. They noticed that the taxi driver was always able to speak with him for several minutes before the Rosh Yeshiva got out of the cab, and one day the conversation lasted ten minutes. The bochurim were envious and wondered what the Rosh Yeshiva could have to discuss with the driver for so long.

Rav Nadav gathered the courage to ask the young driver, who was not religious. The driver was astonished to learn that the passenger was a Rosh Yeshiva. He said he had met a kindly old man some years earlier who asked about his family and background. When the driver mentioned that he had once attended a religious school, the man asked if he remembered stories from Tanach, and the driver told him what he recalled from Bereishis. The old man listened with great interest, so each time since then the driver had studied more Tanach stories from children's books in order to tell him more. He had never imagined that his listener was a Rosh Yeshiva.