I'll try to eliminate as much as possible bli neder im yirtze Hashem the kefel hadvorim and speak briefly. I'm totally unworthy to be maspid my brother זכר צדיק וקדוש לברכה. That unworthiness is compounded by the fact that words are inadequate. When we use words like hasmada, yiras shamayim, yegia namala, so for us, they have the associations with the standards of our dor. My brother didn't live by the standards of our generation; he belonged to frierdike doros. So the words fail us. The Rosh Yeshiva mentioned Reb Chaim. Reb Chaim once confided—Reb Chaim so known for his chesed embodied what the Rav zecher tzaddik livracha quoting from the Ibn Ezra and the Rambam that chesed means extreme. The Ibn Ezra says that the Torah describes arayos as chesed hu. But what kind of how is that chesed? So the Ibn Ezra says, the Rambam says it as well, that chesed really means, it really connotes something extreme. It can be extreme letovah, it can be extreme in the other direction. Chesed is something extreme. Real, real chesed, genuine chesed, the Rav said, is what seems to us to be irrational. Reb Chaim was the embodiment of that, the epitome of that. So he once said to his son Reb Moshe: אס מיינט נישט אז איך בין געבוירן אזוי איך האב געדארפט שטארק ארבעטן אויף זיך.
Don't think that I was born that way; I had to work very hard on myself. All of the talmidim sitting here experienced firsthand my brother's warmth, his love, his concern, his sensitivity and beyond the mechitzos of the beis medrash, that warmth, that love, that concern, that sensitivity was felt far and wide. If he had been born with the most softest of dispositions, so the stories and as was said efes katzehu tireh, the stories would be so impressive, so remarkable. But he wasn't. Beteva, my brother was tough, and beteva, he was shy, and ער האט שטארק געארבעט אויף זיך. He worked on himself tremendously, tremendously hard and he built himself into that loving Rebbe, into that quintessential baal chesed whom you knew and whom you learned from. Rabbeinu Yona writes haseichel matana; one's intellectual abilities are a gift min hashamayim. But hamiddos kinyan. My brother was koneh the middos. כל שיראת חטאו קודמת לחכמתו חכמתו מתקיימת. Yiras cheit is a prerequisite for attaining, retaining Torah. But the relationship is more nuanced than that. Chazal as you know quoting the pasuk יראת ה' היא אוצרו say that yiras shamayim functions as an otzar for Torah. The otzar, the treasury, the storehouse in which Torah is retained, in which Torah is safeguarded, is one of yiras shamayim. If I have one bundle, one bushel of Tvuah, I only need an Otzer which is so big. But if I want to bring more and more and more Tvuah in, then the Otzer has to be expanded. There's only so much Tvuah that can be compressed into one's initial Otzer. You heard the remarkable testimony as to my brother's Gadlus b'Torah. But that Gadlus b'Torah was only possible because he was constantly, constantly expanding that Otzer of Torah, יראת ה' היא אוצרו. When רבן יוחנן בן זכאי, I think it's רבן יוחנן בן זכאי was on his deathbed and the Talmidim asked for a Bracha. So he gives them a Bracha שיהי מורא שמים עליכם כמורא בשר ודם. Ad kan Rabbeinu? Halevai! It's human nature that we're attuned to audiences. If one's reality is the physical, the tangible, the visible Olam hazeh, then one's audience will be Basar v'dam. But if one's reality is the reality, one's reality is the Ruchnius, one's reality is Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so then one's audience is Hakadosh Baruch Hu. My brother's reality was spiritual. His exclusive audience was Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And his Hatzneia leches, it wasn't Pshat that he was Mevater on Kavod. That's the way people like me think of it. It wasn't Pshat that he was Mochel on Kavod. It was that in his world, in his reality, Kavod was nothing. He wasn't Mevater on Kavod. He didn't spend his whole life being Mevater on Kavod. He didn't spend his whole life being Mochel on Kavod. There was an equation for him, and I'm quoting, that Kavod was Bizyonos. In his reality, it wasn't Tofeis makom. But even that's not really accurate. It wasn't a zero, it was a minus, it was a negative. כבוד אלקים הסתר דבר. That Tznius is a hallmark of Chachmei hamesorah. One summer, I happened to meet one of the sons of רב שלמה זלמן אויערבך. And we had just been in a Minyan where they had Davened Maariv at a certain time. So I approached him and asked him whether his father would have repeated Krias Shema afterwards. So he told me, I don't think so, but אצל אבא קשה לדעת. And then he described—I forget the exact age that he told me, I don't know if it was pre-Bar mitzvah, post-Bar mitzvah—that he never knew that his father was Makpid on Zmanim of Rabbeinu Tam. He was a Ben bayis. He was in his father's Daled amos. He never knew until it dawned on him that somehow or other there was always an excuse not to be doing Melacha, not to be saying Havdalah, not to be breaking the Taanis Motzei Yom Kippur. He spoke to his older brothers, and they said, yeah, Bididan hava uvda as well. Same thing. It wasn't until our teens that we picked up on the fact. And then I believe he mentioned to me, the Gemara says that Rabbeinu Hakadosh when he'd be giving Shiur would say the Pasuk of Shema Yisrael and זו היא קריאת שמע ששנה רבינו הקדוש. Then the Gemara's a Machlokes tannaim whether Chozer v'gomer or Eino chozer v'gomer. So who are the Baalei plugta? So one of the Baalei plugta is Rebbi's son, and Rebbi's son couldn't say Eidus. Rebbi's son said a Sevara whether Chozer v'gomer or Eino chozer v'gomer. The Tznius was so great and so complete and so. successful that Rebbi's own son was on equal footing, equal standing with the other Tannaim in trying to understand whether or not chozeh v'gomer, eino chozeh v'gomer. Rav Nissin Alpert zt"l in his hesped for his rebbi, for Rav Moshe Feinstein zt"l, he described how one night he drove Rav Moshe to three weddings. And he asked him, the velt says מען קען נישט טאנצן אויף צוויי חתונות, and the Rosh Yeshiva is going to three. And Rav Moshe explained to him why it was going to be so meaningful to each of the, each of the ba'alei simcha. One of the chassanim, he didn't even know personally, but he was told that there was some family friction, and that if he would come and be mesader kiddushin, it would iron things out. But then he said very insightfully that to appreciate Rav Moshe's chesed, you had to know how much he valued every second. To do chesed is always, always something yekar ha'erech, always something yekar ha'erech. But when a person who values every second, when a person who measures time not by hours, not by minutes, but in seconds, when a person like that does chesed, that's a tremendous mesiras nefesh. Each of the remarkable tchumim in which my brother was so exceptional, each one k'shelo atzmo, when isolated, commands tremendous, tremendous respect, awe. But to really begin to appreciate, and only to begin to appreciate, one needs a sweeping holistic view. His chesed needs to be understood in terms of, in light of, his tremendous hasmada, his tremendous amal baTorah. His being me'urav im habriyos needs to be understood in context of the fact that he wasn't one of us. He belonged to a different generation, he lived on a different level, and yet so, so me'urav im habriyos. The Rosh Yeshiva mentioned no one lives in a vacuum. The posuk, I think it's in Zechariah, ונתתי לך מהלכים בין העומדים האלה. My father zt"l was fond of quoting the pshat, it's one of those pshatim where Rav Chaim Volozhin and the Baal Shem Tov say the same thing, that ונתתי לך מהלכים בין העומדים האלה, the omdim refer to malachim, malachim are stationary. They are created on a certain level and they remain on that level. And a person is a mahalach. And he would talk about how the essence of a mevakesh Hashem is a restlessness, that a person is, he's insatiable, his quest, his quench, his thirst can't be quenched. And that complacency is the antithesis of bakashas Hashem. My brother's thirst for kirvas Elokim was unquenchable. Whether it meant not sleeping, whether it meant heigolah l'makom Torah, and this too has to be understood in a broader context. As big and great as he was, as ra'uy to take... take the exclusive or seemingly ra'uy to take the exclusive role of being mashpia, he was always looking to be mekabel. There is a very famous vort, I think it's from the Kotzker, in Pirkei Avos, on the various teachings of the Tannaim introduced with Hu hayah omer. The Kotzker says hu, his very being, his very essence, hayah omer, would project, it would pronounce, it would teach. I'm sure that the amazing, amazing, life-changing hashpa'ah that my brother had on his talmidim, and I confess that here too, katzehu lo ra'isi, lo hevanti, bechayav. I'm sure that that life-changing hashpa'ah that he had on each and every one of his talmidim was due in part to the brilliant shiurim, but I'm convinced that primarily that hashpa'ah was through the sheer force of his personal example. And I know that because that's how he exerted a very profound influence on me. I was and forever will remain profoundly indebted to him. He never, never gave me mussar, but just being around him, the sheer force of the example when again, so much was hidden, but even the little bit that wasn't hidden, if you sat at the table with him and you watched him bentsch, so okay, so his kavanos were hidden, but the way each word was said carefully and pronounced couldn't be hidden. And he had to davven be-tzibbur, you saw the way he stood Shemoneh Esrei, and you went there for Shabbos, so you saw that when you went to sleep he was learning and when you got up he was learning. The sheer force of the personal example, Hu hayah omer. A word about his petirah. The Ramach mitzvos asei, שס מצוות לא תעשה, correspond to the eivarim and gidim she-be-guf. The Sha'arei Kedushah explains the pasuk in Iyov, but the guf itself is only, only a levush, is only a malbush. The essence of a person is the neshamah, the guf is the clothing, is what clothes the neshamah. So when you buy a suit, so when you're buying clothing, so you measure. So this is your, this is your arm length, so you need a, you need such and such size of a suit. And this is your, this is your waist, so you need the, the pants have to be so wide. If there are רמח איברים שס גידים בגוף, so it means that corresponding to that, there is some notion of a Ramach eivarim and Shas gidim in the neshamah. And that the tikkun of the neshamah, the Ramach and Shassa of the neshamah comes from Torah, comes through being mekayeim mitzvos. Those mitzvos which we can't be mekayeim, so their talmud Torah functions as a substitute. My brother's life revolved around being mekayeim mitzvos בכל כל פרטיה ודקדוקיה והידוריה. Apparently it couldn't be that the mitzvah of kiddush Hashem, that that tikkun of the neshamah would only come about vicariously through the talmud Torah of the mitzvah. Every mitzvah, every mitzvah בכל פרטיה ודקדוקיה וכוונותיה והידוריה. הידוריה, he deserved the opportunity to have the tikkun haneshamah of being mekayem the mitzvah of kiddush Hashem befoal. צריך אדם שיכוין כל מעשיו כולם כדי לידע השם ברוך הוא בלבד. נמצא המהלך בדרך זו כל ימיו כולם עובד את השם תמיד. נמצא המהלך בדרך זו כל ימיו כולם עובד את השם תמיד. אפילו בשעה שנושא ונותן ואפילו בשעה שבועל מפני שמחשבתו בכל דבר בכל כדי שימצא צרכיו עד שיהא גופו שלם לעבודת השם.
During the shivah I was speaking with my son and he told me that his defining or one of the defining associations with Uncle Moshe is his bechol derachecha da’ehu. Everything was oizgecheshbent. Everything he did was thought out, was premeditated, was oriented towards one goal. What he ate, when he ate. I eat when I'm hungry. I eat what I like. Everything was oizgecheshbent. But what about, what about petirah? How does that get integrated fully to the maximal בכל פרטיה ודקדוקיה והידוריה? How does that get integrated, how does that become integrated into a life of bechol derachecha da’ehu where everything, everything is oizgecheshbent? Everything is calibrated, everything is measured, everything is geared towards one, one and only one goal? His petirah couldn't just be the end of his life. It had to be עובד את השם תמיד בכל מעשיו. For a life that was subpar it can further elevate and sanctify a life that was good, that was productive. I don't know how often it can be said that a death al kiddush Hashem is the natural culmination of a life that there's a continuum, glatt, totally smooth continuum between a life al kiddush Hashem and a death al kiddush Hashem. His petirah for him was an incredible zechus. For us, גזר דין איום ונורא. I wouldn't presume to try to find The right answer of מה השם אלוקיך שואל מעמנו, but kemidumeh that the following isn't wrong. I don't know that it's the answer, I'm sure it isn't, but the following isn't wrong. As Rav Orenstein mentioned, the circumstances surrounding my brother's ptira lifted the veil of secrecy in which he had cloaked himself. And one can only wonder if that's not part of what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants from us now, to learn, but not to learn from his hanhagos, to learn from the underlying yesodos. His hanhagos, he adopted and he practiced them within a context of gaonus baTorah and yiras shamayim muflaga. If a person puts on cufflinks, some people on Shabbos Yom Tov, they'll wear a shirt with cufflinks. Ma'anei mechabdusa, it enhances the kavod Shabbos, it enhances the kavod Yom Tov. But what happens if the suit itself is ripped? What happens if the suit is filthy? What happens if the person's wearing pajamas, but he's wearing pajamas with cufflinks? It's a chuchu v'itlula. So many, rubba d'rubba, of his hanhagos are beyond us. The interest in learning about him and his life should not be what tefillin did he wear, when, how? It's not, we're not muchzakim u'mefursamim b'chasidus. It has no relevance to us. What does have relevance, Rav Orenstein mentioned this as well, he never ever compromised with himself. No effort was too great, no difficulty was insurmountable because Torah and mitzvos had a supreme absolute non-negotiable importance. If something is an absolute value, so then one's not aware, again as in the mashal of escaping from a fire, one doesn't, there isn't an inner struggle. Should I run down the twenty flights of steps when the fire alarm goes off? Shouldn't I? It's of absolute importance to save one's life. The tircha is real but inconsequential. For my brother, Torah and mitzvos, it was the absolute supreme and therefore non-negotiable value, the absolute supreme and therefore non-negotiable thing of importance in life. And it's that which allowed him to reach his potential. As Rav Chaim says, Rabbeinu Yonah said, hamiddos kinyan, שטארק ארבעטן אויף זיך. That's something that we can learn from and apply in the context of our individual lives. And finally, one of the menachamim, and one who was eminently qualified to make this statement, commented as follows. He said, your brother was one of the biggest talmidei chachamim I knew, he was the frummest person I knew, and he was the most normal person I knew. When a person is shaleim, the bein adam l'Makom is not at the expense of bein adam l'chavero, the bein adam l'chavero is not at the expense of the bein adam l'Makom. The tremendous mailos u'madreigos that one achieves in avodas Hashem does. doesn't prevent one from being me'urav im habrios. If כביכול הקדוש ברוך הוא והתהלכתי בתוככם, so then baalei madreiga and baalei avoda also have to be mekayeim vehis-halachti besochechem. תהא נשמתו צרורה בצרור החיים.