He was a strong personality, observant religiously despite his sparse Jewish education. He helped establish the Shomer Shabbos shtiebel<\/em> in Boro Park, Brooklyn, and was its president for many years. He was committed to its policy of only accepting strict Sabbath observers as privileged voting members of the shul, although all Jews were welcome to pray there. The shul exists, and thrives, to this day. He was known there as Mr. Hartman, and his Hebrew name, Mordechai ben Nachum Shmuel, still graces a memorial plaque on the synagogue\u2019s eastern wall, but I called him \u201cDad\u201d.<\/p>\nDuring the pre-Holocaust years, he helped support the members of his family who had remained in Europe. In fact, he traveled there several times to visit them and attempted to convince them to come to America, with little success. While there, he was approached by dealers in sacred books and returned with what became a well-stocked library of rare seforim<\/em>. Book dealers called him \u201cDer Amerikaner<\/em>\u201d, but I called him \u201cDad\u201d.<\/p>\nHe had little, if any, formal Jewish education. But as he grew older, he attended many rabbinic lectures and public classes. He expected me to become a Torah scholar and proudly \u201cstole\u201d my parchment semicha<\/em> certificate the day after my ordination and displayed it on the bulletin board of his shtiebel<\/em> (much to my dismay!). He regretted that he could not teach me Torah himself. But he encouraged me to use his well-stocked library and bequeathed much of it to me in his will. I still cherish those books and have had them rebound and restored by a master of the trade. Those books contain the secret of why I call him \u201cDad\u201d to this very day.<\/p>\nFor, you see, a centerpiece of the library was a complete set of the Pentateuch, the Five Books of the Torah, with a commentary known as Torah Temimah<\/em>. The author of that work was Baruch HaLevi Epstein, an impressive Torah scholar who earned his livelihood as a bank employee in his native Belarus but published a wide range of remarkably lucid and innovative works. Those works are still widely appreciated nowadays. <\/p>\nIn one passage of this work, Torah Temimah<\/em>, you will discover why I call Mordechai Hartman, may he rest in peace, \u201cDad\u201d. That is, why I refer to grandfather as \u201cfather\u201d. The passage is in this week\u2019s Torah portion, Bamidbar <\/em>(Numbers 1:1-4:20).<\/p>\nThere, in chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, we read: \u201cThis is the line [of descendants] of Ahron and Moshe at the time that the Lord spoke with Moshe on Mount Sinai. These were the names of Ahron\u2019s sons: Nadav, the first-born, and Avihu, Elazar and Itamar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rashi immediately comments that although only the sons of Ahron are named here, they are referred to as descendants of Moshe. He explains that this is because Moshe taught his nephews Torah. All who teach another\u2019s child Torah are considered \u201cparents\u201d of that child, as if they gave birth to that child. <\/p>\n
The author of Torah Temimah <\/em>finds the source of Rashi\u2019s contention that he who teaches Torah to another is in some manner that person\u2019s \u201cDad\u201d in a passage in the Talmud, Sanhedrin 19b. That is my reason for calling my grandfather \u201cDad\u201d. In his own way, \u201cDad\u201d taught me Torah, a lot of Torah.<\/p>\nTorah Temimah <\/em>expands upon this teaching. He cites another Talmudic passage,Sanhedrin<\/em> 99b, in which the sage Reish Lakish asserts that \u201che who teaches Torah to another\u2019s child is considered by scripture to have \u201cmade\u201d that child,\u201d meaning he has \u201cformed\u201d the child, or better has \u201ctransformed\u201d him. Reish Lakish draws upon the verse in Genesis 12:5 which refers to the \u201csouls that Avraham and Sarah \u2018made\u2019 in Charan.\u201d That is, the souls of the masses who were \u201ctransformed\u201d by our Patriarch and Matriarch.<\/p>\nBy granting me access to his precious tomes, \u201cDad\u201d helped to transform me from a rather bored adolescent to an eager bookish soul.<\/p>\n
Torah Temimah<\/em> has much more to say about the meaning of the word \u201cfather\u201d or \u201cDad\u201d. These words connote much more than a \u201cmale biological parent\u201d.<\/p>\nThis is evidenced by the verses in Genesis 4:20-21 which names Yaval as \u201cthe \u2018father\u2019 of those who dwell in tents and amidst herds,\u201d and his brother Yuval as \u201cthe \u2018father\u2019 of all who play the lyre and the pipe.\u201d Clearly, argues the author ofTorah Temimah<\/em>, \u201cfather\u201d refers to the ability of these two brothers to transform the cave dwellers into tent dwellers and hunters into shepherds, and to grant humanity the gift of beautiful instrumental music. <\/p>\n\u201cDad\u201d erected a tent for me, the \u201ctent of Torah\u201d, and although he was decidedly not musical in the simple sense of the word, he surely opened my ears to the \u201csounds of the music\u201d of Torah.<\/p>\n
Never satisfied with just a few observations on the text, the author of Torah Temimah<\/em> raises a question: Did not Moshe teach Torah to all Jews, not just his brother Ahron\u2019s children? Why is he not called \u201cfather\u201d of the entire Jewish nation?<\/p>\nHe responds by proposing, or perhaps by supposing, that whereas Moshe taught Torah to the Jewish people as a group, he surely must have delivered special private personalized tutorials for his dear nephews. By giving them \u201cfatherly\u201d attention, he merited to be called \u201cDad\u201d.<\/p>\n
My \u201cDad\u201d gave each of us individual attention, and in my case, it took the form of his library of sacred books, Torah Temimah <\/em>being just one of many hundreds.<\/p>\nI\u2019ve learned much from Torah Temimah<\/em> over the years and became aware of many aspects of Baruch HaLevi Epstein\u2019s life. He was the son of the author ofAruch HaShulchan<\/em>, and a nephew of the famed Netziv of Volozhin. He spent the years 1923-1926 in the United Sates of America and served as the head of Ezras Torah<\/em> before the famed Rav Henkin. My late Uncle Moshe Weinreb was acquainted with him during those years. <\/p>\nTragically, he died at a very advanced aged after the German army occupied his city of Pinsk. Although most records of his death suggest that he was hospitalized there and died of a serious illness, I\u2019ve seen accounts insisting that he was brutally murdered by the Nazis. HaShem yinkom damav, zecher tzaddik livracha<\/em>.<\/p>\nAnd \u201cDad\u201d too, may your memory be a blessing to all whom you \u201cfathered\u201d by bringing us closer to Torah, one way or another.<\/p>\n
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