The Ostrovtza Rebbe, R’ Meir Yechiel Halevi, once had the opportunity to spend some time with R’ Chaim Ozer, the leader of Lithuanian Jewry. The Rebbe was particularly famous for his brilliant Torah explanations based on intricate mathematical calculations, and R’ Chaim Ozer requested that he share some of these thoughts with him. The Rebbe obliged, and R’ Chaim Ozer was taken aback by the sheer genius of this great mind, and exclaimed, “Why, you are truly a gavra rabba, a great man!” The Rebbe immediately responded, “I am a great man? You are the gavra rabba, and there is an explicit gemara that proves this. R’ Chaim Ozer could not discern the meaning of his words and asked him to explain the reference. The Rebbe replied by citing the Gemara (Makkos 22b), which observes that there are people who stand up for a Sefer Torah, but not for a gavra rabba. This is not only wrong, the Gemara explains, but foolish, because a talmid chacham has the power to ‘override’ the simple meaning of a pasuk in the Torah. For example, the pasuk says arba’im yakenu, there are various transgressions that are punished with forty lashes. However, the chachamim expounded the pesukim, and ruled that we only mete out thirty-nine lashes.
Now, the Rebbe asked, there are many cases where Chazal ‘change’ the straightforward reading of the Torah. For example, they say that we do not count fifty days from Pesach until Shavuos, as a simple reading of the pasuk seems to indicate, but only forty-nine. Why does this particular drashah illustrate the power of the chachamim?
We see from here, the Rebbe explained, that brilliant Torah explanations do not suffice to be labeled a gavra rabba. It is only when one uses his wisdom for the benefit of other Yidden, when he saves a Yid from receiving noch klep, additional blows, that he merits the title of gavra rabba.
“You are the heart of Klal Yisroel,” the Rebbe declared to R’ Chaim Ozer. “You are the address for every almanah and yosom, for every downtrodden soul. You lift their spirits and offer them physical assistance. You are truly a gavra rabba!”
There is perhaps no greater example of such empathy than the saga of R’ Aron Bakst and the daughters of R’ Shraga Feivel Frank. R’ Shraga was a well-to-do merchant, steeped in the teachings of Torah and mussar. Before he passed away at a young age, he instructed his wife to do her best to find appropriate shidduchim for their four daughters. Specifically, he told her to choose the very best bachurim available in the Yeshiva world. His wife fulfilled her promise, and his daughters all married future gedolei Yisroel, among them R’ Moshe Mordeche Epstein and R’ Isser Zalmen Meltzer. However, the eldest daughter was previously engaged to R’ Aron Bakst. R’ Aron had a sterling reputation, yet at some point during their engagement, his future mother-in-law began to have misgivings, thinking that she should have chosen R’ Moshe Mordeche instead. R’ Aron agreed to break off the shidduch, and she took R’ Moshe Mordeche as her son-in-law.
Fast forward some twenty-odd years, and we find the Alter of Slabodka searching for someone to take the helm as Rosh Yeshiva of the great Slabodka Yeshiva. He approached R’ Aron and offered him the position, but he refused, and offered the following astonishing explanation: “What will Mrs. Frank think when she hears that I became the Rosh Yeshiva? She will regret her decision all those years before and think that she would have done better if I would have married her daughter. It is preferable that you offer R’ Moshe Mordeche the job, and not cause pain to an almanah!”
Such are the ways of our gedolim, who understood the true priorities in life. They perfected the midah of nosei b’ol b’chaveiro, and chose empathy over honor, allowing another’s feelings to take precedence before their own advancement. Let us try to emulate, in some small measure, their great actions, and together, we will be zoche very soon to the geulah shleimah.
