Rav Reuven Feinstein once received an effusive letter from a non-Jew praising the bachurim of his yeshivah for their respect, a testament to the power of a yeshivah bachur to create kiddush Hashem.
Rabbi Feinstein, I was so impressed with the Staten Island Yeshiva of which you are the head that I must write this email to you. In February of last year, I drove a friend of mine, Rabbi Eli Beane, from Lakewood, NJ to upper Staten Island for knee therapy. Rabbi Beane needed to say afternoon prayers and determined that your yeshivah was a convenient place. It was cold and snowy. I helped him up the steps and waited in the hallway. I could not help but be in awe of the dress code, the demeanor and the courtesy, shown to me, a stranger and a non-Jew.
I live in a non-Jewish world, in which people are low in respect for teachers, parents and themselves...I am not a predictor of the future but without a belief in an Almighty and a judgment we must face, the non-Jews that I live among are doomed—and they don’t know it or couldn’t care less. ... Rabbi Beane remarked to me that without a high degree of morality, the world sinks into cannibalism and savagery. The only hope I see is the islands of bachurim studying Torah and Talmud, living its commandments and influencing others.
May the Almighty bless you, the yeshivah, the rabbis and your students. May your yeshivah be an example of what humanity should be!
Shalom, Gerry Mullen.
Reproduced from A Life Worth Living by Rabbi Shraga Freedman with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
