What are my influences?

What are my influences?

Now that I have posted about whom the Samber Rabbe’s were, the next is to better define what were the defining influences on my life. This may be useful as I try and comment on current issues that interest me.

From my maternal grandfather’s side, clearly there is a strong influence of Chassidism. I was close to my grandfather, and spent many yomim tovim (both pesach and succot) with him, starting when I was pretty young. I would guess that I was about 7 or 8 when I spent yom tov with him and without the rest of my family.

My mother z”l had a twin sister who is still living in Monsey. My aunt married a Chossid from Belgium, and all my first cousins are firmly in the Chassidishe velt. My mother, however, married a Litvak from YU, and that is the dominant influence on my life.

My father was born in Lithuania, in a small city. As a young boy, he left town to go to a yeshiva in a nearby city. He was about 13 years old when the war broke out and the Nazi’s rolled into the town he was studying in. He knew that the Nazi’s had already swept through the town his family lived in, so he escaped to cousins in Poland, and with them spent the war years hiding out in the European forests.

At the end of the war, he met up with other Yeshiva students in an area outside of Paris called Bayee (sp? I only know what he called it, so I’m sure it is spelled incorrectly). Among the people there were the Telz Rosh Yeshivos. My father went to America with them, while the rest of his cousins and family went to Israel. He stayed in Cleveland for only a short while before coming to New York to Yeshiva University.

My father received Semicha from YU and started teaching a shuir there, first in the high school, and then in the college. During that period, he obtained a Ph.D. and then began teaching Talmud in the Bernard Revel Graduate School. (OK, at this point, if you do not know who I am and really do want to know, there is more than enough to figure out with a quick google). My mother also moved in an academic direction, and obtained a Ph.D. in Jewish History from Columbia University. Unfortunately, she was killed a few years after that in a car accident.

I attended Yeshiva elementary school growing up, spending a number of years in a right wing boys only Yeshiva, as well as a few in a co-ed yeshiva. I spent my first year of High School in the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia. I was quite advanced in Talmud, and entered into the junior year shiur (R’ Yitzchuk) as a freshman. My understanding is that this was the first time that had happened, the second was a few years later for R’ Shmuel’s oldest son. However, I only stayed there one year, after which my parents brought me back to Yeshiva University High School. For Talmud classes, I attended Yeshiva College shiurim. I went to Yeshiva U for college, and spent three years learning with the Rov (R. Soloveichik).

In summary, I would venture to say that the main influences on me where my fathers Litvish approach to learning coupled with the academic background of both my parents. There are strong components of both the Rov’s Brisker derech, as well as the Chassidishe love of Torah and yahadus from my grandfather. So while I am strongly in the Modern Orthodox circle, I feel I have a strong empathy for both the Yeshivish and Chassidishe velts as well.

OK, this is probably far more than enough.