Prominent Torah Families in Monsey and Spring Valley, NY

A Prominent Monsey, NY Family Loses Senior Members to a Higher World

By Dovid Eidensohn

Even in a city of noted Torah personalities, Monsey, NY is special. I was in Israel recently for a few weeks and did not know of the recent passing of a very prominent member of our community, Emil Tauber. He was devoted to promoting Torah scholars and for a long time established funds to support the most promising youth to become leaders of the Jewish people. One of his most promising products was his brother Yechiel Tauber, who eventually established a large and beautiful building housing many prominent Torah scholars. Emil Tauber passed away when I was in Israel and Yechiel Tauber passed away before then, but not before he established the beautiful building for Torah scholars and Beth Din.

When we mention the great who have passed on, it is appropriate to turn to Monsey, NY, itself, and its history. Going back a few generations, we find that Monsey, at least where many lived, was essentially a farming village with here and there a shull or Yeshiva. Even in the past generation when I came to Monsey, across the street from me was an apple orchard, and I once killed a snake in front of my house a short distance from a major shull.

About this time a prominent Torah personality from New York came to Monsey and recognized its potential. He had a major Yeshiva of his own in New York City, but saw that Monsey could eventually challenge in Torah terms even New York’s Torah community. He came to what was the Spring Valley Yeshiva and joined the board of directors. He advised them to go to the center of the business community in Spring Valley. Route 59 stretched along major communities including Monsey and Spring Valley. This New York rabbi saw that precisely in Spring Valley and Monsey, the potential for fantastic money existed for those who would buy now, when things were yet very much like a tiny place nobody would spend much money to purchase. But the Board of Directors dismissed him completely. Somebody commented, “What a dreamer.” The property at that point had little commercial value. But today its value is incredible. And those few, such as somebody I know personally for many years, who realized that the rabbi from New York was right on target, began immediately buying up properties. These people are today quite wealthy.

At the time of the expansion of Monsey, at least at its early phases, I had left Lakewood where I learned for the last two years of the life of the Gaon Reb Aharon Kotler zt”l, and had moved to Monsey. I had, at this time, begun to teach in a Monsey school, and my subject was Tanach. But I could not find good sources for Tanach. As the Gaon Reb Yaacov Kaminetsky zt”l once said, “Nach does not have strong commentators other than the Malbim, and his style is unique.” I did find various comments on Nach but they were strange to me. I read them carefully and came to the conclusion that these sources were Kabbala, something I had never studied. I bought a beginner’s Kabbala book, and found it was studying a biblical teaching, but what it wanted to teach was beyond me. I stuck at it, and finally came up with a proper explanation. I subsequently became strongly interested in Kabbala, but I needed a rebbe. And that I could not find anywhere.

One day, my wife wanted to visit a friend and I went along. As we left, the hostess handed me a booklet. I thanked her for it and we left. I read it when I got home, and realized that this book was Kabbala, and it had a lot that could teach me. I noted who the author of this book was, someone from Israel, and contacted him. He responded, and I began writing to him to the point that I was writing him very often lengthy Kabbalistic ideas. But at that point he felt I was too much into Kabbala, and should emphasize paskening Torah law. He challenged me on this and asked me why I don’t just join a Kollel that teaches how to interpret the Talmud. I told him that I wanted very much to find the right Kollel, but the only one I really wanted to join had a style where everyone had to learn exactly what the master of the school wanted them to master. I could not do such a thing, because I had my own style and liked to dig deep into things on my own. Eventually, the great rabbis of Israel Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Reb Yaacov Kaminetsky both complimented me for my ability in this. If I had any brains, which at that point were obviously lacking, I would know that my rebbe in this world and the next was right, and I would behave. But it seemed so remote that I just went my merry way.

Later on, I did begin learning halocho seriously. My style was to go to a senior rabbi who had mastered the Talmud and its commentators, and ask a question on the Torah. While he was thinking about my question, I would interject with my own understanding. He would accept or reject it. One day I came to such a rabbi and asked a question. His phone rang and he was off to answer somebody’s question. You may or may not do such and such. So I waited. But this time the conversation was going into a different sphere, and I was amazed. There was obviously some major problem there, and I had no way to listening to it. So, I just sat there. Finally, the rabbi concludes the conversation, and told me that he would not answer this particular question. But he did advise me to go to the Strassberger Rov, the senior Rabbi in Israel on Gittin, who was visiting his son-in-law Rabbi Eichenstein zt”l, who lived right down the block from where I was with that Rov.

I came to see this rabbi and was let into the house. He soon appeared and I asked him the question. He did not answer it. He sat silently. This happened even after I repeated my question three times. I was not going to repeat it again. Then he said, “Rav Eidensohn…” When I heard that, I knew I was going to get a real beating. And I was right. He continued, “A Rov never says what you just said.” Well, I thought, the next thing is for him to throw me out of the house, and awaited that, even though I had no idea why he felt that way. But he suddenly got up and went into the next room, where I could see him clearly. He was obviously involved in an important decision, and went back and forth. Then he came back to me and said, “I have a serious shaalo.” When I heard that I didn’t know what world I was in. First he tells me that I don’t know how to talk. And now he tells me, of all  people, that he has a serious Torah question.

He said to me that he must ask Reb Moshe Feinstein zt”l a question, but does not know how to reach him. I realized that I was in a very strange world now. Here is the person who is the expert on Gittin in all of Israel, who is desperate to ask a question of Reb Moshe Feinstein, somebody he surely had spoken to many times, and he asks me, somebody who doesn’t know how to talk, how he gets to Reb Moshe? But my policy always was and is, if a great rabbi will talk to you,  strike. And I did. “Rabbi,” I said. “I am a close disciple of Reb Moshe, and will gladly bring your question, after it is written by you, to Reb Moshe. I will leave for Reb Moshe first thing in the morning.” The next morning, bright and early, I was on the bus and soon was racing up the steps to the house of Reb Moshe.

Suddenly, an arm of steel seized me and demanded, “Where are you going?” I answered, “I am going to Reb Moshe.” He replied, “Reb Moshe is not feeling well. You can’t go today.” I replied, “I have a letter from the Aido HaCharedis in Israel.” He immediately passed me on and I went flying up the steps. Yes, Reb Moshe wasn’t feeling well, and his rebbetsin was not thrilled that I had come to deliver something to him, but the gabbai of Reb Moshe, who was a friend of mine, welcomed me warmly, read the letter, and assured me that I would be issued an answer by Reb Moshe who would respond shortly.

Every day I called and every day the gabei told me the same answer. “Reb Moshe permits what he was asked, and I would soon receive an answer. But I never did. Finally, I was going to Israel to visit my rebbe, and I wrote to the gabei that I was going to Israel to visit my rebbe, and that once I am there, I would surely visit the Strassberger Rov, and I left his address.” I stayed by my rebbe a few days, and then, on Friday, I went to visit the Strassberger Rov. He welcomed me warmly, and told me that he would soon be going to the Mikva of the Rabbis, but that I would go to the regular Mikvah. Thus, he would be home earlier than I would be there. And so it was.

I came into the house and the Strassberger Rov was reading the reply from Reb Moshe. He asked me, “Did you speak nicely to Reb Moshe?” I was stunned and replied in a manner that left no question about that. It was only much later than all of this became perfectly clear to me. The Strassberger then explained to me what was puzzling him when I visited him in his house and added to it an additional problem that was created by Reb Moshe’s letter. It seems that his problem was about a young man who came from a country with few rabbis if any. And nobody knew if this boy was born a Jew or something else, and maybe, he was a mamzer or a doubtful mamzer who could not marry a Jewish woman. If the person was a gentile it was easy to convert him to Judaism. If he was a mamzer it was easy to marry him to a mamzeres, and there were organizations that did this. But if he is a doubtful mamzer, it is much harder, and the only hope is to find a gentile woman, and to convert her to Judaism, and even this is only permitted because the child had no hope basically in his situation and some loophole had to be found for him which was this.

At this point I visited my rebbe Reb Fishel Hershkowitz zt”l, and told him the entire story. He was furious at the Israeli rabbis who were considering marrying this boy, who was extremely religious, to a gentile woman with no Jewish experience or roots, something which could not last. He told me that the only hope for this boy is to ask Reb Moshe Feinstein the shaalo, and he it is expected would permit the boy to marry a Jewish woman. There was, however, a problem in this. The senior rabbi in Israel was completely opposed to marrying this boy to a Jewish woman. And he demanded that he marry a gentile woman who would go through the proper process. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, it was Friday before Shabbos, and the Strassberger told me that the letter from Reb Moshe permitted the Israeli rabbis to marry the boy to a gentile woman who would do what the Shulchan Aruch advises for a doubtful mamzer. The only question now was to clarify if the boy must make a berocho at the wedding or not. He told me to go to the senior rov was controlled the rabbis of Israel and ask the question to him. I went, found the rabbi, and told him that the Strassberger Rov asked the above question. The Rov answered that they should take a gemora that has a similar question, read the words, and that would take care of the question.

Something began to bother me. So, they are going full blast, with Reb Moshe’s permission, to make this marriage. But Reb Moshe is not in charge at all. I suddenly said, “Rebbe, this is an Agunah shaaloh.” Meaning, perhaps we could ask Reb Moshe the shaalo as my rebbe Reb Fishel had demanded. The Israeli rabbi exploded at me and said, “Somebody wanted to say that and we wanted to put him Cherem.” When I heard that, it just blew me away. The next thing I knew was that two hands reached into my head, parted my skull, and threw a paper into my head. It shot out of my mouth and I heard myself saying, “The Rov should pasken, not suggest, that the boy ask Reb Moshe the shaalo.”  But the Israeli Rov wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking away from me, towards somebody who was very prominent, and talking to him. I saw nobody. So I repeated myself again about the Rov paskening that the boy go to Reb Moshe to ask his shaaloh.

The Rov suddenly swerved back to me and said strongly, “I heard you the first time. Yes, I pasken that the boy ask Reb Moshe the Shaaloh.” Obviously, the two hands in my head that shot out the paper were the hands of Reb Fishel, who flew in seconds from America to Israel to save me from being put in Cherem.

When I heard what the Israeli rabbi had said, that the boy should ask Reb Moshe the shaalo, I reverted to style, to bother every Gadol without mercy until they hinted to me that my time was up. I sat with him Erev Shabbos about half and hour and returned to the Strassberger Rov with the pleasant news. Obviously, when he was searching for Reb Moshe, he had the same idea in mind. But he could not rule against the major Rov in Israel. Now that this Rov has reversed course, the Strassberger was happy to add his agreement that the boy should ask his shaaloh from Reb Moshe. I then found a major Rov who agreed that the boy should ask Reb Moshe his shaaloh.

I now prepared to return to America and present my treasure to the boy himself. The boy, however, immediately demanded that Reb Moshe is an American and he only wants Israeli rabbis to rule on this. I went to a prominent American rabbi who spoke to the boy who agreed to go to Reb Moshe as all of the Israeli rabbis had demanded. I never saw him again.

Now, of course, it is surely time to return to the beginning of our discussion here, the departed Tauber brothers who build such mighty Torah structures. The two were Emil and Yechiel Tauber in a family filled with special rabbis who served others with heart and soul. I was in Israel for Pesach this year and did not hear that Emil passed away just before Pesach. I called his son Akiva Tauber who had showed the greatest kindness to me when I had to borrow money for my wife, that he would drive to me not that I came to him. Emil was also very considerate about helping me in such situations, despite the terrible problems he personally was suffering. But the large family were all very kind and helpful people. And surely the great souls of Emil and Yechiel will rejoice in heaven when people on this world voice their appreciation for the wonderful Torah community that they and their relatives established.