“Ani lo m’garesh, ani m’karev”. This, I remember, is how Rav Hutner would sum up his philosophy and methodology when it came to instilling Torah knowledge and values in his talmidim. Translated from the Hebrew, it means: “I do not drive away; I draw [them] closer.” During my time at Chaim Berlin, I had many first-hand opportunities of seeing how very true this was. Unlike the very strict, uncompromising approach in Telshe, which I loved and admired for its integrity, but resented for the way it alienated those not suited to it, Rabbi Hutner – though ideologically not that different – took a far more pragmatic approach to students who didn’t quite fit in the “box” the yeshiva envisaged for them.
He was a prodigy of Slabodka, one of the greatest and most famous of the Lithuanian yeshivot. In the 1930s he lived in Israel, where he became a close follower of the famed Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook of blessed memory, the first Chief Rabbi of pre-State Israel. This amazing combination of the best of Lithuania with that of the land of Israel, plus his own formidable intellectual gifts, made him the unique rabbi and teacher of his time.
Chaim Berlin was situated in a poor area in Brownsville, Brooklyn, inhabited predominantly by African Americans. With this background, it is not surprising that I rabbi interacted easily with black people in South Africa, through my early knowledge of different cultures.
It was a time of big change in demographics; African Americans were moving in and white people were moving out. It wasn’t in a very Jewish part of Brooklyn, not the area known for its Jewish shops and restaurants. It was mainly a business area.
I was reunited with a friend from Cleveland who had recommended my coming to Chaim Berlin. Many of the other students expressed surprise at my appearance, as they had never seen a white African before. My roommates immediately invited me to join them in the Beit Midrash. I found myself at home in the learning atmosphere and soon became engaged in discussions on Torah. Invitations came flooding in for Shabbos meals. Unlike Telshe, most of the boys lived at home and were day students, which changed the entire feel of the yeshiva.
The mashgiach was a famous rabbinic personality from New York – Rabbi Avigdor Miller, of blessed memory. It also became clear that I would be promoted to a higher shiur taught by Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik, the brother of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, of Yeshiva University fame and a leading rabbinical authority of his generation. I became overwhelmed by the possibility of later attending the weekly class of Rabbi Hutner.
Early on, the Rosh Yeshiva asked me how I had settled in, adding, with his usual humour: “I realise this is not a luxury hotel, but some of our students actually survive this place!”
For me, Rabbi Hutner was a dynamic, multi-faceted genius, with a knowledge second to none, a down-to-earth sense of humour and a love of culture and music. This was tempered by his conservative loyalty to the Lithuanian yeshiva world, which was his background. He was an educator par excellence, who understood and related to each student as an individual, but possessed the gift and ability of extracting from every boy the exact desired results. The Rabbi was “informally formal”, making it abundantly clear that my main task in the yeshiva was to sit and learn. He did, however, grant permission to students who wanted a secular college education to do so after normal yeshiva learning hours. Learning all day and going to college at night was heavy, but I viewed it as a privilege, not to be taken lightly.
I took advantage of this opportunity and studied political science and Bible philosophy at Brooklyn College, subjects that would give me a grounding for when I entered the political arena in South Africa and assist me in my worldly knowledge of people. It also helped strengthen my sermons when I delivered them from pulpits of the various congregations and public meetings I would later address.
Once, I ventured to ask the rosh yeshiva how he felt about Bnei Akiva, anticipating the kind of response I had received at Telshe. To my surprise, Rav Hutner responded differently. He saw an opportunity for his students with connections to Bnei Akiva to use their influence to strengthen religious observance and Torah learning in the movement.
I also admitted to him my other loves – music and singing. Rabbi Hutner had noticed that I led the singing of the zemirot at the Shabbos table. Then, somewhat timorously, I added: “There is something more…”
The rosh yeshiva raised his eyebrows as if to ask: “What more is this young man going to tell me?”
“I love opera,” I blurted out. To my surprise, Rabbi Hutner asked which opera was my favourite.
I told him that I loved all of Verdi’s operas equally, adding that, being close to the famous Metropolitan Opera House, I was honoured to go there once a month. There was no censure!
These early years formed the basis of my future philosophy, political and Zionist convictions. Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik was definitely a Zionist. Rabbi Hutner wobbled a bit betwixt and between, but nevertheless for many years had in his succah a picture of Rav Kook, the foremost exponent of religious Zionism of his time. (This may have been because Rav Kook had been his teacher and mentor.)
Given these revelations, despite my recurrent bouts of homesickness, I felt he was in my comfort zone at Chaim Berlin. Through my membership of Bnei Akiva, I was inundated with invitations for Shabbat meals from observant members of the community. Although one of the few boarders at Chaim Berlin, I was free to go to people’s homes and to hoard my meagre savings to attend the famous Carnegie Hall symphony concerts in Manhattan on Saturday nights.
I don’t even remember the names of the boys who used to go with me. Many times I went on my own – there was always someone to whom you could say “hello” on a Saturday night. I revelled in the experience, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein – it was overwhelming. It was also the beginning of a new era of great singers, like Maria Callas, whom I was privileged to hear.
There is a Talmudic prohibition against Jewish men listening to a woman’s singing voice, which is considered to be erotic – just as her hair is considered sexually provocative, which is the reason many religious women cover their heads. However, I always followed a more lenient interpretation held by some authorities which permits this, so long as the female voice is not solo.
Nevertheless, I was never taken to task for going to the opera. To me at least, Chaim Berlin felt like a place where you were hardly ever castigated for anything. Rabbi Hutner believed in the freedom of will of a talmid [student] and of a person. There were some who followed him from the right wing, some from the left and some from the centre. He had the ability to keep the loyalty of every colour of the rainbow.
He raised thousands of students. In fact, you could seldom get in to see him as there was a mile-long line outside his office. This reminds one of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Rabbi Hutner wasn’t referred to as the Rosh Yeshiva, but as “Rebbe”. And he was “worshipped” – there is no question about it. Not in the sense of a creed or idol, but as a figure to emulate and admire by his students. I once commented, when I passed the long queue outside his office: “Don’t forget to ask ‘Rebbe’ what type of toothpaste to use!”
Life was looking up for me. I was progressing in my studies, revelling in my music and openly attending meetings of Bnei Akiva. At one stage, I was seeing a young woman whom I had met through the movement, and would often catch the subway from Chaim Berlin to spend Shabbat with her and her family in their modest tenement home.
The other social aspect of my life was summer camp in the Catskills, attended by the boys from Chaim Berlin. Our camp was called Camp Morris – an enclave in the large holiday resort frequented by Jews. It was an hour’s drive from the yeshiva and I spent the summer swimming, exercising, rowing and learning, with emphasis on the learning. There was a Beit Midrash and a shul on the site. It was an idyllic resort and the bochrim had exclusive use of Camp Morris during the summer months.
During the Chaim Berlin years, I met many interesting young personalities, some of whom would go on to achieve international renown in their chosen fields. They included the much loved singer-songwriter Shlomo Carlebach, whose stirring new melodies, generally set to traditional Jewish texts, were to sweep the Jewish world; firebrand Jewish rights activist and political leader Meir Kahane, who founded the controversial Jewish Defence League and later the even more controversial right-wing Kach party in the Israeli Knesset (a far cry from the path I was later to take), the young genius Aharon Lichtenstein, who went on to become the leading Torah giant in the modern Orthodox world and head of the prestigious Har Etzion Yeshiva in Israel; Nota Schiller, future founder of one of the charedi world’s foremost religious outreach organisations, Ohr Somayach; and even Jackie Mason, who – after a stint in the rabbinate – went on to become one of America’s most celebrated stand-up comedians. That Chaim Berlin attracted and inspired so diverse a range of talents is testimony to the broad, inclusive approach to Torah education espoused by Rabbi Hutner.
I achieved notable success as a student and was complimented by Rabbi Hutner on my strides in Gemara and Mishnah. However, with the passage of time, I found myself yearning more and more for my home and family. I had not seen them or been back to South Africa for the entire five-year period. I had left home at the age of 16 and now I was almost 21. There was a feeling that I had had enough of the regimen, the daily schedule. I just felt totally helpless and I wanted my own home back.
Providentially, my maternal uncle, Nathan Rosenberg – a leading figure in the world Zionist movement and Chairman of the Eastern Province Zionist Council – arrived on a business trip with his wife, Helen, at around this time. Seeing how dejected I was, he asked me what was wrong and while I did not have the words to identify the crux of the problem, he quickly ascertained that I now simply wanted to go home.
“It’s not a problem. We’ll arrange it for you,” Uncle Nathan said. He telephoned my mother, who was overjoyed at the prospect of having her younger son back home. He also called my elder brother, Charles, who was then living in London with his wife Selma and specialising in pathology. It was arranged that I would stay with them en route home. Next, he booked my passage on the SS United States – a veritable upgrade from the ship on which I had travelled to the USA – to Southampton. In due course, I was on my way, receiving a massive send-off at the quayside from my friends in Bnei Akiva and the bochrim from Chaim Berlin.
The Struggle Rabbi 