The Mashgiach

"Let your home be a meeting place for the wise." On the other hand, "let your home be opend wide." A household must be open to all not only the wise. It means this: your home should be wide open, every person who enters your house should become wise

The Alter did not give direct educational orders but rather remarked, as though merely updating the student: "Here in Slabodka, our custom is to ..." Or, "We aren't in the custom of speaking that way here." "The yeshivah's custom is to ...," as though he were not the one who had instituted the custom.

At difficult moments he would recall to mind all the dangers to which he had been exposed, and how Hashem had saved him at the last minute

During the Alter’s stay in the hotel, the Gerrer Rebbe visited together with a group of his Chassidim. He was surprised to see that students had left the yeshivah in order to remain near their rebbi, and were serving him with such devotion and respect. “I see that you, too, have Chassidim,” the Rebbe told the Alter. “So what’s the difference between us?” After the Rebbe had departed, the Alter said, “Der Rebbe macht Chassidim, un ich mach rebbes (The Rebbe makes Chassidim and I make rebbes)!”

Father was always careful to quote his rebbi exactly, citing the Sages’ admonition that “A person must speak in his rebbi’s language.” Why? “Because there are times when, years later, things suddenly become clear to us, and we succeed in understanding the concept fully. Only then do we realize why the rebbi used precisely that terminology. Therefore, it’s important for us to be careful to use his language from the start.”

Once, when Father was out of town, someone came to tell him that two boys from the yeshivah were standing at a nearby intersection, trying to hitch a ride. He went out to the place together with the informer, came close enough to see the boys standing there — and immediately turned back. His companion asked, "Isn't it worthwhile for the Rav to go over to the boys and reprimand them?" "I already know what I know," he replied. "They don't have to know that I know."

The "world" thinks that in order to wield influence it is necessary to descend to other people's level. This is a mistake. The more a man elevates himself, the more people are influenced, the more they admire him and try to be close to him and emulate him.

He refused to speak at celebrations and events. No amount of pleading could change his mind. Apparently, he believed that the crowd, which had come to make merry, was not in the proper frame of mind to listen attentively and open its heart to what was being said. And if there was no point, then why speak? For the honor? That was something that was never factored into his actions. On such occasions, he would say, "I've heard excellent speeches, wonderful sermons, uber tzum shveigen kumt dos nisht (but they don't reach the level of silence)."

The Mashgiach repeated: "M'ken nit mohnen fun yenem, ah men mohn nisht fun zich - You can't demand from another when you're not prepared to demand from yourself."

"We went to see him," said R' Noach Palei, "a large group of young married men from Yerushalayim and Bnei Brak. "He asked: 'We light Shabbos candles for the sake of shalom bayis. What's the connection? Perhaps it is even better to remain in the dark, so that if anything goes wrong, the wife will have an excellent excuse: 'I couldn't see in the dark!'" "But Chazal taught us that a problem that comes along with its solution is not true shalom bayis. The wise thing to do is to avoid the problem in the first place. Light the candles, and avoid the problems along with their solution!" "We must anticipate the possible problems that are likely to arise, and prevent them ahead of time. Don't solve problems - prevent them!"

We had a very difficult neighbor," relates the young man in question. "On Friday nights, he liked to go to bed early. During the long winter evenings, when we would spend a long time singing around the Shabbos table, he'd be knocking on our door at 9:30, complaining that we were disturbing him. "We tried to sing more softly. We explained to him that, just as his Shabbos pleasure was to sleep, ours was to sing. But he only continued to complain: 'Geze! sheinah! (robbed sleep)! Lack of consideration!' "Afraid that he might be in the right, we went to see R' Meir. After listening to the story, he asked us, 'What is the accepted time after which one mustn't make noise?' "We explained that, by law, that time was 11 p.m. "'In that case,' he ruled, 'there is certainly no room for the neighbor to complain. Anyone who moves into an apartment building undertakes to live with acceptable noise during acceptable hours. Singing on Shabbos is important to your family, so you are not obligated to give it up during reasonable hours because of an irritable neighbor!'

A student told the Mashgiach that a shidduch was nearing completion: His parents were in favor of the match, her parents were for it, he himself wanted it, and he hoped that she wanted it, too. The Mashgiach said: "I hope that HaKadosh Baruch Hu also wants it." The bachur understood the implicit rebuke: He had neglected to mention the most important thing of all. In the end, for a very unusual reason and through the involvement of an outside factor, the match did not come to fruition. HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not want it.

R' Ron Sharon and his wife came to the mashgiach with a question that troubled them: "What is the best recipe for success in chinuch? "One hundred percent effort, and 100 percent siyata d'Shmaya (Divine assistance)!" was the answer "

"We once found out," relates R' Yehudah Rosenberg, principal of the Amanah school, "that one of our students had taken something that belonged to someone else. We had clear proofs, but she continued to absolutely deny her guilt. I thought it was my duty to get her to confess, but she refused. I told R' Meir about it. He surprised me: 'Why should she confess? What does she owe you?' For a moment, I was confused. 'Owe me? Of course she owes me! I educate her.' He did not accept my answer. 'She does not owe you a confession of the truth. That is between her and Hashem. Don't pressure a child to confess his sin and stand utterly exposed, If he is exposed, he has no place to return to, and he will be lost. Give him a chance to remain in a situation of doubt. As for your case: The girl knows that you know, or at least suspect. Don't say so openly. Let her continue saving face among her friends. As long as the situation remains in doubt, she has a chance to improve her image, and then perhaps she'll change. If she confesses to the truth - she'll have nothing left to lose. She'll be lost. You have to give a person a fig leaf to hide behind!' he concluded."

He would say: "Avraham Avinu's act of burying his wife was considered, in the midrash, an act of chesed. How amazing! After all, doesn’t the simplest person bury his wife? “This comes to teach us something. The world thinks that a great kindness is a big act that you perform for some distant stranger. But it’s not that way at all. Chazal have taught us: ‘The poor of your city take precedence.’ “The simpler and more basic the chesed is, and the closer the person to whom it is offered - the more genuine that chesed is. “Therefore, the biggest chesed is that which a person does for his friend, or for his own wife.”

In this fashion, he tried always to activate our own powers of logical reasoning. No sudden enthusiasms without critical analysis; no impassioned crusades over matters that, for one reason or another, touch us closely but are actually marginal in importance

He once turned to a bachur and asked him how many pages he had learned so far that zeman. "In iyun (in-depth study) or bekiyus (a more rapid covering of the material)?" the boy asked. "I don't understand," said the Mashgiach. "What's the meaning of iyun and what's the meaning of bekiyus? If you already understand the Gemara, there's no point in treading water in place; and if you haven't yet grasped it, how can you go on without understanding?"

Our son-in-law, R' Glassman, relates: 'R' Daniel Shriki and I went to see him. During our talk, we asked his opinion about returning land for peace. His answer was brief: 'Are you the ones who have to decide that?'

A short time after his passing, a group of Yeshivas Ateres Yisrael students wished to strengthen themselves in mussar, using the Mashgiach's approach. They decided to work on the trait of jealousy, and asked R' Chaim Reff to deliver the Mashgiach's talks on this topic. R' Chaim relates that he looked through the writings in his possession, and listened again to the tapes that he had, and found hardly anything on the subject of jealousy. Here and there, the Mashgiach touched on jealousy in relation to some other topic, or for the purposes of summarizing, but he did not deal with it as a subject in itself. Nor did his closest students recall hearing the Mashgiach speak about jealousy. The same thing happened when they sought what he had said on the subject of lashon hara. Explains R' Chaim: "The Mashgiach did not deal with bad character traits. He preferred to deal with the positive. Through this, a person will naturally and raise higher and higher. Through this, a person will naturally keep his distance from the ugly and the degraded."

When we came to see him on his final evening, we encountered my brothers there, as well as my uncle R’ Yaakov Leib Hutner, and a number of bachurim. We found Father sitting up in his chair - he had just spent some 30 hours sitting that way - without having been able to either sleep or eat. It was obvious that he was suffering, but his mood was alert. He greeted us with unusual warmth - extending his hand in greeting to each one of us, individually. “How do you feel?” I asked him. “Baruch Hashem! Living!” He thought for a moment, then added: “Life! Ein kleinkeit (It’s no trivial matter) ... Life!”