“Waste” is probably the wrong word. Even moments that would not be considered wasted by most people, he saved for Torah study.
For example, he did not visit the cemetery on the yahrzeit, the anniversary of the death, of his father. (I was told this when his mother was still alive; presumably, he did not visit her grave, either.)
The person who told me this was Rabbi Noah Heisler, a rabbinic judge in Jerusalem.
During the 1970s, I drove Rabbi Heisler and his father to visit three rabbinic eminences during the intermediate days of Passover and of Sukkot: Rabbi Yosef; Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, who died a year ago at 102; and Rabbi Bezalel Zolti, the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, who died at 61 in 1982.
No doubt, many will look back upon the era in which these three scholars — each one a mind of breathtaking scope — served together as the judges on Israel’s highest rabbinic court as a golden age.
During these holiday visits, Rabbi Yosef exchanged brief greetings with and extended blessings to thousands of visitors, though the visits were never rushed.
With learned rabbis, such as the Heislers, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef also traded a few words of Torah. These visits were a rare opportunity to have a few minutes of his time in order to clarify, at least to an extent, complicated halachic matters.
I also remember that once Rabbi Noah Heisler raised an issue and Rabbi Yosef referred instantaneously to a responsum on the matter by Rabbi Joseph Saul Natanson, a 19th-century Ashkenazi scholar.
Rabbi Yosef’s recall was legendary.
He knew by heart literally thousands of learned works of Jewish law.
He had a photographic memory.
And he never stopped using it.
The genius of Rabbi Yosef and his extreme care with his time came together in my most memorable encounter with him, when he administered an ordination examination to me in 1976.
He would agree to administer such an exam only if one had already passed another exam administered by a rabbi whom he trusted.
I had passed an oral exam by the late Rabbi Nissim David Azran. It lasted seven hours. Rabbi Yosef’s exam lasted 20 minutes.
It bamboozled me. During the exam, I did not understand what he was doing. It was so strange. He threw me off balance and I had to just keep taking the punches and proceed to answer his questions.
Here is what happened.
He asked a question.
I answered, “It is written in chapter 92, subchapter 2 . . . ”
Rabbi Yosef cut me off.
I never got a chance to answer the question.
He fired another question at me.
Again, I began to answer, “It is written in chapter 69, subchapter 12 . . . ”
Again, he cut me off.
Another question.
Another non-answer.
This went on for several minutes. Suddenly, to one of the questions he asked, he did not cut me off. He let me talk and talk and talk. He probed what I was saying. He delved into the matter at length and in depth.
Next question.
I began.
Then I was cut off.
Again.
So it went: He asked, I was cut off, then I was not cut off. In this way, in a very short time, he covered vast tracts of the material I was supposed to know.
Afterwards, I realized that he had tested my breadth of knowledge — he just wanted to see whether I knew where the topic was dealt with — and he had also tested my depth of knowledge by letting me expound at length on a few topics.
Of course, I did not know in advance which topics he would select for an extended answer, so I had to be prepared for anything.
Twenty minutes.
He had other important things to do.
I had another memorable encounter with Rabbi Yosef.
I had also been examined for ordination by Rabbi Zolti, the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, and so, when he died suddenly, I paid a shiva (condolence) call.
As I was sitting there, suddenly Rabbi Yosef entered and took the seat right next to me. Upon invitation, he began to speak to Rabbi Zolti’s sons. I heard everything he said. Words to this effect:
“Your father had unique powers of persuasion and mediation.
“He would call into his office parties who had been involved in a lawsuit, or divorce proceeding, for years. The legal files were bulging with motions, claims and counterclaims.
“In 60 minutes — one hour! — your father would settle all matters and close the file. None of the rest of us rabbinic judges could do this.
“When he became chief rabbi of Jerusalem, the office had been vacant for years and the backlog of cases was enormous. In six months, your father resolved all the cases. He eliminated the entire backlog. No one was like him.”
I first met Rabbi Yosef in 1973, when I interviewed him for the Intermountain Jewish News as its Jerusalem correspondent. The interview appeared May 25, 1973.
One of the questions I asked was:
“In the Middle Ages, Sephardic Jewish culture flourished. There were giants such as Maimonides and Judah HaLevi. Is there a possibility of a renaissance of Sephardic Jewish culture in Israel?”
He answered:
“Yes! There is much room for hope in this regard due to the expansion of the yeshiva network. We are progressing, not declining. The situation is far better now than 25 or 30 years ago. Our young Sephardi rabbis evince keen understanding, breath and originality.”
What he did not answer was this:
It is due in no small measure to Rabbi Yosef’s capacity to step down from the high perch of his Torah scholarship, and to address the common person, that many of these young Sephardi rabbis became the teachers and leaders they have become.
Rabbi Yosef addressed literally thousands of small gatherings of simple Sephardi Jews, endearing himself to them with stories and jokes interspersed among the Torah he taught them — on their own level.
He inspired them — inspired them to enroll their children in elementary school yeshivas.
When his talks would not do the job, he visited parents personally — thousands of them — persuading them to send their children to yeshivas.
Many of these children are now leading Torah teachers, nurturing the renaissance of Sephardic culture that Rabbi Yosef predicted in 1973.
One more word about Rabbi Yosef.
His contribution to Jewish law is so enormous that he has generated scholars of his scholarship. He has become a subject of study himself.
One of the staples of this scholarship — one sees it in learned articles repeatedly — is, quite simply, wrong.
Rabbi Yosef, we are told, has wrought a revolution by refocusing halachic scholarship on the authority of Rabbi Yosef Karo (1488-1575), including his major work, Bet Yosef.
There is much truth to this conclusion, but it is overstated. The fact is, to make that generalization, or any other generalization, about Rabbi Yosef’s scholarship would require one to study and absorb everything Rabbi Yosef ever wrote.
A very unlikely prospect, given that Rabbi Yosef published many volumes of responsa, the overwhelming majority of which contain tens, scores or hundreds of learned references. The knowledge that Rabbi Yosef displays in even a single responsum is staggering.
The point is the thought of a person so deep and profound as Rabbi Yosef cannot be reduced a couple of simple axioms. On the question of the supposed unbending authority of the Bet Yosef in the writings of Rabbi Yosef, one should consult his major work, Yabia Omer, vol. 7, chapter 9, in which Rabbi Yosef writes:
“Later authorities permit the rejection of the decision of the Bet Yosef on the strength of two doubts (sefek sefeka) as to its validity.”
For those who wonder who will succeed Rabbi Yosef as head of the Shas Party, or as the leading Sephardi halachic decision, worry not. It won’t happen.
No one will or can succeed him.
A mind like this, and a person with this kind of intellectual charisma, comes along once every few hundred years.
Another way of saying the same thing: The revered Sephardi Rabbi Ezra Attiyeh, head of the Porat Yosef yeshiva in Jerusalem, made a sound offer.
When Rabbi Yosef’s father insisted that his son help him out in his hand-to-mouth business, Rabbi Attiyeh, seeing the greatness for which the young tyro was destined, said to Rabbi Yosef’s father:
“I will work for you in his stead. It is more important that he go to yeshiva than that I go.”
The father relented.
The rest is history.
Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News
