It happened on Simchas Torah at the Novorodock yeshiva in Brooklyn in 1972 — 50 years ago. The yeshiva gathered the remnants in America of the most populous branch of the Musar movement, which was virtually eradicated during the Holocaust . . .
A loud and boisterous, heavily inebriated man burst into the yeshiva. Although the Torah was being read, he was shouting at the top of his voice and wavering so drastically that it appeared that he would topple over with each step. He went from one individual to the next, bellowing a different message to each. Since I couldn’t understand his Yiddish, I asked a friend, “Is he disturbed, or just drunk?”
“Just drunk.”
“Well, is he saying anything intelligible?”
“Yes, indeed!” my friend answered. I turned and saw that he had fallen right on the Torah itself. “Min ha-shamayyim” were his garbled words (“From Heaven” i.e., the Torah is Divine). Then he lunged for a bottle of whiskey (which was present, being that it was Simchas Torah) and turned it up side down directly upon his mouth. Half went into his mouth and half flowed all over his already stained shirt and coat. The rosh yeshiva (head of the yeshiva) managed to grab the bottle from him; then he gathered up all of the bottles in the yeshiva and took them upstairs.
What was even more anomalous than his behavior — simultaneous with the Torah reading — was the congregants’ reaction to him. He was neither ejected nor ignored; he was listened to respectfully. I had heard of the astonishing self-control of the Novorodockers (as members of this branch of the Musar movement were called). When they had been shipped to concentration camps and to Siberia, those who were not killed managed, for example, to save bits from the scraps of food which the Nazis gave them in order to make matzah for Passover months later; or, they studied Torah well into the night after 12-hour work days in a slave labor camp in Siberia. Even so, the respectful attention (albeit mixed with much laughter from the children) accorded to this man, also a Novorodocker, was astounding. He carried on for about two hours.
At the end of the Torah reading, he climbed upon a chair (toppled over, then climbed on again) and gave a short and loud sermon, “The Torah ends with the letter lamed and begins with the letter bet. That spells lev: heart. The Torah requires the heart — the heart! Ruach (spirit) is essential. The Torah requires perfection of the heart, the spirit!”
Later, I asked one congregant to tell me some of what the man had said to the individuals present.
“To me, he was saying that he once had asked Rabbi Yaffen (revered head of Novorodock for 50 years) why tzaddikim (righteous people) died in the Holocaust. The first time, Rabbi Yaffen answered him, “Don’t cause me heartache.” The man asked Rabbi Yaffen again and got an answer, but said he would never reveal it, even if someone offered him all the money in the US treasury. That’s when he started to climb on the Ark. He swore on all of the Torahs that he would never tell. A few minutes later, when he was even more drunk, I whispered to him, ‘Tell me, what was Rabbi Yaffen’s answer?’
“But he screamed that he would never tell. Who knows? Maybe next Simchas Torah he’ll tell. Who knows…”
At the end of the service, he still didn’t stop. Somewhat quieted down but still gesturing wildly, he walked home with the rosh yeshiva. As they reached the door of the rosh yeshiva’s home, the latter invited his inebriated companion to join him. At that point, the rosh yeshiva’s nine-year-old granddaughter, who was standing nearby, asked her father. “Why did Zayde (grandfather) take the shikkur (the drunk) inside?” The father snapped back at his daughter, “I told you, don’t call him a shikkur! Don’t you ever, ever call him that again. Never!”
“He’s a tzaddik,” chimed in her four-year-old brother. With that, all went inside to eat.
Copyright © 2022 by the Intermountain Jewish News
