by Recommended by UTJ
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Rabbi Charles Sheer shares his memories with Rabbi Halivni, both as a student and as the campus Rabbi at Columbia University.
I mourn the loss of this scholar, who passed away on June 29. When I think about him as a person, the first image that comes to mind is a large black-and-white photo of him as a child in the shtetl of Sighet, then part of Romania. He hung this portrait in his office, and I observed it during each shiur (lesson). He looks about 9 or 10 years old, wearing simple clothes and a shtetl cap. His warm, kindly eyes stare out at the observer. With this photo, David Weiss-Halivni had preserved in his study the world of his innocent childhood which, in a few years, would be destroyed by the Nazis. Not long after the picture was taken, young David was deported to Auschwitz, his family and community destroyed. And yet, he emerged seemingly unscathed and whole.
After he died, I connected with a colleague who knew him well. Each of us reflected on his learning but our conversation quickly shifted to our remembrance of him as a person, and especially his exceptional anives (humility). We recounted his modesty, warmth and approachability. Those virtues could already be seen in the eyes of that zis yingl (sweet young child) in the photo.
Read more at https://forward.com/forverts-in-english/509843/my-rebbe-david-weiss-halivni-a-scholar-and-a-mensch/
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