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THE DDEPTH AAND BBREADTH OF HHIS TTEACHING

Opening tthe GGates oof tthe SSefarim“He opened the gates of the sefarim for all of us … he

made everything so accessible. It never seemed like, oh,well, that’s a closed book to you … everything was anopen book with Rabbi Kirzner … To this day, I have yet tofind someone who even touches the content that RabbiKirzner would give over in a shiur.” This was the way onetalmidah explained how it felt to learn with Rabbi YitzchokLeib Kirzner, zt”l.

Rebbetzin Leah Kohn of the Jewish Renaissance Centerin Manhattan described some aspects of Rabbi Kirzner’steaching. His specialty, she said, was “his breadth ofknowledge, from many different sources.” She pointedout that his most beloved source was the Ramchal, HaravMoshe Chaim Luzzato, zt”l. In fact, he named one of hischildren after him. He said that the Ramchal was his rebbi.Adds Rebbetzin Kohn, “The Ramchal is very profound; hedeals with the basics in a very deep and systematic way.That was the way Rabbi Kirzner taught. He quoted him alot.

“He was also very well versed in Chassidic sources.

Last week we gave a brief sketch of some of the details of the extraordinary life of Rabbi Yitzchok Leib

Kirzner, zt”l, which was dedicated to drawing Yidden of all backgrounds closer to Hashem and His Torah.

This week we touch upon several of the unique aspects of his teaching and glimpse some of the profound

effects that he had on the lives of his talmidim.

Rabbi Yitzchok Leib Kirzner,zt”l

B r i n g i n g u s u p to t h e To r a h , Pa rt I I

B y T z i p p o r a Z a s l o w

Basically, anything that was profoundand deep, he liked.”

For just a few examples, he taughtNefesh Hachaim by Harav ChaimVolozhiner, and expounded on theideas of the Gerrer Rebbe, the SfasEmes, and the Shem MiShmuel, theSochatchover Rebbe, zecher tzaddikimlivrachah. Rabbi Kirzner named his sonShmuel after the latter.

Rebbetzin Kohn emphasized, “Hewas an expert in taking complex issuesand making them crystal clear … it wasamazing.”

Rabbi Kirzner would often explainthe meaning of a passuk and then say,“What is this supposed to mean? Whatdoes this really mean?” And then hewould go further into the explanation ofthe ideas, going into tremendous depth,until all the points were connected.

He taught simultaneously at severaldifferent levels. One of his talmidosnoted that even when he was teachingthose with very little background, “hewould intersperse his shiurim withadvice, signs and comments for those ata more advanced level of growth.”

She recalled his advice regardingteshuvah: “‘Review your goals inruchniyus every five years and youshould expect to change. Don’t be afraidto totally remake yourself every fiveyears.’ He would say, ‘This is for whereyou are now, but in a few years, you’renot going to be there anymore.’”

Rebbetzin Kohn said, “Heunderstood human psychology [andutilized this understanding] in a verybeautiful way.” For example, sherecalled the way he started off one of hisshiurim on suffering: “He started thetopic by saying, ‘The problem is, whenwe suffer, we feel like we were hit by G-d, abandoned, [as if G-d is saying tous], I don’t like you.’ The moment hepresented it in this way, he opened uppeople to listen. He was amazing inunderstanding human psychology, andthrough his classes, through the

information he brought, he really madepeople see that Torah and the humanbeing are really one, that it’s G-dlybecause there is such an understandingof the human being that only the OneWho created him can have. … It openedup people to what he was teaching in abeautiful, beautiful way, which was alsohis strength when he spoke to peopleone on one.”

Through the stories in the Torah,through the information in the Torah, heshowed that all wisdom is in the Torah.

He took his job very seriously, oftentaking 8 to 10 hours to prepare a class.Rebbetzin Kohn said, “He cameperfectly prepared — not only in termsof the material, but the way it waspresented, the order, the structure. Hereally invested in what he did. He wasvery serious about his teaching. He

could easily have come into the classand just speak, but he didn’t do that.

“He respected his studentstremendously. He felt that if somebodycomes to his class and gives an hour ofhis busy week, he has a responsibility toperform at his best. Each class was amasterpiece.”

MAKING JJUDAISM CCOMEALIVE

RelationshipsAlthough Rabbi Kirzner taught many

baalei teshuvah, the depth and breadth ofhis knowledge and his unique approachalso appealed to those who had grownup frum. For example, there was a groupof Rebbetzins in Boro Park who wouldgo to his shiurim on a regular basis. TheNovominsker Rebbetzin, a”h, was an

HHaammooddiiaa MMaaggaazz iinnee 23 I ya r 5768 17

Rabbi Kirzner giving a shiur.

HHaammooddiiaa MMaaggaazz iinnee May 21, 200818

avid student of Rabbi Kirzner.Rebbetzin Feige Twerski said, “He notonly gave over the guf of Torah, he gotinto the neshamah of Torah.”

Many talmidim found that his shiurimmade Judaism come alive for them. Onetalmid said that when he first heardRabbi Kirzner giving a shiur, he wasawe-struck. Rabbi Kirzner was “talkingabout a relationship with G-d.” He said,“I wasn’t used to hearing this kind ofthing, even though I grew up frum.”From his perspective, “Rabbi Kirznerdealt with the emotions of Judaism.”

Lisa Aiken, Ph.D, became one of hisstudents by listening to his tapedlectures. She later worked with him inwriting a book called The Art of JewishPrayer, based on his shiurim on tefillah.Aiken noted, “His big thing was

relationships.” She described her firstencounter with Rabbi Kirzner, via histaped shiurim, when she was 25 yearsold. “I was just astounded by the way hespoke…” He was talking about “puttingG-d in the center of your life”; he taughtthat life was about having a relationshipwith G-d, how people can develop theskills to be close to G-d and people.”

He was very concerned about howpeople related to each other. One cansee this in The Art of Jewish Prayer,where, after each explanation of abrachah in Shemoneh Esrei, there is asection on implications for humanrelationships.

Lisa Aiken recalled the way herelated to others: “He was incrediblyhumble, an anav. He could teach to avery small class or to hundreds ofpeople; everybody was precious to him.He taught for a while in Lynnbrook,Long Island, to a very small group. Onewoman was unable to attend his class,

and every week he repeated the entireshiur for her.”

According to his wife, Rabbi Kirznernurtured his own relationships, too.Rebbetzin Kirzner commented, “Whenyou care about someone, youunderstand them.” Their third child,Dovid, was thirteen in 1992 when hisfather was niftar. He recalled his father’sgreat sensitivity and kindness. “When Iwould have problems with friends orrebbeim or whatever, he was always ableto tell when something was botheringme,” even the slightest change in mood.“He intuitively knew something waswrong,” and he was “very, veryunderstanding and caring.”

Efraim Kirzner, the oldest son, whowas seventeen when his father wasniftar, said that the way his father

treated his mother made a bigimpression on him. “He was alwaysvery patient and understanding. Herespected her. He did whatever he couldto help her, always being there for her.”

A RReal CConnectionRebbetzin Kirzner recalled the days

of their engagement, during Elul, whenRabbi Kirzner said he was lookingforward to Rosh Hashanah and YomKippur so much. She said that she “hadnever heard of that before. As a kid, youlook forward to Pesach, Sukkos — thosewere the fun Yamim Tovim — not RoshHashanah and Yom Kippur! It was suchan eye-opener; he was so connected. Itall fits in; if a person cherishes hisrelationship with Hashem, those are hisfavorite days.”

The Rosh Hashanah before he wasniftar, in Mexico, he blew shofar forhimself even though he was so sick; hislungs were severely damaged at that

point. “It must have taken asuperhuman strength to blow shofar,”Rebbetzin Kirzner commented. She“couldn’t imagine how he could do it;the full [number] of blasts… He didn’teven have the koach to talk at thatpoint.”

Rebbetzin Kirzner believes that theessence of her husband’s teaching wasthat “a person should try his hardest tolive his life with a relationship withHashem … to strive to come as close toHashem as possible in everything hedoes … Yiddishkeit is not a burden; it’ssweet.”

Efraim Kirzner said that his fatherhad an “inner happiness, a calmness …he led by example … He was veryserene in the way he conducted himself… because he was in love with Hashem… He felt he was with Hashem.”

Rabbi Kirzner often emphasized inhis teaching that the performance ofmitzvos is, in fact, the way to develop alove for Hashem and a relationship withHim. Efraim Kirzner said his father was“so emotional about mitzvos.” At theSeder, “he was crying at Nishmas …thanking Hashem for everything.” Hisson Dovid said that he “aspires to live[as his father] lived … knowing thateverything has a deeper meaning … thatmitzvos aren’t just actions.”

COUNSELOR AAND SPIRITUAL GGUIDE

Rabbi Kirzner was extremelydedicated to his talmidim. “He wouldspeak to them one on one for manyhours, guiding them,” Rebbetzin Kohnrecalls. Many people have said thatthey’ll never again have a guide andteacher like Rabbi Kirzner.

One talmidah reflected on the loss ofhis guidance: “To this very day, whenI’m faced with some kind of a crisis or adeep disappointment or a dilemma …when I think of whom I would like tospeak to about this, it would be RabbiKirzner. I can’t tell you how many timesthat thought crosses my mind … Wherecan I go with this?”

The essence of his teaching was that “a person should

try his hardest to live his life with a relationship with

Hashem … to strive to come as close to Hashem as

possible in everything he does.”

19HHaammooddiiaa MMaaggaazz iinnee 23 I ya r 5768

One of his talmidos described herrelationship with Rabbi Kirzner thisway: “I felt like I had someone to guideme in a Torah way — I had someonewho was going to help me growspiritually ... he would suggest what tolearn ... to do... When he passed away, Ifelt that there would never again be arabbi to work with me in that way. I wasright.” At one point when she was goingout of the country, he gave her about100 of his Torah tapes to help fortify her.

His presence is very strong even onthe tapes. At least one woman becameshomer Shabbos as a result of listening toRabbi Kirzner’s tapes while driving toand from work on the Los Angelesfreeway.

The SSign oof aa GGadolOne man who was raised frum said,

“I had a problem that I didn’t know howto handle. I had gone to other peopleand received answers such as ‘It’s a test.It’s a blessing in disguise. You’ll growfrom it. It’s a kapparah.’ When I went to[Rabbi Kirzner], I felt as if he was in theproblem with me. I felt as if he lifted theproblem off my shoulders and took itupon his. He told me to go speak withsomeone and to get back to him and lethim know what the other person said.

“I went [immediately] to the otherperson. After speaking with him, I wentto work. I was going to call [RabbiKirzner] as soon as I got to work, but Ididn’t have any privacy. I waited until

the next day to call. As soon as I said,‘Hello, Rabbi Kirzner,’ he cried out,‘Why didn’t you call me?’ My firstreaction was ‘What are you yelling at mefor?’ But I quickly realized that he wasso involved with the problem, it was asif it was his problem. He had beenthinking about it from the moment that Ileft him. I told this story to a Rav, whostated, ‘That is the sign of a Gadol.’”

1 2 3

54

1. With his son Moshe Chaim, who wasnamed after Harav Moshe Chaim Luzzato,zt”l. 2. With his five eldest sons. 3. WithMoshe Chaim on the day of his upsheren.4. Bentching lulav with his son Aharon inLakewood. 5. His son Binyamin’s upsheren.

HHaammooddiiaa MMaaggaazz iinnee May 28, 200820

VIEWING SSUFFERING IN TTHE PPROPER WWAY

During most of the time that RabbiKirzner was teaching and counseling hisstudents in New York and Edison, N.J.,he was very sick. Other than close familymembers, most people didn’t know hewas ill, except Rabbi and RebbetzinKohn and a few others. Nobody couldbelieve it later, according to RebbetzinKohn, because he went ahead with hiswork as before.

“Right away he knew how sick hewas. The doctors told him at what stagehis sickness was; he knew all along thathe needed a miracle in order to survive,but he still went ahead, taught, had asense of humor. He missed classes onlywhen he had a treatment, and manytimes he would go straight from atreatment to give a class.”

While he was sick, he gave a series ofclasses at the Jewish Renaissance Centeron suffering. (The book Making Sense ofSuffering, compiled by Jeremy Kaganand Yonason Rosenblum, is based onthis series of shiurim.) Rebbetzin Kohnsaid, “Nobody in the crowd who was inhis classes realized that he wasstruggling with the issue himself andworking it through. It was an amazingseries of classes based on his dealingwith the issue. But he was so positive inhis approach; it was so internalized thatnobody in the crowd knew he wasspeaking from his own experience.There was no trace of it in his mood andhis way of teaching.”

Rabbi Kirzner once gave a class afterhe had just come straight from thedoctor. Just before the class was tobegin, he told Rebbetzin Kohn theresults of a biopsy. It was very badnews. “He went to the podium andspoke about suffering in such a way”that she was overwhelmed. “He hadn’teven been home yet or spoken to anyoneclose to him,” she said. He was a “hero.”He was so strong that she refers to RabbiKirzner, whose name was Yitzchok Leib,as a “lion.”

Rabbi Kirzner said in his taped shiur“Living and Growing with Suffering,”

“The Jewish mentality is, I’m here as anemissary of G-d ... and therefore, if all ofa sudden at a certain juncture in my life,I go through suffering or tragedy or

crisis, I turn to my Master and I say tomy Master, ‘I don’t know what You’redoing, but obviously, if this is whatYou’re sending to Your emissary, Youobviously feel that it is necessary forYour emissary to go through this inorder to fulfill his mission in life.’”

He spoke about the way people whoare suffering sometimes do an “about-face” from G-d because they are hurtingand they are angry. He shared his deepemunah and bitachon in Hashem with histalmidim, encouraging them not to turnaway if they are suffering: “If you’ve gotquestions and if you have struggles ...say those struggles and say those thingsthat are painful to G-d ... share the painwith G-d. Will we get answers?Sometimes yes; sometimes it baffles us

for many, many years ... but at leastwe’re confronting it in a way that there’sa possibility that with time I will be ableto grow from my suffering, because I’mengaging G-d in my pain. And if Iengage G-d in my pain, at that momentwhen I really want to invite G-d into mylife and to be my companion in my pain,then G-d will enter my life and help mebecome reconciled to the pain —sometimes with reasons and maybeeven without reasons, but at least to beable to deal with it and not to becomedysfunctionally immobilized by it.”

A CCOMMON SSTRUGGLEOne of Rabbi Kirzner’s secrets to

success in drawing people closer toYiddishkeit was his tremendous respectfor every Jew. He had an ability to relateto others as equals, regardless of theirbackground. One of his talmidim, who

became a very close friend, said that hewas “accepting of people, with all theirfailings. When he talked to a group ofsecular people, there was a very openatmosphere; he was able to handle it. Hewasn’t threatened by anyone’sappearance.”

One talmid explained, “He appealedto everybody. It was such a wide variety[of people in the shiur] that I sawsomeone with a hat and a beard sittingnext to someone with no yarmulke. Theyboth listened to the same shiur. Aftergoing to his shiurim people would all saythe same thing: ‘He was talking to me.’”

People could take what he taught andimmediately apply it to their own lifestruggles. A talmidah recalled a shiur atBnei Zion on the East Side of Manhattan.

“If this is what You’re sending to Your emissary, You

obviously feel that it is necessary for Your emissary to

go through this in order to fulfill his mission in life.”

At the Jewish Renaissance Center in N.Y.PHOTO CREDIT: ROSLYN DICKENS

HHaammooddiiaa MMaaggaazz iinnee 23 I ya r 5768 21

She described the experience of hercousin, who had “no Jewish connectionat all,” whom she had brought to one ofRabbi Kirzner’s classes. Her cousin hadjust lost her husband at a very youngage and was “shell-shocked.” The thingshe said “resonated with her in thatlecture [to such an extent] that shequotes him to this day … He didn’tknow what she was going through at thetime. He didn’t even know her; thethings he said were not aimed at herspecifically, but they were so profoundthat they really helped her through thatcrisis and at various times in her life.And that’s a person with no [Jewish

education].”He had an “uncanny ability to make

everything relevant to our everydaylives,” Rebbetzin Feige Twerski said.“He didn’t posture; he was real. He wasalways right there where we were … notjudgmental; he didn’t just give the partyline… He understood the humanstruggle in a way very few people could.He had no pretenses. He resonated withpeople; he cared … a total, complete,exquisite caring.”

One baalas teshuvah described RabbiKirzner’s openness to people. “I guess Ishouldn’t be surprised, but you have apreconceived notion that people whoare so evolved, so accomplished, soknowledgeable, so deep, so religious …it’s not that they’re going to look downupon you, but they just don’t relate toyou; they’re something [apart]. They’retrying to help you and their heart is in

that, but they don’t really understandyou. There was always a sense that youcould say anything to him; you couldask him anything… He was from theworld. He understood the world, eventhe parts of it that he did not participatein.”

His students felt truly cared for byhim. They felt respected, they feltwelcome, they felt like he took apersonal interest in them and derivedmuch nachas from them.

“Rabbi Kirzner could admit that theother person isn’t so different fromhimself,” Rebbetzin Twerski explained.It was a common struggle, “but peopleare in a different place on the spectrum— that’s how he viewed people. Heunderstood a person’s potential; hemotivated people throughunderstanding and caring, not preaching… He had the key how tomotivate people to grow — heunderstood the grand potential in eachperson.”

Another talmidah said that shelearned from Rabbi Kirzner “theimportance of believing in people.”

In Rabbi Kirzner’s classes, all thecategories, divisions, and barriersamong Jews disappeared. All Yiddenwere together as one. He brought all hisstudents up to the Torah in levels ofkedushah. Like the Jewish people comingtogether at Har Sinai with one heart andone mind, they all gathered to receivethe Torah, to be mekabel Torah at theirown level.

One talmidah said, “In class, we wereall pulled together; he brought out thesoul in all of us… It was a feeling ofpeace and a taste of Moshiach.” ❚M

Author’s note: It is a great example of RabbiKirzner’s chessed that he recorded his shiurim sothat we can still benefit from his teachings. Hecovered many subjects in his shiurim. In addition totefillah, Tehillim, Chumash, Navi, Jewish thought,and holidays, he covered topics such as characterdevelopment and relationship development. Oneof his most popular series was entitled: “Why theInnocent Suffer?” To receive a catalog and to ordertapes, call C. Singer at (718) 436-2652.

(Top) With a talmid.(Bottom) A melaveh malkah in the Kirznerhome shortly before Rabbi Kirzner wasniftar. He is seated at the head of the table.