My good friend, Rabbi Shael Siegel, has written a thought provoking post dealing with issues that are affecting his life currently and the choices he has made. What interested me the most is the biographical portion about how he went about making a decision early in his adult life that has affects him to this day. For those who don’t know, I will breifly repeat what I have written before and perhaps add a bit.
Rabbi Shael Siegel is a brilliant thinker. I have admired his mind for a long time and I respect his views, although I do not agree with some them.
He and I attended Rav Aaron Soloveichk’s Shiurim when we were talmidim at HTC. We were in his shiur for four years, one “blatt” year and three years in the Smicha Shiur. Shael was one of the top students in the class, always “acing” the Bechinos, something I was quite jealous of. He was also the beneficiary of Rav Ahron’s great compassion and understanding when Rav Ahron defended his right to be who he was and not conform to artificial dress codes. I also remember Sheal asking a Shaila to Rav Ahron when during sfira he needed a heter to shave off a rather bushy beard so that he could look his best for an interview with respect to getting accepted to a masters program at a local university here.
But as a man of great courage and integrity he parted company with his rebbe and after three years of studying for Smicha, and acing all the Bechinos, he did not receive Smicha from Rav Ahron. (He does have Smicha from the Yeshiva signed by other Roshei Yeshiva there if I recall correctly.) Both Rav Ahron a man of great principle... and one of his top Talmidim, also a man of great principle clashed. Shael tells his story in this post and it is fascinating. I admire Shael for maintaining the courage of his conviction, even though I disagree with his position on this issue. He sacrificed getting Smicha from his rebbe because he didn’t want to compromise his beliefs. Would that we could all have such courage to always act in harmony with our principles. Many of us all too often compromise. Shael most often does not. This post tells the insightful story.
