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| Rabbi Perlow and me in the HTC Beis HaMedrash (photo from a few years ago) |
This is a tragic loss for Klal Yisroel. But for me it’s
personal. He was known to the world as the Novominsker Rebbe; member of Council of Torah Sages (commonly called the Moetzes); and head of Agudath Israel of America.
But I will always remember him as Rabbi Perlow, my 12th
grade Rebbe.
Along with my then fellow twelfth graders (class of 64) at
HTC’s high school (now called Fasman Yeshiva High School) - we were his very
first students. A distinction not soon forgotten by any Rebbe whose calling was
to teach Torah. Through the years long after he left Chicago, he would always
greet me when he came back and we happened to cross paths. The last time I saw
him was when he came to HTC a few years ago for a lecture. When he saw me, he addressed me by my first name and asked how I was
doing. At the time it was well over 50 years since he had been my Rebbe.
Rabbi Perlow was an excellent Baal Mazbir – explaining with
clarity many difficult portions of the Gemmrah. I loved being in his Shiur He
was a dynamo… revolutionizing the high school with a program that encouraged students
to excel in their Torah study by spending extra time in the Beis HaMedrash. It
was a voluntary program but many students took him up on it. And they did
indeed excel.
But the Yeshiva was not my only connection with him. He
had a small Minyan in a house that was converted to a Shul (a shtiebel of
sorts) where my father was his main Baal Tefilah (Chazan) for Shabbos, Yom Tov
and the Yomim Noraim (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur).
His tenure in Chicago lasted for 7 years when in 1970 he
was offered a position as head of Breuer’s in New York. Some time after that he
opened his own Yeshiva in Boro Park and shortly after that he joined the Agudah
Motetzes and eventually became its head.
While he was student in Yeshivas Chaim Berlin under Rav
Yitzchak Hutner Rabbi Perlow attended Brooklyn College and got his Bachelor’s Degree. I
recall a friend of mine telling me that when he asked Rabbi Perlow why he attended
college, he answered that he believed it would help him better understand
certain portions of the Talmud.
What many people may not know about Rabbi Perlow is that
my own Rebbe, Rav Ahron Soloveichik was also his Rebbe at Chaim Berlin (before Rav
Ahron accepted the position as the Rosh HaYeshiva at HTC).
Rabbi Perlow was invited to eulogize Rav Ahron in Yeshivas
Brisk at the Hespid Shloshim. He accepted and flew in to Chicago. And informed
us that it was Rav Ahron who taught him his first Rambam.
Now he’s gone. Baruch Dayan HaEmes. May his memory be a blessing.
I rarely deal with memorials to the recently departed
unless I have a special connection to them. But because of this insidious deadly
virus, I have done so two days in a row.
When will this plague end?
