Adapted from: A Heart for Another by Rabbi Yaakov Bender

It is hard to describe what it means to be an adam gadol or, for that matter, an ishah gedolah.

The secular world wrongly assumes that our leaders hold that position because they are the greatest teachers, most capable of imparting knowledge. While it is certainly true that our Gedolim generally teach Torah, what makes them great — and what inspires us when we are around them — is that they are elevated people.

Yeshiva Darchei Torah owes its existence to a baalebos who was one of the pioneering bnei Torah in Far Rockaway. A talmid of Rav Chatzkel Levenstein, Reb Yisroel Bloom burned with zeal to do, to build Torah and chessed.

His son shared a childhood recollection of how his father would bring small change to shul each morning, twenty-six cents for the pushka — one quarter and one penny.

The child wondered why his father specifically gave that amount each morning.

“Dovid,” Reb Yisroel answered his son, “it is because a Yid must give what he can — and then he should push himself to give a bit more… Twenty-five cents is the normal amount, so that extra penny represents the push to do more…”

Yiddishe tenuos. Yiddishe hergeishim. Innately Jewish feelings and gestures. There is no halachah that says anything about giving a penny above what is considered normal, but those who had the opportunity to be around great people picked up this approach of constantly striving for more.

Greatness is in the small details, and to me, it is a special zechus for our yeshivah that its founder was a Yid who lived this way, always pushing himself to do a bit more.

When I had my first opportunity to visit Eretz Yisrael as a newlywed, I was eager to encounter the Gedolei Yisrael whose names and lessons had inspired me since I was a child. I davened a tefillah in the Ponevezher Yeshivah, using the opportunity to observe the conduct of the sainted Mashgiach, Rav Chatzkel Levenstein.

Every part of his tefillah was sublime, the yiras Shamayim radiating from him, but what is especially memorable is what happened when davening was over. He went to straighten the shelf of siddurim, arranging them into order and ensuring that they were given the proper kavod.

Is that the halachah? I do not know. But it is pure Yiddishe hergesh and it’s part of becoming great!

I still remember a habit of my sister, Rebbetzin Esther Epstein, and it always moved me. She lived in Boro Park, in the same house as my mother, so I was often there visiting. I noticed that whenever an ambulance passed by the house, sirens blaring, my sister would stop what she was doing and say a kappitel Tehillim.

She did not give a shmuess explaining the minhag, because she did not have to. If we are all family, then when an ambulance is heard in the neighborhood, there should be worry and concern, so this reaction is only appropriate.

The tenuos of Yiddishkeit…

I remember a Yid at whose side I merited davening Shacharis every morning. Reb Mordechai Aryeh Yosef Weinberger was a simple, ehrliche Yid from Ungvar — but there was nothing simple in the way he davened.

He slowly, lovingly unwrapped his tefillin, tefillin that had miraculously accompanied him through Auschwitz, tefillin that he had donned at some of the darkest moments of Jewish history; and in Far Rockaway of a half-century later, he wore them with pride.

This image, an older man in a windbreaker holding tefillin as if they were the greatest treasure imaginable, seared itself onto my mind. I know that there are people who have tefillin that were written with more hiddurim, but I don’t know too many people who put on their tefillin with such humility and gratitude. When he replaced them in their bag, it was with the seriousness of a person replacing a diamond in its setting.

His tefillin might have had a special history, but every pair of tefillin is just as precious. We have to remain sensitive to that, and not let ourselves be distracted and pulled away by a world that comes so fast, relentless in its push to deprive us of those feelings.

Sometimes, it is the smallest actions that tell of a person’s greatness.