Miriam Schwartz: Rav Kahn Tribute

 

Miriam Schwartz

Today, I had the devastating displeasure of burying my rebbe. He was buried along with a passul Sefer Torah from Rinat, a fitting accompaniment for a man who shared last year that teaching Torah was keeping him going. It is comforting to know that he’s learning Torah once again in the Olam shel Emes, learning a Milchamos along with the Ramban himself. 

So many of my friends have shared about his impact on klal Yisroel. And I don’t have the ability to write coherently about that. But I hope that by sharing my stories of his impact on me I give those of you who did not have the privilege to learn from him some insight into the tremendous gadol that was Rav Moshe Kahn. 

During my time in GPATS, Rav Kahn went from being a person who taught me Torah to being my rebbe. I began to wonder, as is customary in many Yeshivos, whether I should address him in third person. 

I stuck around after shiur to sheepishly ask what he thought. 

He answered “Miriam, we speak to Hakadosh Baruch Hu every day in the first person. So first of all I’m no greater than Him. And second of all, we use the first person because our relationship with HKBH is warm and close. And a relationship with a Rebbe should also be warm and close.”

His humility, love and care for his students, and warmth gave him the ability to hold us to high standards and demand excellence. 

There was once a particularly difficult Rashi that my chavrusa Menuchah and I were struggling through, and I exclaimed with frustration “Rav Kahn, this Rashi makes no sense. We need help.” 

He smiled and said “First of all, you owe Rashi an apology. Rashi makes perfect sense. Second of all, go back and do it again. I’m not helping. You can do it.”

This kind of refusal to help coming from any other teacher might have been cruel. But Rav Kahn believed in every single one of his students. And because he believed in us, we learned to believe in ourselves. 

We worked on the Rashi for the rest of seder, and it felt like such a waste to spend all that time on one Rashi. But to Rav Kahn, every word was significant and if we missed anything our learning was incomplete. And so we toiled over that Rashi for over two hours. 

And to my chagrin, during shiur he cold called me to explain the Rashi. I walked through the Rashi with a full seder’s worth of thoughts, going through each step. After the first step I paused, expecting him to ask a follow up question. He adjusted his kippa, and just said “keep going.” So I kept going, translating every word and explaining the two external Gemaras Rashi quoted and how he used them. All the while, I watched Rav Kahn’s face for the smallest hint of approval or disappointment. He just kept asking me “and then what comes next?”

When I finished reading and explaining the Rashi, Rav Kahn smiled that signature smile that felt so incredible to earn, and said “She’s got it! Miriam, I think Rashi forgives you.”

Rav Kahn, I hope you forgive me for not taking full advantage of the gift of being able to learn with you in undergrad. After one year in shiur during which we learned Perek haZahav (for which he actually apologized last year when we spoke about the experience, saying it was the most he ever watched even his most talented students struggle and he resolved to never teach it again) I thought I didn’t have a head for high level Gemara, and didn’t think I could handle any more. 

But I never forgave myself for the wasted opportunity, and you met with me 10 years later when I wanted to reinvest in my Torah sheBaal Peh learning. After a horrible interview-turned-chavrusa (as so many others have shared) you said “So, I’ll see you in the fall. You’ll work at it and you’ll get it.”

I sat there stunned, since I had no idea where I was going to live or how I was going to make learning full time work. But you helped me see who I could be as a learner and a teacher with more time spent invested in my learning. How could I *not* go back to learn when a teacher who barely knew me believed so strongly that it was the right thing to do? 

And as my time in GPATS came to a close, you were so happy for me when I was hired to teach Gemara at Ma’ayanot, helping me overcome a small amount of my impostor syndrome by believing that I could do it. 

Two and a half weeks ago you told me to never stop demanding precision and high standards from myself or my students. I can only hope to do that because I was your student, and because you were my Rebbe. 

אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו, ומה נעים גורלנו, ומה יפה ירושתנו.