The Protection of Chessed

As I was growing up, people would describe Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetzky zt”l as a great Tzaddik, and his cousin, my grandfather, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak HaLevi Ruderman, as a great Torah Sage.

After my grandfather passed away, I read an article in L’eylah Magazine by Dr. Joel Jakobavitz describing my grandfather’s greatness. He wrote of how my grandfather built his Yeshiva by inviting great scholars from many different Yeshivot and schools of thought. Rav Ruderman wanted his students to be exposed to many of Torah’s paths, and did not want them to have to follow only his way of learning and serving God. My father zt”l saw me reading and took the magazine to read how others understood my grandfather.

“People do not appreciate him as the Tzaddik he was. Imagine being treated as royalty from the time you are a young boy. Everyone fawns over the child prodigy. Even great rabbis honored him from the time he was ten or eleven years old. Your grandfather understood that a childhood like that could lead him to be accustomed to honor, and, potentially corrupt his humility. His decision to invite the great rabbis he did to join him in leading his yeshiva was a deliberate strategy to protect him from the potential arrogance that can come from too much honor. He openhandedly shared his dignity with others so that he would be one of a group of rabbis. That decision to share in order to protect was one of the great acts of righteousness and Chesed in an already remarkable life.

Abram, too, opened his “yeshiva” to others. We would imagine how any Yeshiva headed by this spiritual giant would be called by his name; “Abram’s Place.” But it was not; it was called “Eilonei Mamre” – Mamre’s Place. Abram gave the glory to his students. His act of sharing, a remarkable act of Chesed, protected him from the potential pitfalls of his enormous fame.

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