Retire? Hah!
Logically his DOB may make one consider that possibility, but his schedule puts that thought to rest in less than an instant.
Not only does he begin his day with the roosters, travel back and forth to one campus at least half-an-hour away and supervise his yeshiva guys for hours every day, he then rushes off to another campus to teach his high school guys until 7 p.m. And, in case he’s still left with too much downtime from those two full-time jobs, he also serves as the Rav of a shul on Shabbos!
The expression “No rest for the weary” could easily have been written for him.
However, as anyone who has ever taught students can heartily attest, he works far many more hours than the twelve-plus that he is out of the house on a daily basis. As I myself learned the hard way (before deciding to study programming and work in computers instead), a teacher’s job is never done.
Aside from the long hours spent in the classroom, there are many more hours devoted to preparing lessons and writing and later grading tests, among many other responsibilities. And, glutton for punishment that I suspect he is, my husband also writes curriculum and a variety of texts/workbooks for his students.
He recently printed a volume on Shnayim Mikrah V’Echad Targum in which he bolded the main points of every Rashi for his students. Although he estimated that he only required fifty copies of that text for his boys, the printer offered him a bulk discount if he would agree to print 250 copies instead. In an apparent moment of weakness which still perplexes him, my husband somehow agreed. He subsequently distributed a few copies to family members, as well as a handful to his shul, but still had nearly 200 extra copies. Suffice it to say that, much to my husband’s annoyance, we ended up with several cartons of seforim crowding up our already severely limited storage space.
Fast forward to the Simchat Torah war, aka Iron Swords. Along with all the unthinkable horror and carnage, there were undeniable glimmers of light as well. The multiple tefillah, Tehillim, learning, shmirat halashon, and chesed initiatives that sprung up, seemingly overnight, were a source of incredible pride and merit for our bruised and battered people. “Am Yisrael Chai!” became our undisputed mantra, and “Yachad Nenatzeach!” soon evolved into our empowering battle cry.
Video clips circulated everywhere on news sites and social media highlighting various campaigns to support our amazing soldiers, the hostages, and the many thousands of evacuees from both the North and the South.
One day my husband received a clip from a long-time member of his shul who was already active in an impressive number of local organizations long before the war began. In the video, he was seen distributing pairs of tzitzit and other religious items to the soldiers. And, lo and behold, he likewise gave them the shul’s five copies of my husband’s recently published book. Because the war began so abruptly, on Shabbos Simchas Torah, many of the frum chayalim had raced off to their units without bringing along seforim and other necessities. Therefore one of their main requests was for volumes of Shnayim Mikrah so that they could review the weekly parsha.
After viewing the clip, my husband immediately contacted his congregant, told him that he had some extra Shnayim Mikrah that he would happily donate to the war effort, and asked, “How many copies do you think you need?”
He referred my husband to a Rav who was more directly involved in procuring seforim and other religious items for the chayalim. Needless to say, the Rav made a quick mental calculation and replied, “We could use around 200 copies…”
My husband could not believe his ears.
“That’s precisely what I have left,” he responded. “Come and get ‘em!”
Long story short, within twenty-four hours all of the cartons of extra copies were picked up from our storage room and handed out to the grateful chayalim. And we were once again left to marvel over the inexplicable win/win miracle we had witnessed, down to the very last volume…
