Inside ArtScroll - Season 4 Episode 19: Rav Nota – Through the Eyes of His Children

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to Inside Art Scroll where the books you read and the people who write them come to life. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi David Greenblat and Mrs. Debbie Greenblat, son and daughter-in-law of Revnata Greenblat, about whom Artskull has just released a brand new biography. So, thank you, Rabbi and Mrs. Greenblat, for coming out here to Artskull to talk about the new book and to talk about your father and father-in-law respectively. Uh, really an amazing human being and I'm excited to hear your personal reminiscences of his life and um again, thank you. It's our pleasure. Thank you, Rhyser. It's a pleasure to be at Arts Scroll and uh we we can't think of a better way to spread his message. Uh my father was humble and private. Um but he wanted the world to learn and he wanted the world to grow and he wanted people to you know teaching Tyra was a went to Memphis, Tennessee to start a day school when no one else would would would sacrifice such a such a commitment. I want to something you mentioned he was humble and he was private. Yes. Which is interesting. What what do you think his reaction would be if he would see that there's a biography about him? He would say why are they wasting their time? What would they have nothing to write about? Like why and he had a great sense of humor. Oh, he had a great sense of humor. He would say this is an Irish guy. He would say to him this was like these weren't the things a humble person means that it doesn't it means that there are things of greater value there are there there's there's something more important than me and therefore uh a book about me like why would that be important to anybody there a person you know and and that's how he lived he didn't uh it made him approachable because um things that makes people difficult to approach is because they have kind of a shield they're not humble. They're always protecting themselves. He didn't protect himself. He was open. Um part of it is being an open book and uh Schmo Botnik, the author, who just did a magnificent job on this. U brings it out in such an eloquent way is that you you're Rabbi Greenbla was a was an original. He was original. He was unlike any other. I was I was asking Schmonik, who could you compare him to now that you've done years of research. He said, you can't think of anyone else like Robnat Greblat. just a a yak binai. Talk about that. Um I remember the first time that I met him. So um we had just become engaged and I had heard about and we were going to meet there. I don't know if it's still there. There was a restaurant on the um in Williamsburg called Gotauts. Of course. Sure. And I had never heard of it really coming from far away. And I expected to meet this man with a, you know, a big brimmed black felt hat and a dark suit and a white shirt. And in walks a man with a light colored jacket and a colored shirt and that was amazing. And but everything he said was to deck. There was nothing that he said. There was no chitchat. Everything that he said, he was warm, he was engaging, he was welcoming, but everything that he said was completely turdic. It's like the Torah flowed through him. Mhm. So, it really didn't matter to him at all. I don't think like what the wrapping was. Mhm. Also, I think that he it was a a way of respecting my mother-in-law that she just she was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Her mother was born in Memphis, Tennessee. And I think that he just respected her and she just he just let her shop for him. Mhm. And it didn't it didn't really matter. I was gonna ask I don't want to focus so much on the externals because it really doesn't matter especially Ribbon showed us that how how little the externals matter but um but people are curious because they see pictures they see videos if you have if people met him in person I remember seeing him by by several weddings and and I I was always intrigued by by this personality but was it on purpose the straw hat the the light suit the color shirt which is so atypical for an Adam, he was a he was a god of he was a a baky nifla. Um again this is from reading in the book and and hearing so much about him. Someone who who spoke with and and and he was able to converse with them with ease in in any part of of uh you know shas and and so on and so forth. So how do you explain that exterior? What what I'll answer that I'll try to answer. I'll just tell you this story happened a couple of days ago. So it won't be in the book unfortunately but fella said to me was a young man in Staten Island. He was sitting at the base medish and her motion would spend time there of course Koser Bruain was there and he says he's sitting in the base medish one day and in comes a man in a short coat with a straw hat and clean shaven fellow and he looks at him he doesn't know who he is and he walks over to him and talk for 20 minutes and it's ferocious. It's like like Terry didn't talk and it was you know they were they they were they they were working through something difficult and afterwards my he didn't know it was my father my father walked away and he and he and he and he goes up to here and he hears Mosha tell Ruv and he says given Gishmak you know that was Gishmak um you know I can't how do you explain it I think that you know his father was a kashi he had also started the first day school in in Newark. uh tomato had been the the 15 schos had tomatururas and that was the way of supporting the schul and it was a process you know and that was a su a successful you know entrepreneurship was that the sh had income from this but my grandfather saw that there won't be a heck from this because as we all know the tomato movement goes up till the bar mitzah whatever and then the and my father my grandfather started the first day school which is uh still around I I think it's the Kushner Academy today. I think it's been renamed several times, but it that was um that was because he felt that if we're going to have a heaken, there's going to be something meaningful. We have to have a day school. My father, he a humble person and a private person can have his own world. And you need your own world if you want to. The world we're in is hard. There's a lot in the ways there. There's a lot of challenges. Every one of us battles all of them. And there's certainly even more today than there would have been five or 10 years ago maybe. But my father lived in his world. And his world was a world of Tory. It was a world of Aaras. It was a world of what would aeshb want from me? It was a private world. He wouldn't tell you any of this. But you could see that you know so it didn't matter where he was whether he was on a train or a bus or he was in he was in the Rambam's world. He was in Rashy's world. He was I think uh the story might be in the book that someone called him and said today's Rashy's site and my father said he died and you know so his his his his world was one of Rash and the Rambam and uh and of Tory and of Aas and therefore humility lets you do that because u it lets you do that and it also lets you think in Tyra you know now Raula has a cipher called Kenyan Tyra I think it's called and He talks about how we should think in terror. So if you see a car wreck, you should say is he a mazic? Is he is it Groma? Is it Gar? What is the kind what kind of damage was everything? My father saw everything through the prison of Tyra. You know I don't know if there's a this may or may not but I remember I was sitting in Memphis. I was a child. I don't think it's in the book. And my mother who is a regular Memphis woman reads the newspaper and says to my father she says so and so family just married a non-Jew. you they married a shika and I'm between my mother and my father and he says kaducian is not typhus with a shika you can't marry a shika which is and you know and I'm looking at the two and I said here's a y he he's living in the mission and kaducian you know what I mean he's living in effect that that's the that's a perspective that's the the perspective of tyra of how you know we look at the reason why what I was talking about the externals the reason why I was why it's so refreshing is because we live in a world and I'm not taking a stance on this for better or for worse. There's a a tremendous amount of of importance and stress placed on conformity, right? Everyone has to conform. No one wants to be too much out of a box and you know you know you don't want to be called a freethinker because then you know you're like you know out of the mainstream. Um your your father didn't didn't seem to care much about that. Like you said he cared about Tyra learning Tyra living what he could do for Hashem what he could do for others and and everything else. It wasn't even secondary. It was just not wasn't right. It was wasn't it was from his youth because here's a person who's a he was a Benbias barisha you know uh in the letters to my father and I think one or two might be in the book it says oh kibney and I know when I would go after I grew up I'd go with my father to when he came to the door the rabbits and not here not here the excitement was mamish like a son came back to visit you know and yet he packed up and walked and moved to Memphis as a bucker left that world and you know took a bus to Memphis Memphis, Tennessee to take a job in a atmra because he wanted to teach terror and he wanted to he felt that he would he would use his kas for that. I think in a lot of ways he turned down shidukim as any any successful bent has opportunities for shidukim. It was no different then and he turned down opportunities because he wanted to he didn't want he wanted to be able to go into to travel. He would not be able to do that if you marry a daughter of yesa. You're in the yeshiva. You know you're that freedom. Yeah. Oh yeah. He would mockingly say all the time, I made that guy rash. I made that guy Rasha. I said, 'We made Rashiva. He said they came. The Rashiva offered me their daughter, the Rashiva. And I said, no, not for me, but take your uncle, take him, take Veral. And they ended up becoming the Russa today, you know, understandably in his kindness. But it so he turned down opportunity. But so this this this this focus on what what Hashem would want from me and a lack of concern about conformity was really when he was started from his from his from his youth. Uh his his it was attached to Gdylm. He loved the opportunity to talk. Well by the way on that topic speaking he he loved Gdylum. He loved Gdiley. um talk about the fact that he lived in a relative midbar for for decades. It wasn't like he was surrounded by yeshivas and by benetra who he loved. I remember I remember seeing when he would come to lakewood anytime he was in Lakewood the benetra would flock to him and they would surround him whether it was by a sim or anywhere else he was like a magnet but in in Memphis he didn't really he didn't have that but somehow he his his fire kept burning. What do you think was the was the secret? I I think that he enjoyed it so much, but it was a that was a personal enjoyment. And I think that he was a man with a mission. And so there, you know, anytime he had the opportunity to uh go to Lakewood or if Benetra came home and he could give a share on he you could see that he just loved it. I mean, it's not he he just thrived on it, but there wasn't room for that because if you're on a mission, then you're on a mission and you just have to do your mission. So, I I I think that there was very little in my father-in-law's life that was about him. I think he was like the vessel through which Hashem flowed in in this world. Hashem's Torah, Hashem's flowed in this world. Um, the last few years, my youngest brother-in-law, Yel, so my in-laws were already older. They were a little home a little bit more. And my brother-in-law would get my father-in-law to tell stories. So you know you ask a person to tell a story and they start with well when I was in Las Vegas and they tell you the story. He never started a story like that. His stories was there was a yid that needed a get right. So there was very little of the eye there. So even like being willing to exile himself to a veritable midbar. I mean, Memphis is a great place, right? And um but there's relatively it's not Lakewood by any right standard. I I think he was a man with a mission. And I think that I didn't know I never met my um father-in-law of Shalom's father Greenblat. I'll just tell you a cute aside that my father-in-law for many years was a Moel. Mhm. So my husband David is his oldest son and my first child was a boy and it was Shabas in Farakway before there was an Arav. So the breast had to be wherever the mother and the baby was. And it was in my parents Alam Malam's home in Farakay. And when it came time to name the baby, um, you know, usually the mole turns to the father, but maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but he just named the baby after after his father. They didn't even ask you. my eldest. So, I have to say that my guess is though I never met my father-in-law's father that it was a family with an independent streak. Mhm. I would say that all of the children have an independent streak. So, my guess is that it didn't start with my father-in-law. He might have brought it forward quite a bit, but it probably didn't start with him. Right. Right. Right. What would you say, Deon? I would agree with I think it I think that it's it allows a person to to conformity stops us from becoming the best that we can become. We we waste our cycles on trying to make wondering what whether we're conforming or not. And if you can shed that, you can say, well, I have to be the best I can with the Ka Makodesb who blessed me with and uh it's not about what other people will say, it's about what their bundle will say. That that's what he lived. That's what he lived with. And I think only someone with that attitude, like you were saying, could could do what he did, which is fly millions of miles all over the world at his own expense for the most part to help people, whether it was forgetting or other things. the stories are in the book, stories that have been told many, many times, some more famous, some less famous. Um, and the author was telling me some stories that are that that are not in the book as well. Um, and he mentioned as well to me that your father kept a meticulous uh accounting of all his travels. Do you still have that? all his plane tickets and hotel stays and rental cars and so on and so forth. Everything is there for posterity or like I like I told Schmal this his tickets to Ghana of the people he helped. I think someone could only do that if they had they don't have a personal agenda, right? I have to go through the million tickets because he also wrote terror on the back of them. if he would have if he would have a thought and caution him, he would write it in the back of the airplane tickets and and it's in there and I've got to go go through them, which is a you're talking I don't know thousands of airplane tickets and stuff that are a lot and he would put his there when he would have a makshava because that's he in fact liked he felt that he would sometimes take long bus trips because he could sit and learn and he was in his own world there and he could do it for hours and as far as being alone in Memphis and missing the world of Tyra, he had it in Memphis because he had the Rambam there and he had Rashi there and and if if you watched him you see he was living with them and it was yes it's not the same as the give and take of the liquid based medish any base medish but it's uh but that was his uh you know that was the world he lived in it was I think that's that's refreshing also because it's a people who are watching this conversation are people who are going to read the book who are across the world you know sometimes we think that our we live in a bubble and we think it's you know our block our shul our yeshiva our city our state there's a wide world out there with so many yidden and shamas spread out across the world who could be inspired by that that you could reach the pinnacle of tyra greatness and also living wherever it is as long as your mission and your goal is is so pure like his was um you know that that's definitely he encouraged people he encouraged people if you said to me he would say often where do you live and they go say I don't know poseic uh Jackson or a Lakewood wherever he'd say why don't you go to Birmingham and or literally that would be a common conversation and uh I don't think there's one in the book there was one it's not in the book one fell came he said he went to Memphis it's not in the book he said he went to Memphis he went to visa and he he had this conversation he said where do you live he said I don't pose my father said to why don't you go to to New Orleans why don't you go to and the guy thought he said oh the guy arrived he said he he wrote in this you in this one little little note he said at least I know how we stuck in Memphis because that's how he thinks. You know what I mean? But then the guy said the next day went to minion and they didn't have a bal curi and he says I'm a bal curry but no one has asked me to lane in five years because they had bar and I had to lane in Memphis. I understood that there would that there could be a role for a person and I think that my father wasn't telling a person to go to Birmingham or New Orleans or San Antonio because Schulam he wanted he felt that a person if you can sit in Memphis and you can learn and you can become you can be an evid of Hashem. So why can't you why can't every person do that? I mean I don't know that it's as easy for every other person. He certainly can't you have can't counsel a person so easily that way but but he did it and he felt that a person There is a there is a a rough from San Antonio had four sons and uh he asked my father that he has an opportunity to leave uh to go to New York and he was concerned about his sons and my son said I give you off ta you'll have all terra and the rv has four sons one in the Detroit cola one in Lakewood one as a r in Chicago and one took over the children in San Antonio and when my father started as the yeshiva at the age of 91 uh the rough sent a check of an inward amount, more money than a Ra normally could afford to send. He said, "I car for the for the braha." But my father felt if you're and your errands and you're in San Antonio for this, that message will go through to your children and you'll have many, you know, and they'll they'll at the end of the day, it's it's who we are and what we what we are inside that affects our children. And he felt that this r would would have this, which he did. Would you say was that a did he have this streak of Kir? Because it didn't come off that way. It wasn't like your your your father and father were was in Kir. That's not what he was doing. No, I think that every Jew mattered to him. You know, I remember many many years ago hearing probably from my mother-in-law that my father-in-law had gone flown to Frankfurt, Germany to give a woman a get. And I remember thinking to myself, there's no Ramadan in Europe that could, you know, write a get for for a woman. But it didn't that wasn't a to him. I think that every Jewish person to him was the same the same importance, the same cover, the same weightiness. So if to me to to my father-in-law getting on a plane was like you and I getting in a car. Mhm. I mean he was a million mileer on several several different airlines. Yes. There was it was a you know this concern and this willingness to to to travel. I think it's it was a it wasn't a suffic even to him like it was like and he didn't ask anybody didn't tell he just felt that he had to do it. Um you know and it was it was How did your mother deal with with with his spontaneity of just picking up and going to to help people did did it take a toll on her? What did she look at it as a sacrifice? I ask you what would you say? I think my mother-in-law is an amazing woman. She is first of all a extre an extremely capable person, extremely resourceful. She she made a a beautiful home and I think gave her children, you know, everything that they could need. You know, they they they had nice clothes. They they had, you know, she taught them typing. I know she she gave them everything. She's a she in her in a sense is a self-sufficient woman. I'm sure that it was hard when the kids were younger. I can't imagine that it wasn't hard. But when I already knew her, um there was a tremendous acceptance of that her husband is doing important things. And you know, uh she would answer the phone, she would answer the phone like this. Um someone would ask for Rabbi Greenblat and she would go 30255. And it wasn't his cell number because it was before cells cell phones. So it was the number of the person that he was staying with in Mississippi or Louisiana or Arkansas or or California or Washington State. So she would just be like the secretary and she would just keep the list of numbers where he was where he was so that you could you could catch him if you if you needed him. But she I never heard her complain about it. Wow. But I know people would call him also at at at ungodly hours. I mean they would call him one two o'clock in the morning with a with a crisis and he and he would pick up the phone. He would answer the phone if he was in the middle of a sheir at YU and there were 400 boys or a narious role and there were 600 boys. He would answer the phone because he felt that he has naras and some of them were sometimes he would work on getting a get out of a person for 10 years and if he missed that phone call he'd miss that opportunity. Mhm. I think an interesting indication of his his love of every yid was I don't know if it's in the book or not but a mole from Dallas called him that he was an opportunity was called to do a get and the fellow was unfortunately a Jew that had already was serving yoska you understand he was a he had already uh you know a J for J as we call him and he asked my father what should he do this is he that's a good chila you could hear a rough and his name is David Schaw and and My father said to do is what's the matter with you? You don't believe in chuva? You know can do chuva. So you know here's a you know there's a perspective there. There's a perspect here here's a person that's as far as we're concerned you know maybe a masonis you know what I mean maybe certainly on the opposite of of any of any spectrum that we could define. And in my father's mind what says he give you have to do a bris a yid and you have to do a bris. You don't believe in chuva. So if you if you if that's your perspective even of the most extreme this is far more than the than the the nebak you know the the have not had an opportunity to learn or have an education um that was his perspective I think it says a lot about uh how we need to look at uh at our brothers and sisters right if you would say kvokim to him he wouldn't know what you were talking about right that's what I'm figuring he didn't because he he was looking he saw yeden and he knew he wanted to impact them and bring but it It wasn't under the umbrella of Kiru but but the impact that he had on so many I feel that mostly it wasn't like he was making a concerted effort. It was by virtue of who he was like I mean much has been already made of the story when he you know told Mr. to Brown, you know, to give up his paper route and he'll pay him a dollar, the$150 that he would make. And now there's generations of a mishbaka. But that wasn't a a cure of ploy. That was like there's Shabas. Shabas is worth more than a$150 a week, so I'll pay the$150 a week. It was just who he was. And I think that that was so compelling to him on his last trip to Erasel. It was for our oldest granddaughter's wedding. And a couple who now lives in Artistell and he was Macariv came to see him. It was like coming to pay homage to their rebi. I I was there. There were just tears like how how do you how do you thank a person for giving you life in this world and life in the next world and and duros and and generations? You know, they're very reticent people. I don't even know that they were interviewed for the book. Speaking about speaking about that about people being interviewed and telling their story. So Schmo Botnik told me something very interesting. He said what was unique about this book. There's you're ribbon greenbot didn't head some large organization who had that had a big email list you could contact you know he had to start doing research and he started reaching out to yidden in far-flung places and it it was he was like on on he was a man on a mission to dig up Rnata's story which is also an interesting phenomenon and he and he he couldn't believe some of the people he spoke to where where they were and how somehow your father reached them and just that also just creates such a a unique facet to his life story reaching so many people in so many places disparate people I'm sure there are people that that you know we didn't get to for this book and more stories will come in but I know there are because there's almost every day or every other day someone tells me a story of my dad I just spoke to a roar in Queens I was talking about some topic and he said oh he said I My my father was a rabbi in New Orleans and I was six or seven years old and your father was in New Orleans in our house and I watched him dishonest and I remember till today the man is my age he's not young and he said I was blown away at Ezra the way he daved I never saw a person so so immersed in his tila that he's telling me this story 60 years later and it was part of being in his own world now that estray was it didn't matter that it was in New Orleans it didn't matter you're in Memphis. They told my wife on the way up. My father really never lived in Memphis. He was in his own world, you know. You know, uh he was in his own world. When um we were first married, I was very young and I got my first teaching job and I really didn't know what I was doing at all. And they gave me like a 12th grade class to teach um like medieval Jewish literature. And I had to teach the the Pim of Ravhuda Halevi. I assure you I did not know them, but I would call my father-in-law at night. Okay? And he would teach them to me on the phone and he he knew it. He No, there was no there was not one there was no two second delay between I I would just say which period it was and he would and then one I'll never forget one evening I called him. I said, 'I I really don't understand this at all. And he said, 'Dra, devra, I have a tune for that one. So he had he had music to go with the pim of of like who has that? He was a beautiful kazin, right? Yeah. Yes, he was a beautiful. It was, you know, we knew the pure shame, which right away is gives it a different flavor. Different flavor. Different flavor. And he was um being in his own world made his yum kipper be a young kipper and his and his his is his his pur and his tishabove. They were all in his uh um I was in uh I was in YU once and a guy comes over to me. He says I went to Memphis once. I don't want some learning programmer there and he said I was in your house for tishabove and I don't think I ever saw anybody uh you know cry for the bass mdish like I saw this fell told me said I don't I don't think I ever saw that and this is in Memphis. So it was in you know um Rashi's living the B of Migush was just destroyed. Everything was real. Everything was real by Sati you needed patience because he he was he was watching the conversation between between Yetsuk and Yakov between Yetsuk and Asov. He's watching it. He's he's there. And um I think if we can do that if a person and I and I want I think it's important to say that the I I really hesitated to to to to see that there should be a book because here's a person who's been humble and private his whole life. What right do you have to what right do you have? And I think that the point is that we have to see what we can learn. The point of the book is and I I wrote it in my introduction. And what do you think that is? What is that? I think that the point is that every person has to really you know as you disconnect from their externalities and from their conformity and really see what's the what is their real kesher where where is their what is their real relationship to their aases to a kadesh bu to tora to clasr to their brothers and sisters I think that every person um has a responsibility to do that and that's hashem is going to ask that of every one of us is uh I think That's the lesson here you know and u uh we have to answer for ourselves. I think it's for that it's kadai to have a book. So it's not about watching what someone else did. The question is how can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? How can I u you know what's the message for me and uh I think there's a message for people. I think there's a message for my father was no different than every other person in that regard. He was a regular person. Uh and uh I mean I I would say he was blessed with with certain abilities. He was about Kishwan. He was about Kishwan and he had a love of Would you say he was brilliant? I see your wife. I got to say that about and he and he had a remarkable memory. He didn't forget. Remarkable remarkable memory almost to the very end the last uh eight months of his life or so. We had the privilege of having him live with us in our house and it was an amazing thing. It was really an amazing thing. You know, I was reflecting and I was thinking that certainly in his own home, it's a very comfortable, welcoming, beautiful home. Um, I don't think that I ever in all the years saw him sit on a couch. He sat by the table. He participated in the meals. He had his own study, a little base medish that they built on to the to the house. And uh you know, he'd come in he he'd come in the kitchen, you know, every once in a while to get um some very boiling hot water with a little bit of misin as he would say that my mother-in-law always had a supply of on the counter. But he never just sat around. That that wasn't a thing. And I I remember thinking a few times over those last months that he was in our home that when he sat in a chair, like even how he walked and how he sat even till the end was I would call it ramrod straight. Mhm. like and to me it was almost a representation of like a certain yashas that was there. He was he was clear. He was yasher. He was straight in his dealings and had a a clear vision of of what his life needed to be. And in a certain sense that's an amazing blessing. like how much time do we each of us spend wondering like am I doing the right thing? Am I living the life that Hashem wants me to live? But he didn't he didn't do that. He somehow early on must have had a very clear clear clear vision when he went to Memphis. Was is this in the book David that when he went to Memphis he had a lifelong friendship with Rev Binyaman Kamitki. Oh and Revanyan Kamki took him to the train I think it was was it the train when he was going to Memphis for his first job to Memphis. He was a bucker. He was probably about 26 or so. No, it was younger. He was younger. Okay. A little bit younger. Yeah. And um and Rabin Yammen, who they they were friends for their whole lives, said, "I'll pick you up in two weeks when they throw you out." But uh that didn't bother him. I'll give you an example. My father, he didn't talk about unless you asked him. He didn't. I once asked him, "Did you ever meet the Kaznish?" He says he said I went into his home on Benrock and it this is my father's humor and this is my father and he says so I came in I sat down the living was lying on his couch he would lie on his couch probably after you know learning for 22 hours so I sat over a kdesh and the knesh said to me kesh that's your kdesh and my father says to me what does he mean that's my kdish the wholeish is farmer full with his why can't I have one also you know that was that was just but it was a story you only got out if you ask you know what I mean you didn't ask you I never heard the story till you asked but uh I think that um it was a a lifetime this way he he told me for his bar mitzvah he said uh he said his father told him when he was 12 he said I don't know if we're going to have a bar mitzvah my father what do you mean I'm I'm 12 13 so my so my said you know yet needs to know one maka one needs to know well for a bar mitzvah. So my father said so I I learned he said because my bar mitzvah that was the uh that was he told me yeah and u and again the the thing that strikes me is that this is the same person who knew kadu who finished kadoo by who knew who knew a who when it came time to be there for he taught al yeah there wasn't which which not only that he consider would even hear such a thing and without without getting paid for it He considered it a privilege. He didn't. It wasn't like o I'm stuck here teaching olive bays like we would say you know I mean I you know I should be teaching I like most benator I should be teaching the uh the base medir and I'm stuck here in the olive bashir to him it was a privilege to him it was terra was terra and uh if you came in and said will you learn with me he said whatever you want to learn he didn't and you could open up a safer and he would pick up sometimes bal some but he tal was there from olive bays from Olive Bay to all of Nigla there was no there wasn't any there was no boundary he could learn with you whatever you wanted to why would it make a difference wasn't what do you want to learn and I think it also let him he was in contact with all the parts of Tyra you know it was it wasn't just this part or that part and that was what was remarkable talk about his learning I'm just curious because I uh did did he have a seder of what he learned did he did he did he learn shas did he learn hal every day did he have a sed what the cause because of his privacy I don't know either you don't know no because he see anyone you speak to who was in contact with with said he knew he could speak any he was comfortable with the that's in a half year to a year I'm going to put say for he left a lot of terra and now I'm seeing already it's being retyped already there are a few hundred stickl there and they are they're Tyra on topics that just to start the topic you have to be an expert in clutchum just to to start before you even before you begin the topics the the the the detail and the the mastery of the topics which are not the topics even of of of a r of a day-to-day job the the the chuvas and the detail is amazing I mean 10 15 pages on topics that we we wouldn't know where to start. I'm an average mentor I mean I'm sure there will I hope there will be but you know his mastery was not and because he was learned everything was willing to learn everything and was excited about everything. I think that one listening to my father and watching him there were a few there are a few teachers in class at least in my own lifetime that watching them teach was more than what they taught just watching their excitement. Refi was one of them and Timberland they had one Rabbi Fle used to talk about but there there there were when they when they gave a shear you watched them rather than the just watching their excitement with terra my father was that way you were watching him you were watching him you and that's important because we need to find a place of Tyra that we like and that we love and that we can connect to and that's that's meaningful to us. There's a message right there. You know what to find our our spot and our type of Tyra whatever it is for each person that he wants to tell somebody about that he's excited about. And I I again I thank Arts Grow for doing this because I I I want the message to get out and I want Claus Israel to grow from it. He would want that. That's really what he would want. He wouldn't want anybody to know about his private life or his humble life or or about his stories. And he would say that's all narish kite and why does that matter to anybody? But he would want them to to say what about me like why if he could go to Memphis, Tennessee and do this like where am I? You know, I mean he was very very private about his own Yiddish kite. You could not even ask him like, you know, did you d me? He would say it's none of your business. Oh, really? You would say that? Yeah. So surely and things like that you would have known. He was very private himself. He took great. Uhhuh. My father, if you saw him in Schulen Shabas, he often had a hat on. Everybody else has a yak on. He has a hat. You mean when he was wearing his talis with his talis and a hat with his talis have a black hat on or whatever his hat was whatever color it was right and but he wouldn't wear his talis over over his head that's what you mean no it wasn't that the head would be in a hat and often people are looking at that the some of the yas wear hats whatever and it's because he didn't have a yamaka and why he didn't have a yamaka because he wouldn't even though he had built a in many cities he felt there is a that we can't be s and a because there are that hold that are Our rashus raim are real rash. They're dissaisa. Therefore, you can't build an arav. So for his own self, the man who put up the aravin in many cities would not and even to the point of he felt if he's wearing hat under a hat would be. So here's a ara on a for the world is being malleable that no one knows. So they're all asking me why is your father wearing his hat? What am I supposed to say? He doesn't have a yam. Um I'm giving an example but that I didn't I didn't know this my whole life. I didn't I was wondering myself and uh until I finally figured this out but he was he wouldn't tell you. So he was machm on himself but he was worked hard to find to permit for others things that were difficult for them. He did not he wanted to make which is the that's the obligation of a pose is to really help people to be able to live a turdika life is is without without giving them things that be too hard for them. but on himself he took over. I'll tell you a story. So when we were first married, so there was a new wife setting up a home, you know, oldest daughter of two Holocaust survivors, no older sisters, cousins. So there were questions that came up. So I started, of course, to call my new father-in-law. And whatever I asked him, he said, "Mut mutter." And I said, "This is great. I have my own personal, you know, lenient rabbi pose. This is, you know, put him on speed dial. And then a few months after we were married, I called him with a question about if something was um allowed on Shabas and somebody had told me that such a thing is allowed. I don't know that I should say exactly what it was, but so with great confidence, I picked up the telephone to just sort of verify with my father-in-law that this was in fact allowed. And he said, you know, he was a taker like that left no question. And I realized that I hadn't gotten myself uh my own lenient poss what I had gotten what I had had the good fortune to marry into was someone that had complete clarity. So when something was mutter it was there's nothing to discuss. But when it was asser there was also nothing to discuss. Mhm. You know, I would watch him. He was in Memphis 70, 80 years. I told my wife in the car, most rabbis after seven years in Memphis would be playing tennis and golfing. You know, that's what the what is the city doing? And he would go to bench and get his hat and his jacket no matter where it is, the same way a young man does when he's when he's 14, 15 at the base. There was this was his behavior was no different than it had been, you know, and he's a Zuck and it's not even easy to go get a hat and a jacket, but that wasn't even a uh it was part of being in that world. His world was that world and it didn't matter how old he was and it didn't matter where he was and it doesn't it didn't matter that there was no one around to be impressed at all. At all it didn't it didn't matter. Ishman Ezra was no different whether he was in the front of the ceur whether he was a he he was in Shayash when he was 92 years old and he stood up for the whole Yum Kipper they still haven't recovered the young people haven't recover he stood for the entire yum kipper but not and then then only if you looked in other words if you looked you realize you know he's not sat down he never sat down but that was um this is a person in that world of of what his obligation was and uh and it was blessed with a yam probably you know as a as a gift for Of course, he said it was because he had a bra from Rav Cook when he was seven. And I I can't take away Cook's brother, but if actually in my father's humor, he said Ravk gave him gave he said to my to his to my father's father, nope, he should have he should be a big and my father said it was at least half true, you know, half the classic. That's what you would expected. The author told me that the hardest part of getting stories from people was that everything that he responded was classic. They knew that. So to the people, this wasn't a story because of course not said that. What do you So I don't have a story really because of course he would have said that. There's so much to unpack about his life and and a lot of that is done in this book, right? And we thank both of you for facilitating this book because this book would not have happened without your foresight and without your support and your encouragement and and asking Schmonik to undertake this project and and like I told him I think you've given the world a gift where gave the world a gift called ribbon greenl but much of the world wasn't to know him um despite the thousands whose lives he touched and now with this book we're going to be able to spread that message and inspiration further and I think because your father and father-in-law was so multifaceted each person in their own way young and old men and women will be able to glean something whether it's in his there's so his his his humor his finding the joy in whatever it is that was able to find we'll all be able to take from that in our own lives so any any final words before we wrap Um, I do hope that that the book is read and I think that it will appeal to to a to a a broad spectrum of of our brothers and sisters in Clay's role. I think it has broad appeal. He from what I saw, he wrote it beautifully and uh I I I felt that I had a bent tyrret. I felt this should be written by a bent tyra because you needed to have that sensitivity to what my father was. It had to come from a person that understands what Tyra is or it would be lost. And um I did want Clay to learn from it. You know the world says it's as a a joke acrimos kadoshim that after a person dies everybody becomes you know he becomes holy you know and I thought about that and it's there's another part to it that's serious and that is because if a person passes away and then you start looking at his life carefully and you start really saying who was the person then you can often find kaduca there and I think the book is after his passing I think it was a it's an opportunity to see where that kaduca was because of the work that Rabbatnik did because he spoke to a hundred people and because he did literally a year of of research you can actually see how much was there and we can see kadouch and hopefully we can grow from it and learn from there and and grow ourselves. Amen. He should be a meer. Amen. Thank you for Rabbi Greenblat. Mrs. Greenblot, thank you again for coming out. Thank you. It's a pleasure for the opportunity. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you. [Music]