The Life & Legacy of Rabbi Zecharia Senter zt"l

[Music] if we do our share if we do things the sense of commitment and devotion and dedication will be rewarded with help from above my father grew up in the east new york section of brooklyn and he grew up in a family that wasn't very religiously observant they didn't know that much and my father went to public school as a kid when my father was 10 years old he attended something called the release hour run by rabbi j.j the release hour was a program where children would be released for an hour from public school and given the opportunity to study jewish studies rabbi asked my dad to stay afterwards and said to him what are you doing here you ask such amazing questions you have such insight you really should be in yeshiva so my dad answered i don't know ask my parents my parents acquiesced and agreed to interview different yeshivas for my brother to possibly attend and my father used to tell a story that i figured it'll take a couple of weeks at yeshiva and he'll want to be back at the schoolyard around the corner playing basketball with his friends it never happened he interviewed for yeshiva called david leibowitz at that point in time they met with my grandparents and they said to my grandparents that we have a classroom for limu dejol he's on par he's advanced for the secular studies but unfortunately he just had learned to read basically so he's only fit to be able to go into second grade and he said i'll go to the second grade now to give you a picture of what that was my father was six foot at his bar mitzvah so you had a six-foot person getting into a classroom with a bunch of second-year-olds and barely able to get his feet underneath the desk my father wasn't intimidated in any way of going into a whole new way of life he just knew what this what he wanted to do so he moved forward and he and he did it and it was something that he was very proud of that he was able to make these accomplishments and it was the type of thing that was the hallmark of really my father's entire life he invited me over for shabbos i think one or two times and um his parents father went to shore so see that they they they admired him that that he was at that coyote to he believed this is the right thing to do and then he went and he did it my dad attended bta for high school and post high school he went on to you yeshiva university he was originally not studying rabbinics his intention was to be a math professor my father was a genius when it came to math and he was in both undergraduate and then subsequent to that graduate school pursuing a degree in mathematics however at the same time my dad became very very fond of limu de kodesh and he pursued that at the same time that he was pursuing his education he wanted to go into rasal of achieve the highest year in yu at that point they had a rule that if you were full-time registered in a graduate program you couldn't be officially registered in this micro program and he went to speak to the love about it the rob made a deal with him he says if you attend my you've got to take all the preeners because i don't want just people casually walking in on my ship and he agreed my father's relationship with the love was a talent with naira his entire avoid in learning was to understand what the rav was saying he was so riveted by his divitora that he remembered the exact phrase that he would use and it was for sure transformative in my father's life and everything became seeing life through the lens of his rebbe through absalovacik and his approach to the way he interacted with people is what he thought that his rebbe would want him to do my father graduated with his smika and a doctorate in mathematics from yu my parents after they married moved to north bergen and my zeta had started a small shul called semakhtaven and my dad became the rav from there my parents moved to teaneck my father joined a shul called beth abraham which was also a relatively small school and they commissioned him to be the rabbi my father was a rabbi in beth abraham for many many years the community saw my father as larger than life and not only the people that david in my father's show but the entire community of teaneck there was a tremendous respect that they had for my father the gentle nature the respect that he showed everyone he knew how to deal with different type of people these people this way these people you dealt with that way he could tell them entertaining stories you could tell them sports stories he could tell them just jokes he was described by many as a gentle giant because my father was very tall in stature but was very easily relatable to people and although when it was appropriate my dad could be firm he certainly had a very gentle side to him my father was always fascinated by kosheros and what goes into making something kosher and non-kosher the early days of koshers in the 30s and 40s there was a lot of things that were done that people just assumed for kosher and my dad decided he's going to start looking into this and my dad would call up companies and ask them if they could send them information on what stabilizers you use what flavorings you use what are the flavorings made out of we had reached out to different companies one in particular said to you know we're actually looking to go into the business of distribution and we would like to speak to you about helping us get a certification my brother went down to see this guy and he was a non-jewish guy my brother had a knack with everyone and they instantly became friendly together and the guy said to him rabbi santa i think we're going to do some business together we have a lot of product that we want to endorse that are in our stores and that we sell our product to certain supermarket chains could i have your business card and i'm going to be in touch with you my brother had no business card he had no business i mean it was the like you know the first real client that called him that was of substance my dad from that meeting got in the car and drove over to my grandfather's printing press and he met with my grandfather's partner a man by the name of stabby and he said to him i need you to make me up stationary he said why am i making a stationary he said you're a witness to a historic event the birth of a new kosher agency in the united states and you're looking at its chief operating officer that was the very very beginnings and there was the thing with the logo the cuff k the hebrew cuff and with the k in it it became the trademark of uh kosher supervision services eventually we grew took a long time but by the 1980s my dad had grown to the point where he realized he had to retire from mathematics because his true love and passion was certainly conscious he retired from fairly dickinson and pursued full time his career in koshers and that's when we really blossomed the kafka really took off [Music] my father was trying to establish his reputation so my father went to the klosenburg arrival and he asked him how is it that i can be matsuyakin kashus how can i establish a reputation for myself how can i make sure that the kasras is the closeup looked at him and he said repeat he said do your job [Music] his own scholarship he was the time of his own right he never wanted to rely on himself he felt perhaps he was we call it logaya bhadava my father always associated with castro's experts who understood what was necessary in order to do the kashmiris we always had someone we always had to add shilas to if there were shadows that came up and they do on a daily basis it was always about being able to provide a service for the people that everyone should be able to eat that it should be behavior my father always felt that even if he personally held it was mother and there were things that he had stuck him from review from his rebbe that held that was about there but he said doesn't matter this is what the zebra at large may want and therefore he would be mavato's to them people respected him they knew that he he was serious about what he was doing and he didn't do it in an overbearing fashion was always with respect is with intelligence but also always with hibachi everything needed to add up correctly in business in life in halakha it had to make sense it had to add it wasn't just okay it's good enough it's close enough it needed to be exact if there was a conflict and there was a question of losing a client because you lose a client you stand on the conscious standard you don't bend the rules because it's going to hurt you financially they're willing to sacrifice when they had to sacrifice integrity was first growth was second anything that he felt may be a challenge in which he couldn't do it at a point of excellency he didn't do this was a secret to success in establishing and advancing the kafka cultural provision as arguably the primary supervision in private hands behind every man there's a success there's a woman who drives it this certainly applies in that case my mother and my father were an absolute partnership my mother to some extent created my father therefore it is absolutely appropriate at a time that we are giving testimony and giving devre bracha to the neshama of my father to actually to recognize that everything that in the past and that we will accomplish is directly attributable to my mother honey was a big part of it a part of its growth a part of it it's everything she's still involved and that's wonderful this is true teresa came in the neighborhood that the true election office is to see the missouri carried on still another generation i don't believe anybody could have dreamed as to what my father was going to accomplish when he was 10 years old in public school i think the message is that if you set your mind to it with siata deschmayer there's absolutely nothing you cannot accomplish he's a self-made man that's a lesson for all of us and we think you know we are who we are and we're going to stay the same way no you can reach higher you can do things that you didn't think were possible the message of determination focus setting goals setting high goals and following through to achieve those goals my brother to my sister and my brother my nephews is that we should all continue to work in harmony and this following off by my brother-in-law's method and motto and life goal of continuing to grow in simcha and in peace with all the cautious agencies and to work together and to to continue exactly what he did his entire life carry on what he did when it comes to being an evidence hashem it's serious business and don't take any shortcuts and enjoy it too he wasn't like you know very serious like a person told a good joke a lot of times he was a normal person but he knew what his direction in life was and he had to keep at it at the torah traditions as a spirit of the torah and the word of the torah should continue to within the family the odd polar if we do our share if we do things the sense of commitment and devotion and dedication will be rewarded with help from above you