Students Pay Tribute to Rabbi Akiva Wagner

[Music] [Laughter] thank you one of the most times that I spent with Robbie Wagner was the summer that we were in Budapest Hungary together I was the learning director of the Yeshiva Skyes Wagner brought the zal to Budapest Hungary for that summer as the learning director I asked their sushiva if you can give a share once a week to the younger now he gave this year and was always deeper pull him in the Gomorrah that they were learning and I was very aware that the bathroom really didn't understand what he was saying so I asked them Ravi Wagner you come in every week you're giving this sheer you know that they don't understand so why are you giving it on such a level and he said that I'm not their daily teacher I'm coming in once a week and I come in with one goal in mind and that goal is as the tamidium as esperan is tell me them that are learning they think they understand the gemara at 15. they should walk out of my sheer I knowingly know that they don't understand but that they should understand after this year that there's so much higher that they can reach and so much deeper that they can get into the Gomorrah [Music] when I reflect on this story I feel that really this is the entire essence of his avoidance Rabbi Wagner pushed himself to set an example that we should all see that we should all see that there's a better deeper higher Target that we can reach you watched him diving you got inspired you watch them learn you got inspired you watch them interact you got inspired he pushed himself above and beyond the average and even above average avoida so that we always tell me them should know as a salon and for that we have to thank him myself [Music] that is not oh he's helpless right there I'm too smart for this I'm too simple I'm too young I'm too unimportant there's no such a thing every person is capable of achieving the greatest things every person is capable of reaching the highest levels I really experienced a love and a life to Tyra like I never saw anywhere else a collateral is a real thing that literally be entirely invested with your whole every limb of your body it's the way we're ragging around around Zealand use his hands to teach us the way when he said there's something in his hands are flying you felt like you were going somewhere it sure wasn't just the uh a nice vart it was a it was a full experience and Wagner was his investment was he was fully there called because the idea about like courses any good that's foreign it's far from us it's aloof from us and we have to think about it and focus on it and be missing and contemplated in order for it to become closer to us to become make more sense to us to become palatable to spread out throughout us you're coming this year and there's a whole there's a whole entire the whole entire year was was dancing it was a it was Dynamic it was the the was alive it wasn't just a you know Akasha it's the sheer the caches were Cassius and the the you say this the hakunas were hakitus and sometimes this will go on for once you're too sure three four shared him that that he was calling I like to say that every time we walked out of Bashir for my Wagner was our our drawers were were dropped it was just incredible you felt like you were by a magician that was standing in front of you and and performing an incredible uh incredible act the incredible show the way he he had his depths and the way his smartest and Coco you're going in there was never a two-way everything had three ways there was always more than one way of looking at things it was always more than two ways of looking at things and by this he he brought Clarity and this reporting a smack to everything that was that was in front of him [Music] thousands your base out we decided that we're going to start to print our wagon shirt on a mass scale um so we started working on the shooting we started editing it and you know try to make it you know that it should be able to be printed in the safer and right Wagner really really encouraged us to do with it was really really for it um I remember having a conversation with him more recently about it and I remember he was saying that it no matter what work we did to it it still still needs more work what he what he what he told us was that the reason why he pushed us so much to do is push a beat to give a buck or a a it's even though that uh was something that lambdafter was even Royal associate but a pizza game he sat with those nights um [Music] could say that there was times that we were working on it and we would we would have we would email them back and forth sometimes it will be at one night it could be that we had we sent them an email at 8pm we gotta answer at 10 pm then we sent them back a response at 11 PM and then we get no three responses one from 1am 3 A.M and 4 a.m that is the whole night he was busy on this on the share on producing it his whole entire cough was that there should be a cotton this year I'm really stuck out in I would say he was called literally his entire being was invested in this year he was walking pacing up and down his voice was not monotone it was very very live very vibrant and when he got to his vertum time for the hiddish he screamed across the island it wasn't uh he felt like the whole style was shaking she was like an experience she came into a share felt like he was taking on a trip somewhere where the Wagner if I bring for my class about how all the big markers in 770 are making their donations and they're buying Mitzvahs for the year and Ballroom should be making haklates in learning the resolution from the fabrina was that that everyone should take a platelet of a good decisions to learn and make a savior status after stay there every night and Rabbi Wagner also made the haklata and he attended the Irish year basement at least for four or five months after that I made a haklada to learn a helix a couple months later I decided I could do gimlet also for that Year from the next year hey look tesvov and every year following that eight years later on my it was in my channel I finished look at the service I can trace it all the way back to this show of a Siberian that Rabbi Wagner put on for some young impressionable this is the single biggest accomplishment of my life three you know what you are uniquely sticks out that aside for his coffin learning also had a tremendous cook in davening that sitting every day in front of zal davening for a very very long measure tonight every day was different but a very very uniquely long message now something which was very rare to find very Shiva very very uncommon and especially Chavez Avenue and we're actually diving for hours from when the minion started until 2 30. I remember I was in a Yeshiva foreign Yom Kippur and I remember when we get when we got to the song [Music] clapping his hands and swaying back and forth it was Talus I remember that that seared that image and until today I'm gonna slip this here and I talk about it every year and until today that niggan and that Tila by me is something that you know is very very immediate people and I always try to dive him with and it made a very big impression I can still close my eyes and I think about this often when I dive in Forever Wagner sitting there covered in his Talus chuckling swaying back and forth back and forth and you can see that here was somebody with a whole world didn't exist right now it was davening was that connection between him and the abuse there and that's it there was foreign [Music] ERS here for the bathrooms not only in a Toshiba level but even on a very very gastrostic level how are the bahram how are they feeling are they okay with ashmias if a rocker was sick moragner was very worried it was a year or two after I left Yeshiva my email Robbie Wagner about one of the songs he had written and we had a little conversation and at the end he writes my dear [Music] what's doing by you how's it going how are you personally and you see opened the door he opened that way for a connection a conversation and he still cared about us even after they left a few years later I had actually emailed them and thanked him for the years I spent in Yeshiva and I had asked him if he was had any plans to publish the emails that he sent out every week and he said I actually published for my daughter's wedding as a chura and I'll find a way to get it to you and when I opened it up I saw inside and not only did he send the saver but he also you know he wrote a personal note inside I was it meant so much to me beginning in the first year was totally Yeshiva got off to an established start things were got off to Iraqi starts and there was a Tuka that there were no dorm counselors the the ones that were there left and they weren't able to get new ones right away Robin Wagner himself became the room counselor he would come around at night make sure everybody has what they needed make sure everybody had Mega blasted and then in the morning to come around to slap us to say that and everyone says your base our class is having a bit of a rough time in Yeshiva your base was not enjoying very much typical towards the end of his man we went to River Wagner and he knew what was going on so he said sure we'll take care of it it's like hello Malcolm he sat there with the buffer and we sat and spoke it's a very late I remember him setting the table a little bit himself he said Wagner it's not really your job he insisted aside for the connection of Shiva of learning tired there's also a connection of Wagner being there for the buck and caring for the bathroom it was Purim and Robert Wagner gave out Charles one as to all the bathroom and inside each other's Manus was a personal message based on the Buffer's name so Ryder took different took him from Tyra based on your name and wrote you a personal note and I remember being absolutely amazed at the end of the year the first month so we were going to a lot of buff who lived in New York we were going to New York for whatever it was for a break for a couple of weeks until it would go down to the to the bus station and take a Greyhound bus down to New York so we wanted a ride so a couple of us went over to Rabbi Wagner we asked them could you give us a ride to the bus station I think about it now you know he had other things to do but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world because he was managed like a parent in that way that you need a ride and ask him can you give us a ride so a couple of us packed into his van but this was perfectly natural for him in the way to just do whatever the bathroom needed in that way and they really tried to be there for us in every single way [Music] I was coming from L.A and um and like I I didn't really feel like we ever would really have a connection and so it was a February it was getting late I was tired and so I wanted to leave so I started leaving and Robbie Wagner turns to me I'm like he's a Herschel [Music] my father and it was a quick encounter but right then I felt I felt amazing I felt picked up as a little kid unnoticed notice me and from and from then on we were very close and uh you know uh he became my personal mashpia shortly thereafter and from when I was 17 I would ask Robert Wagner all the big decisions in my life and he played an enormous impression on my life no matter where I was if I was going through struggles emotionally spiritually whatever it was I always knew that if Wagner was there would always be ready to listen but always be ready to hear me out I would always have great counsel could always answer thank you very uniquely Roy Wagner didn't only have a cashier at the bathroom that were very very learned or very invested in learning his main equivalent was if I may say his personal connection that he had with it with every bar with every single bar you could look to have that personal connection but with sambaghan was through a sheriff's barbarians and some it was just you know going over to them and saying and saying I ever it was incredible to have that personal relationship with him that personal connection with him we found that we found that we were able to ask him anything and then speak to him about anything I remember that for every Barn resemble lettuce he would come in and give him a personalized birthday cake a little homemade birthday cake chocolate cake special for his Museum it showed I'm not so much more than just you know that's coming to give a share you know he clocks and clocks out but rather by him was he was fully invested in the book but he fully cared about the bar [Music] but Wagner didn't sleep there were times I remember the he had bakum that he would learn with on a daily basis somebody from a personal connection he would go he would talk to them he would learn with them and he would have a personal happiness a one-on-one once a week twice a week three times a week and sometimes if there was no time to add another bucker he'd find time to add another Buck there was one 4 30 a.m Thursday night after he finished learning and after he finished typing his shield and making his shield and after he finished giving a share down south or to balabatham up north whatever it was he would then sit down with a bucker and learn with one bucker one-on-one there were times that he went out of town or about her went out of town and he would make sure to find the Y awake find a Time figure out how to learn with this Baker on the time that he's supposed to learn with his bakar even though the time zones were six seven eight hours different [Music] very last day uh we it was the next day we had an early morning bus to go into New York and we wanted to have the big fat ring in the last day right A Farewell five Reagan I'd be wearing there it did not want to bring for us we wanted to have nothing of it was not a special game of the tiger or a special day and he wasn't going to fabric so uh I don't know what time was probably 11 maybe even midnight we decided we're going go to his house and make sure he comes back to feminine so we go to his house and then he answers and yeah he says no he's not happening so after some time he tells us listen I'm not going to fibrate but if you want we can always learn I have to learn now let's learn so we pull out some tomatoes and we started learning anyways after some time you know of course the learning lightens up his mood and he starts sharing stories anyways long story short it the word gets out within an hour it's a huge feminine if I bring in last the whole night and now already it's 5 a.m or whatever time it was and we have to go catch our bus it was leaving in and out so we have so we had to stop uh we could we quickly run to Mikvah gather our stuff together and wait outside our dorm for the bus for the van whatever it was and uh who's there to you know say goodbye and it does farewell privateware and to me this is the perfect story [Music]