On the Yahrtzeit of Rav Shmuel Berenbaum ZTL

rashm bbam was attending the wedding of one of his grandchildren and the room started to get a bit stuffy so his children felt that he should go outside to get some air as soon as they stepped outside of the hall he was greeted by rellia barfle who came to say mazeltov and immediately they started talking and learning and one of his children said to rmu I thought the reason we came out here is to get some air to which rmu looked at him and he said Torah that is my air and that air of Torah was felt by all those who he served as rashash of Yeshiva in Brooklyn and by all of Kus as well you know R shu's love for learning was something that was palpable no matter where he was no matter where he went he was always constantly thinking and talking and learning when the head of a prominent organization asked him to attend a function in which there would be several Roshe Yeshiva there the first question R asked is what time is it going to start he said 5:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. I'm sorry that's in the middle of second seder for me there's no way that I could leave second seder and after of schmo's first heart attack he had to have open heart surgery and after several hours he finally started to come too and he was trying desperately to communicate something to his family but they couldn't make it out and after listening carefully they finally realized he was saying and they realized he just wanted to learn and they brought him a right away and only after that he was able to go back to rest and shared this love for Torah with everyone he encountered very often at parlor meetings his first matter of business was not talking about raising money but was talking about raising the bar as far as our Torah learning and there was one particular meeting where he asked to take up a collection not a collection of money but a collection of Torah asking everybody in the room how they could up their game as far as their Torah learning and of course RW was always thinking about his talmidim and helping them with their learning as well like on the shivu night where there was a talmid who had recently heard R Shu sheer and he so desperately wanted to understand the Sara he asked R several times but he still didn't understand and then in the middle of the night he went to ask other T but he still didn't get it when finally at 3:00 a.m. he went back to R to ask him to explain it again and R excitedly sat with him until shakas explaining to him the Sara so great was his love for every single talid that no matter who they were they were able to get his fatherly love and compassion rakov Bender said that there was a talet in the Yeshiva that was getting involved in activities that were not appropriate for aent Torah and a few of the kyalite went over to rmu and said politely that maybe this talid should be asked to leave the Yeshiva and then rmu looked at them with a stern look and he said have you fasted 40 tanim yet because if you haven't fasted 40 tenim for him yet then there's no way that we could ask him to leave the Yeshiva we have to try to help him and R baram took him under his wings began learning with him and ultimately this talmid turned around and is a respected marbits Torah today and while rm's greatness in Torah was impossible to miss just as incredible was his greatness inid RM and his reiton were unbelievable when it came toim they set up their basement in a way where they could House people who were coming from ER Isel in order to collect and for years he would go on every aab chabas to visit with people that were bound up in hospitals in order to give them in fact one time R himself had to be in the hospital for a few days and a talid that came to visit was walking with him up and down the hallways talking and learning and every once in a while R would exclaim we have to be M the in here and he would look to see where the Jewish patients were and at that point in time he would go and go visit and give them ru's love for CLA was unbelievable and ultimately a few years before his passing he set up a fund in erit is Raising millions of dollars to give out to aim that were in need and while human tendency is that while people are in a state of Crisis to really only think about themselves rmu was the exact opposite one week before his passing Ru was advocating for a child to be let into a particular Yeshiva and only 4 days before before he passed away R baram was trying to help out with a shom bias case that he was involved with his life was all about Torah and all abouted and unfortunately on the 28th of Taves 5768 we lost RM Baron bam but let us always try to think about the incredible acts that he did about the incredible love for learning that he had for himself and that he wanted to spill over to everybody else and his thought and sensitivity for every single you [Music]