BY: RABBI MOSHE TAUB
WE WILL OPEN WITH A SHORTER BIO & PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
I. A Loss for Klal Yisroel
This past erev Shabbos parshas acharei mos, klal yisroel lost one of its most unique poskim and American rabbanim, Rav Nota Tzvi Greenblatt, at the age of 96. Rav Nota, as he was known by thousands, was born in 1925 in Washington D.C. to Rav Yitzchak, and his mother, Sara Rivka neé Appelbaum. His parents were originally natives of Brisk, and Rav Chaim Solaveitchik was their mesader kiddushin. His father was in America collecting funds for the Brisker yeshiva Toras Chesed, and soon assumed his position in Washington. After serving as a rav in Washington, and then in New York State, Rav Yitzchak would later become a rav in Newark, N.J. where he opened up its first Day School. A masmid at a young age, in the 1930’s Rav Nota would join a chabura under Rav Dovid Leibowitz in the new Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim. He was thirteen years old at the time!
Later, after spending time with Rav Soloveitchik and Rav Michel Feinstein in Boston, Rav Nota would Rav Michel to the Lower East Side and spend the next several years under the tutelage of Rav Moshe Feinstein. Rav Nota was known as one of Rav Moshe’s closest talmidim.
Soon, after spending some years in eretz yisroel, Rav Nota would move to Memphis. Rav Binyamin Kamenetzky drove Rav Nota to the train station in 1949 for Rav Nota’s trip to Memphis to assume the position of Talmud Torah teacher and chazan of the Anshei Sefard shul, and his meeting with destiny. Rav Binyamin said upon dropping him off, “I will be back in tow years to pick you up”. However, Rav Nota would stay in Memphis until just last year.
Soon after his arrival in Memphis, he would hear of a ‘Kaplan girl’ who could not find a shidduch, as she keeps Shabbos and Torah and the South offered few men who had her Torah aspirations. Rav Nota thought that such a girl -who, along with her family, could maintain yiddeshkeit in the South without even the benefit of a traditional Beis Yaakov education -was someone for him. They were soon married, and she and their five children would join Rav Nota in sacrificing for the community and the klal, as we shall see below.
Aside for building its Day School, High School and yeshivos, he was far from a simple local Memphis rav. Rav Nota spent several decades travelling around the globe each-and-every week writing gittin, performing milos, and taking care of all matters where there was no rav, or the rav felt unworthy.
He was the posek that many well-known poskim would call. His calls and his calling brought him to travel all over the world -which he did until well into his nineties.
Yehi Zichro Baruch.
II. One Person’s Story
I am not worthy to be writing about Rav Nota. I am far from his closest talmidim. However, as mentioned above, Rav Nota travelled the world, and forged bonds with rabbanim in many cities, both large and small. My connection with him is not special considering how he lived his life for the klal, which is what makes it so…special! The impact he had on so many of us was enormous, and we each felt a unique and distinctive bond with him. He would always tell us how important our sacrifice was and give important words of encouragement to our wives who needed it most.
Interestingly, Dr. Rubin Cooper was the first to inform me. “Rav Notta Greenblatt, BDE” was all he wrote last erev Shabbos parshas Acharei Mos. Dr. Cooper is a renown pediatric cardiologist, well respected among his peers and in the medical profession. He is also a prior president of our shul.
However, he is not a big ‘texter’, and, in the moment, I did not focus on the incongruity of it being him, of all people, sending me this information; however, the explanation to this would on Shabbos, when Dr. Cooper, for the first time, shared that Rav Nota had spoken to him when my shul was thinking of hiring me. Yet another item added to the list for which I owe Rav Nota hakaros hatov, and his taking time for the needs of all.
When I received the text, I was numb. Waves of memories poured over me. When feeling finally came back, it was not sadness that first hit, rather a more selfish one: regret.
You see, for the past year and a half, my eldest daughter, Racheli, had been urging me to visit Rav Greenblatt in Memphis. Being the oldest, she has the most vivid memories of the many days Rav Nota spent in our home.
Calling him was no longer the option it once was due to a precipitous decline in his hearing and health. Going to see him in person was always something I was planning ‘next week’. This was yet another painful reminder of the mishnah in avos: “Al tomar l’kshe’efna eshneh. Shema lo tipaneh -don’t say ‘when I have the time’, for perhaps that time will never arrive”. For the reader with such plans on his mind relating to their own rebbeim, close the magazine right now and just GO!
I needed to hear his voice, so I ran to my computer to find a recording I made with him. We would stay up late and sit in my study or dining room table where he would regale me with stories of his life, early America, Brisk and the many gedolim he encountered. He learnt by Rav Moshe Feinstein when Rav Moshe’s beard was still jet-black, and one would marvel at their closeness. Alas, I have, as of yet, been unable to locate this recording. For now, my private memories will have to suffice. Because of the timing of this writing, what follows are devarim hayotzim min halev, and although somewhat without order, I hope it suffices in giving the reader a picture of what we had, and what was lost. Read on, you will be amazed.
III. The Man
Rav Nota was a true, living ‘Brisker’. Not a ‘Brisker’ as we may define it today -as having learnt by Rav Dovid, Rav Berel, or Rav Avraham Yehoshua. Although that imprimatur is a dignified one, Rav Nota was a Brisker in a different sense. His father, Rav Yitzchak, and his mother, Sara Rivka neé Appelbaum, were Brisk natives, having first come to America to collect funds for the Yeshiva on Kisawa St. in Belarus. His father instilled in him the avirah d’brisk. His older sister, when asked to describe Rav Nota as a child, said, “From the age of seven onward, Nota would leave the house at six in the morning and wouldn’t return till late at night”! Speaking of Brisk, Rav Nota would soon learn in Boston under Rav Michel Feinstein who had learnt under the Brisker Rav -Rav Michel would marry the Brisker Rav’s daughter soon after leaving America.
The America that Rav Nota was born into was vastly different than our own. He shared with me how he once walked several miles with friends on a two-day yom tov just to see the face of a ger, so inspired were they as children in the early 1930’s that someone would convert to yiddeshkeit when it was yet to thrive here!
His Brisker mentality was seen in his caring for only Torah and Truth as well.
On Truth: I recall once sharing with him an idea on the parsha. Rabbanim -and I speak of myself here -can sometimes search too hard for a heart-pulling idea on the parsha, losing focus on the amito she hadavar.
Naïvely, I was proud of an original idea and how it worked in the derasha the Shabbos before. So, sitting at the dinner table, I shared the kasha with which I opened. “Nu, ah gutta kasha!” he said. But then I told him what my then twenty-five year old self said as an answer, so as to inspire his shul. Let’s just say the answer -while innocent -was not a ‘brisker’ approach. Rather, it was saccharine, pulpit-y and mawkish. One of those ideas for which the only proof to it being emes or not would be how someone may ‘feel’ upon hearing it, and not mesorah or chazal.
He was having none of it.
He looked at me as a parent to a child who was let down. “Let me tell you”, he began, as I leaned in hoping for a compliment, “One thing is for sure…Notty Greenblatt would never say such a pshat!” He said this with pride. My wife, in reaction, could not help but to begin laughing, enjoying the needed come-down to her young, newly-minted rav husband.
The reader may take the above as a ‘sharp’ retort -and Rav Nota could be biting -but he would also have a keen ability to disarm anyone he met, as we will see in some amazing stories below. He had a unique skill in that he was able to tell it like it is without ever offending. In fact, on the contrary, people would thirst for it. In Buffalo, thousands of visitors would come through during the year for davening. I would often ask the chashuvim to speak in my stead in-between mincha and maariv. They always spoke well, and tailored their remarks to such a crowd, as they perceived them. Not Rav Nota. Not only would he speak to them as if he was giving a shiur to the greatest lamdanim, he would never shy away from saying things exactly as he saw them. Never once did anyone complain; indeed, they looked forward to his perennial visits.
To him toras emes should not change based on one’s audience. How one gives it over may be different; but not What one gives over”.
And, on Torah: while I will share more stories on this theme below, here I will share one. I once received a very complex shailah. After working on it for the better part of the day, I decided to call Rav Nota in Memphis. He was not home, and I left a message. A few more hours pass, and I finally came across a seemingly obscure and cryptic comment of the Magen Avraham in hilchos yom tov that I thought may be a good source l’hatir (to allow). A few minutes later my cell rang. It was Rav Nota. I shared with him this very rare and unique shailah, and without missing a beat, he exclaimed, “It’s a mefurash Magen Avraham in hilchos yom tov…”!
IV. Lav Ish Itti Anochi
To understand his eclectic life, one could start by looking at his sefer on chumash, titled K’rayach Sadeh. Because it was published after the passing of Rav Moshe Feinstein, his rebbe muvhak, there is but one haskama, from his other rebbe, Rav Michel Feinstein.
After learning under Rav Dovid Leibowitz, and before Rav Moshe, Rav Nota learnt by Rav Michel. Before I go on, I should point out the video that has been making the rounds these past few days. In the 1920’s a gadol made a comment at an agudas harabbanim meeting that he feared American boys will never be great bnei Torah. In the words of Rav Nota, “They thought all we cared about was if the Dodgers or the Yankees would win the World Series. But Rav Dovid responded that we can become greater than the boys in Lita! He believed in us”
The haskama from Rav Michel shares some American Jewish history unknown to many. It reads: “In 1941 I was in Boston” – Rav Michel arrived in America together with Rav Aaron Kotler that year –“There, we had a group of students who were exceptional in their Torah” -This yeshiva was named Yeshivas Heichel Rav Chaim, and was run by Rav Michel together with Rav Soloveitchik, before he would assume his title at Yeshiva University – “I would there give shiur to these boys, the youngest among them was the esteemed gaon Rav Nota Greenblatt, shlit’a. He was then also a great aid to me in preparing articles for the Torah journal HaPardes…”. Rav Nota would have been all but sixteen at the time.
As I was looking at the sefer in preparation for this expeditiously written article, to my amazement, I noticed one page that I must have folded onto itself years ago to mark an idea therein. I was shocked to discover that it was an idea on the parsha of his petira, acharei mos. What is even more remarkable is that not only was it the rare entry that was not lomdus, but it also perfectly captured Rav Nota as a person.
The pasuk describes the man who takes the Azazel on yom kippur as ‘ish itti’. The meforshim debate precisely to what this term. Rashi teaches that this term itti denotes to the fact that this person was set aside already before yom kippur, which the Gur Aryeh explains is alluded to by its shoresh -eis, time.
Rav Nota takes this shoresh idea one amazing step further (translation and errors my own):
“The world/reality of the type of person who is drawn toward sin is that of the ish itti, ‘A Man of the Times’; a person who lives and is swayed symbiotically along with the winds of the cultural and social milieu. It is only appropriate that such a person be the one who handles such a sacrifice, the very symbol of sin. A korban in the beis hamikdosh, however, as in the other avodas yom kippur, especially in the kodosh hakodhim, is represented by an old man, as the gemara quotes Shimon HaTzadik as witnessing every year (Menachos 109b)…”.
When I met Rav Nota he was that old-man, unchanging from the Torah and mesora of his youth. After moving to Memphis in the late 1940’s he never changed. He was in his mid-eighties when I first met him but stuck in a ‘time warp’. If you wanted to know what a yeshiva bochur in the 1940’s looked like, talked like, learned like, you only had to meet him. His slicked back hair, a goatee and a straw hat, and, all along with a mastery of shas, poskim and middos. Memphis never changed him, rather he changed Memphis! He was the quintessential lav ish itti anochi!
Rav Moshe Heinemann, the Rav of Agudah of Baltimore and the posek for the Star-K shared by the levaya that Rav Nota dressed like a simple man only to abstain from kavod.
V. Rav Nota and Rav Moshe
Writers would often call Rav Nota to ask for stories of his rebbe, Rav Moshe Feinstein. While he would always share these in conversation, he was often a little more reluctant to share them with writers. I only know this because I once received a call from someone working on a sefer about the hashkafos of Rav Moshe. “I never met Rav Moshe, why are you calling me?” I asked in wonderment. “Rav Nota gave me your name to call”. I laughed out loud. I explained that this is likely because he was just by my home. When he stays by me, I always press him on Rav Moshe. While much of what he shared is not for public, a few incidents I feel I can repeat.
He was once walking with Rav Moshe in Connecticut one summer. Relaxed, he felt comfortable asking his rebbe, “When did rebbe first finish shas?” He shared that Rav Moshe responded that while he could not remember if he was fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen, he did recall the date. “Daled adar”, he said.
Wow! This is why chazal teach us to listen to the sichos chullin of our chachamim. Perhaps the reader caught the amazing gem hidden in this story. Rav Moshe’s birthday was zayin adar. This means, although he was working on this goal of finishing shas -we would imagine -for some time, he did not speed up or slow down to mark this milestone on his birthday (Rav Moshe would call his children and grandchildren on theirs, so we know he marked such dates). Rather, his learning was not tied to sentimentality, or his precious time and schedule!
His relationship with Rav Moshe ran very deep. He left Boston with Rav Michel to MTJ, and there developed a life-long rebbe in Rav Moshe.
His son recounted learning a teshuva from Rav Moshe with his father (many teshuvos in Igros Moshe were written to Rav Nota, and his nephew, Rav Efraim). This was relating to a pressing case at hand. As they were reviewing it, Rav Nota kept questioning Rav Moshe’s sevaros (logic) and rayos (proofs), even commenting that it was hard to fathom how Rav Moshe came to such a psak. However, to his son’s surprise, when they concluded, he picked up the phone and described how to handle the case according the teshuva they just read. His son questioned his father, “What about all the questions you had on it?” Rav Nota replied that what came from Rav Moshe was as if it came from the lishkas hagaziz (where the Sanhedrin sat), no matter our questions!”
This is similar to how Rav Chaim once sent a shailah to Rav Yitzchok Elchanan and requested to send back the psak only and not the sevaros. “Sevaros I can always refute, but a psak from the posek hador is untouchable.
As Rav Nota felt about his rebbe, Rav Moshe felt about him. A few weeks ago, the family found a hamlatza (letter of approval/acceptance) that Rav Moshe wrote for the-then twenty-one year old Rav Nota when he went to learn in eretz yisroel. “He will be the primary baal horoah in America one day” Rav Moshe wrote!
Let me share two more stories he shared about his rebbe. He chose these stories wisely to share with a young rabbi out of town. There was once an individual who took it upon himself to make a mocheh (protest) against Rav Moshe and his psakim (rulings). While this had happened before, this man went the extra mile. He was able to print a sefer with the same font and look of an Igros Moshe, only to, in order, seek to undermine and dismantle each of Rav Moshe’s points to each teshuva, and written with a disregard of derech eretz. Rav Nota was in Memphis at the time and was unaware of this development. A few weeks after the publication of this book, Rav Nota was visiting Rav Moshe in MTJ. A group from the yeshiva surrounded him and filled him in. “You have to speak to the rosh yeshiva, he must make a public mocheh against this breach in kavod haTorah!” they exclaimed.
“I too was incensed!” Rav Nota shared. “But, let me tell you, Rav Moshe was smarter than us all. When I went into his office, I cried out, ‘Rebbe, rebbe! What of kavod haTorah?!’ Rav Moshe looked at me and smiled. If I go to the beis midrash and klap on the bima and protest, do you know what will happen next? Everyone will run out and buy this book. If I am quiet, the storm will pass. Soon no one will know this book’s name’”.
Looking at me with a twinkle in his eye, Rav Nota asked, “Nu R’ Moshe Mordechai! “Do you know the name of that book?”
“No” I admitted.
“Aha! That was the pikchus of Rav Moshe!”
I only once saw Rav Nota cry, and it was when he was describing his rebbe.
We were sitting in my office in Buffalo late one night -after a day of writing gittin, see below – when he started to pace my office and peruse its sefarim. He took out a yaaros devash, held it in his hand and began to sob.
I waited, and he then shared:
“I was by his kever. So many tzadikim are buried all around him, but only by Rav Eibishitz does the matzeiva I read ‘ish kodosh’. Do you know why? Rav Eibishitz was one of the most prolific writers in our history. Yet, he did this, while surrounded by machlokos. Rav Yaakov Emden, as is known, not only battled against him, but lived just down the street. Families in klal yisroel were split due to this machlokos. And yet, he was kodosh -able to separate himself -and focus on Torah.
“So too my rebbe.” He began to cry again. “No one could learn during the early 1940’s. The news would slowly trickle in and the rebbeim would sometimes open their gemaros and begin to cry like newborns. Who could blame them? They were reading about their parents, brothers and sisters, about whom they were reading about! The Holocaust was having its first impact on the first ‘survivors’.
“There was only one man then who learnt like nothing was happening in the world -a kodosh, a man apart -my rebbe Rav Moshe Feinstein”
I was surprised to hear myself question this. “But shouldn’t a gadol be broken from such destruction?” I asked.
“You think he was not broken? The SCREAMS that came from Rav Moshe during davening were deafening. But as soon as the last amein from the last kaddish was said, Rav Moshe -ish kodosh – would wipe the last tear from his cheek, gird himself, and only then learn like nothing was going on”
Wow!
At his levaya, one of Rav Nota’s talmidim, shared a story that demonatrates how Rav Nota acted on this message. One evening some decades ago, Rav Nota was giving a chabura. It was normal to have calls come in during the shiur, some of which Rav Nota having to take. The bochurim and yungeleit were used to this. But this time, something was different. Rav Nota was not responding with many words, just a simple, “Yes” or “Ok”, or “I see”. After each of these terse calls, he would return to the shiur at hand, only for the phone to ring again, with Rav Nota, again, answering swiftly.
It was only when the shiur was over that the boys discovered that Rav Moshe was just niftar and that was what these calls were about. Imagine! His own rebbe muvhak, and yet, it was during shiur, so he had to be short so as to focus on the learning at hand; he could cry later. Kodosh indeed!
VI. 30,000 Gittin?
Rav Berel Feinstein, the current Rosh Yeshiva of MTJ shared in his hesped that Rav Nota was the Shmuel of our dor. Like Shmuel he traveled all over to judge. As the reader will soon see, this was no exaggeration.
It is here, finally, we arrive at the true gadlus of Rav Nota, his rebbitzen, and how I got to know him.
Many years ago, as a young rav in Memphis, there was a man in need of a get. Rav Nota was busy building the day schools and the community and assured the man and his wife that it will be taken care of. But one day there was a knock at the door. What I am about to tell you is true -I heard it from Rav Nota himself, and confirmed it with his nephew, Rav Menachem Greenblatt, Rav of the Agudah in St. Loise.
Opening the door, Rav Nota saw the man draw a gun. “Rabbi” he began in his southern drawl, “I need that get, and I ain’t leaving here till I have it!”
Rav Nota brought him in -or maybe, better said, the man with the gun lef Rav Nota -into his study. It was then and there that Rav Nota called Rav Moshe who reviewed hilchos gittin on the phone with Rav Nota, and answered several relevant issues for writing a get in Memphis (each city must be written in a certain way, with particular descriptors). The rest is American history.
If one thinks that the above story is wild, Rav Nota said to his son once of himself, “There is nothing that could happen to a rav that I have not experienced!”
His son recounted that over sixty-five years Rav Nota wrote some thirty-thousand gittin. I was not sure if this was a guzma (exaggeration), but the cheshbon works out. Most weeks, Rav Nota would awaken Sunday morning, pack his bags and return Thursday. He would travel to the most far-flung areas of the country. If a get needed to be written, he was there. He may have written more gittin than anyone in the history of am yisroel!
When I would bring him to Buffalo a few times a year, it was only after an accumulation of gittin needed -in the frum, conservative and reform communities. So, if he wrote, say, an average of two gittin in each city he stopped in, and was in a different city each day (he often was!) and did this, say forty weeks out of the year, for sixty-five years, that already brings us to over twenty-thousand gittin.
His son recounted that he never saw his father during the week. Imagine the sacrifice for these agunos, for kedushas am yisroel. Imagine the sacrifice of his rebbitzen, may she be well!
Often, he would arrive home on a Thursday after five days on the road exhausted. “Daddy, let me feed you” recounted his son. “Let us first go to shul to daven Maariv. But, before they left, invariably, the phone would ring. It was a woman, or a man, or a rav. A get was needed, or some other serious matter, and the cycle would continue again.
I once witnessed this myself. After a day of writing gittin in Buffalo, I walked Rav Nota upstairs well passed midnight. His cell phone rang. I could hear tha man screaming through the other end. When the call was finished, Rav Nota shared the story behind it. It was a severe case in hilchos nashim, and this frum man was not allowed to marry a certain frum woman due to a prior forbidden relationship. The man was crying, “Please rebbe! There must be a way!” But there wasn’t.
If I may be so bold, I was surprised that all of these ‘free aguna’ organizations did not show at his levaya. No one has done more for women bound to prior marriages as Rav Nota had, perhaps in the history of am yisroel!
I -and the myriad of other rabbanim who would write gittin with him -witnessed the most brilliant skill in which he worked,
Rav Heinemann shared how there was once a man that refused to give a get, this after Rav Nota travelled a great distance to write it.
“I have no time, Rabbi” claimed the husband.
“Tell me, do you travel” asked Rav Nota.
“Of course, for business and pleasure”.
“When is your next flight?”
The man shared the information. Rav Nota then asserted that surely he doesn’t work on the plane. He then, along with eidim, etc. joined that flight a few weeks later to write the get!
Rav Heinemann then marveled. “To write a get one has to state the city etc. in where it is written. How does one do that on a plane travelling over great distances? Only Rav Nota could figure that out!”
He would arrive at my house with some bread and a boiled egg. My wife would learn to always have read some hot water and a cookie or cake. He was not a man of great tastes or luxury.
VII. Get Stories and More
Rav Heinemann shared in his hesped a fascinating story. He once had to do a chalitza. The problem was the man was in jail. After negotiating, they agreed for a one-day release. But there was a catch: to release him they had to put on a monitoring device on his foot. Without getting into all the halachic details, suffice it to say that such a device on one’s foot may be in an issue for a chalitza.
Rav Heinemann called Rav Nota and was surprised when he responded that he needs three hours to get back to him. “Surely Rav Nota could give an answer on the spot” Rav Heinemann wondered. Three hours later, Rav Nota called back. It only then became clear why he needed this time. First Rav Nota went to the local prison. He wanted to see this ankle bracelet. Suffice it to say, they didn’t let him in. Then he went to the local police station. Being a Sunday, no one could help him. He then went to knock on the homes of local judges, etc.. This is why he needed three hours!
Anyone who met Rav Nota would not be surprised by his sacrifice for the klal and halacha.
One would think after having written so many gittin, he would become immune. Not so. The first time I flew him to Buffalo, we arrived back home late at night after a day of writing gittin, mostly for people even I never met. My wife, Nechama, is a brilliant person in her own right, and asked Rav Nota if she could see -first hand a get. Rav Nota let out a shriek. “The daled amos of a home should never here that term uttered!” After composing himself, this eighty-five year old man, after some twenty-thousand gittin, then said, “I understand your curiosity. I will show you one, but not in the house”. I watched as she followed him outside -at least daled amos from our home -and showed it to her.
Another time, I flew him in just for one get. This was rare, but it was needed. A well-to-do man about town left his wife an agunah for many years. And, although not frum, she refused to remarry without a get. Finally, he agreed to give it.
I quickly flew in Rav Nota. Alas, the husband was a no-show. “Lets go to his office” said Rav Nota. The wife did not seem to believe this would make a difference, and to be honest, neither did I.
While I cannot disclose where this office was, suffice it to say, he was a very powerful man. I walk into his office with Rav Nota, and the man -to my shock -shares how he went to Torah V’Daas as a child. He began cursing out all that his holy…in very unholy ways.
I started to tremble. “We flew Rabbi Greenblatt, who is not spring chicken, to Buffalo, NY, and now you are pulling this shtick…?!”
Rav Nota cut me off. I can still hear the words today that he whispered in my ear, “Rav Moshe Mordechai ben Harav Baruch Alter hakohein (that is what he would call me when he meant business, as its how I signed countless gittin), go pull up the car. We will be down in a moment.”
I begrudgingly complied, leaving Rav Nota alone with the husband still cursing and blaspheming halacha, gittin and Toras Moshe.
Not three minutes passed, and I get the car to the front of the building. Right on cue, Rav Nota walk out with his arm linked in the arm of this husband, whose face was pale as if he just saw a ghost.
The writing of the get was quiet and adventure-less. Finally, alone in the car on the way back to my home, I asked: “What did Rav Greenblatt say to him when I left? How did the rav change his demeaner so?”
“Freg nisht kein shailos, R’ Moshe Mordechai, don’t ask such questions”. Till this day, I never found out what he said. The husband has since passed.
Sometimes in Buffalo -and in the many oher cities he would visit each and every week -finding eidim to sign the get was not simple. I have watched him train simple balla battim in the art of eidus and ksav ashirus. Not only did he not make them feel foolish, but they walked away feeling like kings.
Rav Yirmiyahu Milevsky, my predeccesor in Buffalo, and then a rav in Memphis (now a rav in Toronto) shared that the goy to whom Rav Nota would sell the city’s chometz would feel the same way. He would leave the meeting erev Pesach feeling like a king. Rav Nota would sell it to a simple, yet sharp man. But he would beam with pride that the rabbi of the city spent this time with him and entrusted him with ‘Jewish Law’.
VIII. More Gittin Stories
Rav Akiva Tendler, rav of Kahal Bnei Torah in Monsey, and a rabbinical coordinator for the OU, shared with me the following. In the early 1980’s he was learning in the famed yeshiva of Scranton. They were learning meseches gittin at the time, and the bochurim were excited to learn that Rav Nota was in town to write gittin. This way, they could witness first-hand what they were learning in yeshiva. R’ Akiva and some friends went to the shul where Rav Nota was working, when the gabbei stopped them. Turning to Rav Nota, he said, “Perhaps it is not appropriate to have these innocent yeshiva students be here for a get?”
Rav Nota thought for a moment, and said, “Let them in, perhaps one of them will be a mesader gittin one day and can learn from this”.
Rav Akiva was greatly inspired by this. And today is indeed a well-regarded mesader gittin.
To get a feel for just how much Rav Berel’s words of Rav Nota being the Shmuel of our generation ring true, let me share the following. After a few days of gittin it was time for Rav Nota to leave. He informed me that he had to be in some far-flung city (North America, South America, I couldn’t keep track) to write gittin in the morning. “What time does the rav need to be in the airport to catch his flight?” I asked.
Rav Nota laughed. What I am about to say is hard to believe, but I saw it with my own eyes. He took out the most interesting card, made of metal. “I have flown so many miles, that the airline gave me this card. Only two or three people in the world have it. When I go to the airport I can get on any plane, at any time”!
A Shmuel of our dor indeed!
Rav Milevsky shared how Rav Nota would always travel with a razer, so as to cut the get after mesirah. Rav Nota knew everyone at security at the Memphis airport, of course. After 9/11, they went through his bag and found the razor. “Rabbi Greenblatt, we are sorry, but we can not let you on the plane with this”.
“But you know me! Do you think I am a terrorist?”
“No, no, of course not Rabbi Greenblatt!”
“Well what f a real terrorist, Heaven forfend, does get onto this plane. Will you be ok if you took away the one weapon I could have used to foiled the plot?”
They all laughed…but the razor was left behind.
Allow me to conclude this section with two critical points. Out of thirty-thousand gitin, and million upon millions of miles travelled over seven decades, Rav Nota was only mattir two women to marry without a get. There are few who had the power to do so. But no one should ever think he was a kal, chalila. This leads to my second point, by way of a last get story. I once received a call from a prominent beis din. They were researching a case of mamzeiros. One of the notable and scholarly rabbis of the early Conservative movement lived in Buffalo. He was the one who wrote the get that could free these children. I was asked if I would go the Buffalo University to review his archives and see if I can locate this get. The story of the amazing discoveries and letters found in this archive is its own story, for another time. I was able to locate his file of gittin. Before I called back this beis din, I thought to call Rav Nota. He was furious. “Under no circumstances to play games with this. Conservative gitin are meaningless. Tell this beis din you couldn’t make it”.
IX. Memphis
It would only be proper if I leave Rav Nota’s footprint on the city of Memphis to someone from that town. The Torah he built, the dorei doros of Torah he molded. But a few vignettes I will share.
His son recounted at the levaya that he asked his father if he was ever scared, at the young age of twenty-four, if the day school he was starting would fail.
“Never! The Torah sells itself. I all I needed were children.”
He then shared a great secret of chinuch. “Sometimes, simply pausing to collect oneself at the mention of Avraham and Sarah can have a great impact on a child.”
Rav Milevsky shared that at one meeting among rabbis there was a question about kevura. Everyone said their piece, but then Rav Nota spoke. “We can bring a raya from Rambam in hilchos bigei kahuna…”.
When there was no mohel in the early days of Memphis, he trained to become one. When people complained, “Why would I get a rabbi when I could use a doctor?”, Rav Nota purchased a doctor’s white coat and a doctor’s bag in which to carry his tools.
His home was open to all. And I mean ALL. He was kulo chesed. He and, lhbch’lch, his rebbitzen, taught several generations what it means to be a Torah Jew.
X. Back Home
His son shared how a few years ago they came to visit MTJ. Although it had been some seventy-five years, it was as if he never left. Rav Nota did not wish to leave. But, sadly, it was time to go.
As he suffered a precipitous decline this past year, he would speak to his son in the middle of the night. He always had one request, “Maybe we can go to the yeshiva today?” Unfortunately, that second trip never worked out.
Speaking at MTJ at the leavaya, with his father’s aron in the beis midrash where his guf toiled countless hours so many years ago, his son cried out, “Daddy, I finally brought you back to yeshiva!”.
On behalf of the klal I thank the Greenblatt children and their mother for the sacrifice they made on behalf of all of us for so many decades.
Zechuso Shel Rav Nota Zvi Ben Yitzhok YaGein Aleinu.
