“Vos Iz?”: A Tribute to Rabbi Shimon Raichik

In memory of my mentor, teacher and friend Rabbi Shimon Raichik, who left us on Nov. 24.

It’s Shabbos, just before Musaf at the world famous Levi Yitzchak shul in Los Angeles, and Rabbi Raichik is about to begin his sermon.

There is emotion and vigor in his voice; he launches into a story about the Rebbe that he heard forty years before, and those listening feel like they are there with him.

Several times in the middle of his sermon, he pauses and closes his eyes, sometimes tapping on his lectern. You can tell that he is reliving a farbrengen (Hasidic gathering) with the Rebbe as if it’s happening today, and it is.

He pauses and asks a question; he comes back with the answer and then he stops again.

His tone changes and he looks at me and everyone present in the room.

I feel he is talking directly to me, and about “my now.” It hits me—what a gift! Who is like this man? Who can do this?

After he concludes his speech, I walk over and say, “Yasher koach. Thank you!” He responds with a twinkle in his eye and a shy smile, “Vos iz? What about it?” (I heard him talk dozens of times, and I have seen many people thank him, and I don’t remember him responding any other way). What I think he means is, “What did you receive? Did I talk to you and reach your neshama? Did we connect? Really? Wow!”

Rabbi Raichik never understood his appeal. Truly great people often can’t. Maybe it would stop them from being great if they knew.

He once wrote to the Rebbe about his failures. “I am doing A, B, and C and it’s all worth nothing.” And the Rebbe responded, “I got the letter full of good news but I don’t understand why you are upset?”

When Rabbi Raichik led farbrengens he always talked about his father and the great Chassidim he grew up with, and yet without realizing it, he surpassed and ascended higher than all of them.

He often made one comment when he was asked a question: “What do you want I should do?” At first I and many others didn’t understand his response. “We are asking you what we need to do, what are you asking me?”

Sometimes what he meant was “I wish I could make your life easier and tell you what you want to do is OK but I don’t know how it can be OK.”

Sometimes he meant “That’s a great question, but how can I possibly figure that one out? Who am I?” But other times, it was just a way of saying “Are you sure you want to do this? Isn’t there a better way?”

Some rabbis know the books and not the people. Some rabbis know the people and not the books.

And then there’s Rabbi Raichik.

He doesn’t only know the books. Yes, he knew and taught halacha and chassidus; he wrote extensively on halacha, minhag, history and hashkafa. He learned it all and loved it like nothing else. (He once shared with me that because of a certain circumstance, he has more time to learn.)

He had a brilliant glowing smile when he said, “Men ken lernen oon lernen!” (I can learn and learn.)

But we didn’t call Rabbi Raichik specifically because he knows the books. At least, I didn’t. I called him (all the time, for any number of matters, from the most trivial to serious life and death issues, as all who knew him did) for a different reason. He was one of those few who knew the Author of the Torah, who could reach up and feel the Author, and then reach down to where you were and feel where you are. He brought the Author down to us.

A few weeks ago, a drug addict agreed to go to a rehab in Palm Springs right before Shabbos, but only if I took him. It would mean spending Shabbos away from my family and community and changing a million plans—was this my mitzvah? Couldn’t someone else take him? Was someone’s life at stake?

It’s not a question one learns in Yeshiva and I needed to call Rabbi Raichik.

I remember the first time I saw Rabbi Raichik after moving to Los Angeles; it was before Chanukah. I asked him about the preferred height of a menorah.

He took a look at me and said, “How am I supposed to know how big the menorah is that your wife just bought you?”

Good question. How did Rabbi Raichik know?  But know he did.

Years ago, I was staying at someone’s home out of town, and the rabbi called their home to speak to me. The one who answered the phone was a bit under the weather. A regular person might wish a refua shelaima.

But not Rabbi Raichik.

He called back again and again for the next two days (long after I had left their home) to see how they were doing. This person was floored: “Now this is a rabbi!” I found out about this and I asked him why he called back so many times, but he couldn’t understand why it was such a big deal.

“Did you hear how she sounded? Oy!”

Los Angeles is a big city, yet he was a small town Rav. And not only for this city. He was a Rav who knew and cared for each man, woman and child.

I wonder how many people noticed that when he gave his blessings at the end of his drasha, he closed his eyes and opened his warm, loving and kindest heart wide and asked for “our families and children.” ? He ddid that because that’s what he cared about.

But he’ll never get it.

I imagine Rabbi Raichik as he enters Gan Eden, the parade of thousands of neshamos he taught, uplifted and cared for, together with the millions of malachim created by his Torah study, his prayers and his kindness, all coming to greet him. But him? He looks behind himself to see who the parade is for.

And when he discovers that it’s for him?

For sure he will say, “Vus Iz?”

Any second, as the Rebbe said so very clearly and so very many  times, we expect to see you with Moshiach, and your central role of making it all happen will be obvious, men vet zen vus iz!

At this time “the living must take to heart” to be a little more sincere, to have a little more faith, to pay a little more attention to the Eye that sees us, to be a little more loving, to show a little more understanding, and most of all, to be a little more giving to each other. Why not? Vus iz?

Rabbi Moshe Levin serves as Rabbi and spiritual leader of congregation Bais Bezalel Chabad in Los Angeles.