There was a serious question that they could not resolve, so they decided to send the question to the Toras Chessed, who was also at the resort at that time. The Rabbis were shocked when the messenger returned from the Toras Chessed after a very short time, with a long booklet on the subject full of direct quotes from Rishonim and Acharonim. When they returned home, they found that all of the quotes where precise to the letter - and this was all written by heart! He had thousands of Seforim lining the walls of his room. They were organised on wooden beams, one on top of the other. He was so fluent in each Sefer and exactly where it was kept, that when he needed a Sefer, he could locate it in one second. He was exceptional in his humility and Derech Eretz towards others. He would refer to everyone, even a yungerman, using the honourable plural “atem” and not the singular “atah”. When someone would come to speak with him in Divrei Torah, he would stand the entire time and look at him face-to-face. When he wanted to end the meeting, he would not turn his back towards them or motion with his hands for them to leave. Rather, he would start waking backwards slowly.
If the person got the hint, they would also step backwards and leave. If they didn’t get the hint, the Rav would continue walking back until his back was against the wall and had no more room to move. Still, he would not embarrass the person and waited until his gabbai would notice and hint to the person to leave.
not looked at this Ran for 40 years.” Rav Ovadia decided he must follow in his footsteps and adopted much of his writing style. He would tell young torah scholars that in order to become accustom to writing Chiddushei Torah properly, one should learn the Toras Chessed and Rav Paalim (of the Ben Ish Chai).
He passed away on Erev Shabbos, the fifth of Nissan 1902. Rav Shmuel Salant said “shema mina nach nafshei of Rav Shneur Zalman! Just as Torah was given so to it is taken away with kolos u’vrokim (thunder and lightning).”
The Sefer Toras Chessed
The great Posek, Rav Ovadia Yosef, said that every Avrech should own the Sefer Toras Chessed and learn from it. He said that his own writing style and fluency in halachic writing was learned from the Toras Chessed. When asked what he found so special in the Sefer, he related the following; When he was 17, he once spoke with Rabbi Chaim Naeh, who told him that his father, Rav Mendel Naeh was once learning a famous Ran in Chullin that spans 3 pages and is known to be very difficult. The Toras Chessed asked him what he was learning and repeated the entire Ran virtually word for word. He then said “I have
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When Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin wanted to convince his son Rabbi Yitzchok Yerucham to come join him in Eretz Yisroel, he wrote to him “I will show you someone whom all the words of the Beis Yosef are running freely upon his tongue”. Rav Diskin himself went to greet the Toras Chessed wearing his Shabbos clothing. Many of the great Torah sages of the later generation in Eretz Yisroel used his Pesokim and studied the Toras Chessed in great depth: this includes the Tchebiner Rov, Rav Tzi Pesach Frank, Rav Yisroel Zev Mitnzberg, Rav Pinchas Epshtein, Rav Chaim Naeh, Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, Rav Elyashiv, and Rav Ovadia Yosef. There was even a minhag in Yerushalayim that the Bar Mitzva bochur would deliver
