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OctOber 29, 2015 | the Jewish Home
The Jewish Home | MAY 5, 2022
Rav Nota Greenblatt, zt”l
The Passing of a Giant
By Naftali HalperN
It
is often said about the Rav Chaim Brisker that his incredible depth and breadth of Torah knowledge was used to mask his incredible chassadim and kindness. (He had so many homeless people living in his house that his children didn’t even have
their own beds.) Conversely, it is said about his contemporaneous pre-war luminary, the Chofetz Chaim, that his incredible chassadim and kindness masked his incredible breadth of Torah knowledge. (Condensing Shulchan Aruch into the Mishna Berura required an encyclope-
dic knowledge all of Torah.) About Rav Nota Greenblatt, zt”l, it can be said that his incredible kindness masked his immense Torah knowledge. At the same time, his immense Torah knowledge covered his incredible kindness. Perhaps, in order to be able to be
able to better operate under the radar, Rav Nota dressed in colored shirts, a brown suit, and donned a straw hat when the season allowed for it. With his short white beard, he bore an uncanny resemblance to a dapper Southern gentleman. Maybe that was by design – humility
