By COLlive reporter
Rabbi Avrohom Tanzer, Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshiva College of South Africa and the founding rabbi of the Glenhazel Area Hebrew Congregation in Johannesburg, passed away on Motzoei Yom Kippur, 11 Tishrei 5780.
He was 85.
Born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1935, he witnessed an influx of Chassidim and their Rebbes – Satmar, Belz, Lubavitch – into Brooklyn. He learned in the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland from 1950 until 1963. When he left, his teachers encouraged him to spend a couple of years teaching in South Africa, “where there was a crisis in Jewish education,” he recalled.
He helped establish the first religious school for Jewish children in Johannesburg, which started out with a primary school, then a high school for boys and later a high school for girls.
While in South Africa, I befriended the Chabad Shluchim there and they encouraged me to see the Rebbe. Planning to visit the United States to find a principal for the girls’ high school, he scheduled a meeting with the Rebbe.
“While meeting the Rebbe, I was most impressed with his overwhelming personality,” he said in an interview with JEM’s Here’s My Story project.
“There was no question that he was an intellectual giant – a truly great man,” he said. “But he also had an ability to see through people that very few have. And when speaking to him, I had a sense of being acknowledged and understood.”
Rabbi Tanzer said the Rebbe was “very empathetic” about his dilemma in finding someone to run the girls’ high school. The Rebbe told him, “You know, there’s a shortage of good people everywhere in the world, including in the United States. So you’d better forget about that. You’re not going to find anyone here. You’ve got to do it yourself.”
Upon hearing that Rabbi Tanzer was involved in establishing a new shul, the Glenhazel Area Hebrew Congregation in Johannesburg, the Rebbe told him: “You realize that heading a school is very different than leading a congregation. In fact, these two are opposites and can be in conflict with each other.”
The Rebbe went on to explain: “The head of a school, a rosh yeshiva, has to have his eyes on Mount Sinai. He has to represent Torah to his students, and he has to inspire them; he has to lift their standards and connect them to heaven. The rabbi of a congregation, on the other hand, has to have his feet firmly planted on the earth. He has to understand exactly what is happening in the society around him and respond to the realities of life that his people confront daily.”
Rabbi Tanzer said he never forgot that insight. “Throughout the 50 years I spent in South Africa, I’ve been both a rosh yeshiva and a community rabbi, but I always remembered that this is a distinction to always keep in mind,” he said.
“Although I met him only that one time, I could see that the Rebbe cared deeply about the Jews of South Africa. But truly, he really cared about Jews everywhere. His greatness was that he cared about the whole world.”
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