He had the smallest shofar I had ever seen, but the sound he produced was deafening

Mirrer Yeshivah

Brooklyn, New York

Rabbi Yossi Bensoussan

On my 19th Rosh Hashanah, a part of my soul died. I wasn’t ready for it. I wondered why my siblings and parents never warned me. They had to have had the same experience — how could no one have thought to warn me?

The issue wasn’t the place I was davening at the year I was learning in Eretz Yisrael. Rather it was where I was coming from. I was spoiled, plain and simple. I never had to prepare myself to feel these awesome days of holiness and glory; the work was all done for me, all I needed to do was show up. And for 19 years, I thought everyone in every shul and yeshivah had the same experience. But that year, I realized they did not, and I quietly mourned not appreciating what I had.

Not everyone got to sit in the same row of seats as Rav Elya Brudny. Not every eight-year-old would subconsciously lean his head onto Rav Lazer Ginsburg when he drifted off, only to be awakened by Rav Ginsburg’s soul stirring, “Hamelech!” But as a child of one of the lucky Moroccan Jews to have been brought to America by Mir Rosh Yeshivah Rav Avrohom Kalmanowitz, I did.

These giants sat to my immediate right and left. If I turned around, I would see other rabbanim such as Rabbis Dovid and Zevi Trenk. These rebbeim of the Mir would cry real tears while singing from the deepest parts of their souls. I might look behind me briefly, because to any child, the sight of a grown man crying that passionately is astonishing. But mostly, my eyes were transfixed directly ahead. Not because I was davening or focusing on the awesomeness of the day. Not out of choice or desire to connect. But because staring directly back at me, straight into my soul, were the piercing blue eyes of Rav Shmuel Berenbaum. I remember as a young child asking my father who he was. My father smiled and replied, “Yossi, that’s a sefer Torah.”

When Rav Shmuel Gedalia Pollack would fall quiet for a moment during his chazaras hashatz to listen to the ticking of his watch, you could hear a pin drop. And when his voice rose again, you felt him pulling your heart with him on this journey of malchus.