This past Tuesday was the 13th Yahrtzeit of Rav Shmuel Berenbaum ZT”l the Rosh Yeshiva of the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn.

The summer before I was married, 1982, I had the Zechus to learn in the Yeshiva.

Rav Shmuel was the ultimate masmid. Even when he was walking, he was talking in learning.

He was always learning.

He would never leave second Seder until it was completed. Everyone in the Yeshiva knew that even if you had planned your wedding for 6 PM, if you wanted the Rosh Yeshiva to be mesader kiddushin, he would never arrive until second Seder ended.

He buried two sons in his lifetime.

One was accidentally killed by a soldier in Israel and one died of cancer.

Nevertheless, his Simchas HaChaim never was diminished.

He radiated a vitalizing energy. He possessed a zest for Torah and he had an inexhaustible joie de vivre.

Learning Torah was his oxygen and his sustenance.

I recall one Shavuos evening the Beis Medrash was packed with learners. The room was stifling and the Rosh Yeshiva needed to go outside for some fresh air.

About ten bachurim accompanied him and a mobile Beis Medrash took place on the sidewalk.

Amazingly, the Rosh Yeshiva was speaking in learning simultaneously to ten different bachurim about ten different sugyas!

The happiest person to be found in this melee of learning was the Rosh Yeshiva himself!

May his memory be a brocha for all.

“If not now, then when?”- Hillel

Ron Yitzchok Eisenman

Rabbi, Congregation Ahavas Israel

Passaic, NJ

See below a link to Rav Shmuel Berenbaum and Rav Leib Bakst talking in learning at a chasunah. This gives you a taste of what real love of Torah means!