The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-הצצה נדירה לימי נעוריו של הגאון הינוקא ＂לפני שהעולם ידע＂ פרק 6

3:12 I too learned from him: 'You want yiras Shamayim? Look at the tzaddikim, look at the great rabbis.' I saw him — there was no such thing as us coming to the beis midrash and seeing him other than in Torah, only with an open sefer. He would tell us deep things, very, very deep. And we marveled that — ben poras Yosef — we cannot manage to hold on to this Rav.

3:36 Truly unbelievable things — how we merited such a childhood. And he was already a giant, a giant among giants, great, very great. Look at the distribution, thanks to the Rav — how many donate, how many give. It is truly moving. People come; whoever comes, takes, and it is free.

4:01 He has — what else do I want to tell you — I learned another thing from him: a good eye. He has no begrudging eye. He does not have it. That is what is good. He is happy if a Jew succeeds; if a Jew becomes healthy, he is truly pleased. He has no begrudging eye. He only wants to hear good things, new things, and he always prays to the Holy One, blessed be He, that there be only good things, and that He annul all the harsh decrees.

4:30 And today there was a bris, and he saw me and seated me beside him. He did not forget; he knows what gratitude is. And I was very, very moved. I have known the Rav since about age 10 to 12, something like that, 13 — I do not remember the ages exactly; those were the ages, more or less. And we would learn; we would go to the graves of tzaddikim, to many graves of tzaddikim — Rabbi Shimon, and the Cave of Eliyahu in Haifa, I remember, we went; and to the grave of Yehudah in Yehud.

5:02 And most of all we would go to the grave of Shimshon the tzaddik, Shimshon HaGibor. We would go, we would learn together. The Rav was a tzaddik — I am a witness, I am a witness — the Rav was a tzaddik. All the time he only wanted to travel to the Baal Shem Tov, to travel to Rabbi Nachman, to travel to Rabbi Shimon... only graves of tzaddikim, only to pray, only to learn. He was a tzaddik. I have known him from a young age: good middos, modesty, guarding his eyes, wisdom.

5:29 The Rav was great, great in Torah. The Rav was... The fact is that he got to where he got. I knew it — that this is what would happen, that he would reach such greatness — because I saw the person himself: how modest, what humility, what modesty, guarding his eyes, righteousness; only rabbis, only going to the graves of tzaddikim. That is what interested the Rav — nothing, not a thing, of this world. Not food, not drink, not money — only graves of tzaddikim, and praying, and 'Please, Hashem,' and 'Please...'

5:56 And here, the fact is, that is how he rose to greatness. One day we arranged to meet in the street, to go — I mean, we arranged — I do not remember where, to go to my place or his — to learn Torah. And he came with a sefer like this. A sefer — not a Torah scroll, a sefer for learning — but this big, to walk around with. We said, 'Wow' — I mean, people were staring; they saw him walking around the street with such a big sefer. So I said to him, 'What is with you? I mean, what, are you not...?'

6:22 He says to me, 'No — this is a kiddush Hashem. I love Hashem, I love Him. Nothing else interests me; let them say what they say,' and so on. And we learned. And that is a story that I remember. I am the brother of the Rav's father. At his bris they named him Shlomo Yehudah, and when they asked why Shlomo Yehudah — that was my father's name, Shlomo, and Yehudah is the name of his other grandfather, on his mother's side. But we called him by the nickname Shai. We called him Shai, because it stands for Shlomo Yehudah.

6:47 That was the idea, but his real name is Shlomo Yehudah, and not Shai. Shai was a nickname, a short form. As a child he was quiet, he was modest, he was respectful, he was quiet. The Rav's name is Shlomo Yehudah, and his nickname was Shai, when he was a child. But his original name is Shlomo — the grandfather's name, Shlomo, the Yemenite, Tzuberi.

7:13 And the second, the name Yehudah. At the bris they named him Shlomo Yehudah. And ever since I have known him — since he was born I have known him — he has been called Shlomo Yehudah. And he learned — all his Torah, he learned it on his own. No one taught him. He would disappear for nights and learn Torah; they would find him learning in the shul. There was a Mori, a teacher, who taught him — his name is Chaim Tzuberi — he taught him. That Mori, Chaim, gave him a blessing and told him, 'You will be great in Torah before age 13.' And, baruch Hashem, today he is just that.

7:44 He said that in Spain there are too many — what did he call it? When I asked him, I said to him, 'Why did you leave so quickly?' He says, 'There are too many non-Jews there, there are no tzaddikim there. I am fleeing from that place. The yetzer hara is there all the time.' He fled from there and came here. His father was a genius, his father was a genius, his father was wise. He had an amazing memory, amazing — an amazing memory.

8:10 Things that he learned, he knew by heart. How? I do not know. How? I do not know. He prayed — I would pray with his father every morning; every Shabbos morning we would pray together. My father had a shul; my father had a shul. Where? In Moledet; we had a shul. Ah, your own shul? — Yes, it was our shul. He ran the whole shul.

8:34 He was the head of the shul, he was the chazzan of the shul, he would open the Torah scroll of the shul. All the prayers of the Yamim Noraim, the High Holy Days, he would say. He was the mukhtar, the head man of the neighborhood. He was no simple man. This was not a simple person. He was a one-of-a-kind person. One of a kind. I personally understood it from when he was small.

9:00 The fact is that at a young age he wrote me the blessing for the business. And when I told him, 'Write it for me,' he did not want to write. So I told him, 'Write it for me.' I told him, 'You will yet be a great Rav, and remember: everyone will yet chase after you to bless them.' And he laughed and said to me, 'What are you talking about?' So here — the day has come. And to this day I have the blessing for the business, in my business. To this day, the blessing for the business, in his own handwriting, is with me. From when he was a child. — When he was a child.

9:25 He also wrote for me what is worth eating, what is healthy to eat. That too he wrote for me, in his own handwriting.