In 1937 when I had been in Reading for five years, we invited a prominent guest of honor to speak at a congregational dinner. There were two rabbis in those coal mining towns of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre at that time, Max Artz and Louis Levitsky, who were known of course as the two minor prophets. Max as the minor of the minor prophets was selected to be the guest speaker. I learned how to be a rabbi, an administrator, an executive and a manipulator that might in Reading, Pennsylvania.
He turned to a lady beside him. “How long has Rabbi Routtenberg been here? Does he have a car?” She said, “No he does not have a car.” And so he said, “Well what kind of congregation is this? This is a disgrace! This is not done.”
The following morning I was presented with a 1937 Chevrolet.
When I saw Max Artz a few weeks later, he asked me to give him a mazel tov.
”Why?”
”I got a new car.”
”How did you get a car?”
”Well, when I went back to Scranton and told him that you were getting a car….”
-Max Routtenberg
Rabbis study Talmud. They venture deeply into ancient texts and analyze them. Rarely do they poke their heads up to look around the world. When it does happen it is usually a
A good person and a good rabbi are much the same. They both need to have two legs planted in two worlds simultaneously. One leg is in the physical world of bread and sustenance while the other is firmly planted in the Godly world.
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