An audience with Rav Moshe

The following is an email I got today I decided to post it, in honor of Yom Hashoa.

An audience with Rav Moshe: When as a teenager the author met the reveredRabbi Moshe Feinstein, he got a lesson in the meaning of the Holocaust.

by Isaac Steven HerschkopfSpecial To The Jewish Week

I could not have been more than 4 or 5 when I asked her. It seemed to me, atthe time, to be an innocent, straightforward question: "Mommy, when do I getmy number?"
I was, of course, upset when she burst into tears and ran out of thekitchen, but I was also confused. This was Washington Heights in the 1950s.It was an enclave of survivors. Every adult I knew had a number. Even myteenage sister had one in blue ink tattooed on her forearm.
They were as ubiquitous on the benches of Riverside Drive as they were onthe footpaths of Fort Tryon Park. If you saw an adult with some sort of haton his head, he invariably also had a number on his arm. In the summer, when the community traveled en masse toCatskill bungalow colonies, or to Rockaway beaches, the numbers came too.I presumed it was a ceremonious part of becoming bar mitzvah, or perhapsgraduation from Breuer's or Soloveichik, our local yeshivas. No one appearedto be embarrassed by their number. ARG! I never saw anyone try to cover itup when they went swimming. It seemed to be a matter of fact part of life.When, as children, we would ask our parents why there was a "Mother's Day"and a "Father's Day," but no "Children's Day," the automatic response was"Every day is 'Children's Day'!" In Washington Heights, in the '50s, everyday was Yom HaShoah.
Ironically enough, at the same time, no day was Yom HaShoah. Thecommemoration, as it exists today, was not around then. Breuer's andSoloveichik consisted almost exclusively of children of survivors, yetneither school had any assembly, or recognition of any type, of the Shoah.The very word Shoah didn't exist. The word Holocaust did, but it was neverinvoked. When on rare occasion our parents would make reference to theevents that led them to leave Europe to come to America, they would label it"the War."They spoke nostalgically of life "before the War"; they never spoke of whathappened during "the War."
They spoke reverently of their parents andsiblings who were "lost in the War"; they never spoke of their spouses orchildren who perished. After all, they had new spouses and new children whodidn't need to be reminded that they were replacements.I was already bar mitzvah when I first realized that my parents had beenpreviously married and had prior children. Years later I was shocked todiscover that my sister with whom I was raised was not my father's daughter.When I finally came to understand that not every adult was a survivor, andpeople would ask me what survivors were really like, I never knew what toanswer. There was Mr. Silverberg, our seatmate in shul, as jovial as SantaClaus, who always had a good word for everyone. On the other hand, there wasMr. Grauer, our neighbor whose face was indelibly etched in a frown and wasalways threatening to hit his wife or his children. In retrospect, as apsychiatrist, I could understand both, but who truly defined what it meantto be a survivor? Did anyone, or anything?
I learned the answer from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.
This gadol hador, the greatest sage of his generation, was so renowned hewas referred to simply as "Rav Moshe." The closest I came to this legend wasat Yeshiva University High School, where my rebbe was his son-in-law, RabbiMoshe Tendler. Rabbi Tendler, and every other rabbi, would speak of RavMoshe in awe-stricken tones usually reserved for biblical forefathers.One summer I was spending a week with my aunt and uncle in upstateEllenville. Uncle David and Aunt Saba, survivors themselves, as the doctorand nurse in charge of the concentration camp infirmary, had managed to savethe lives of innumerable inmates, including my mother and sister. After "theWar" they had set up a medical practice in this small Catskill village,where, I discovered, to my amazement, they had one celebrity patient - RavMoshe.
My aunt mentioned casually that Rav Moshe had an appointment the next day.Would I like to meet him? Would I? It was like asking me, would I like tomeet God.I couldn't sleep that night. I agonized over what I should wear. Should Iapproach him? What should I say? Should I mention that his son-in-law was myrebbe? Should I speak to him in English, or my rudimentary Yiddish?I was seated in the waiting room, in the best clothing I had with me, anhour before his appointment. It seemed like an eternity, but eventually hearrived, accompanied by an assistant at each side. He didn't notice me.I was frozen. I had intended to rise deferentially when he entered, but Ididn't. I had prepared a few sentences that I had repeatedly memorized, butI sensed that my heart was beating too quickly for me to speak calmly.My aunt had heard the chime when he entered and came out of the office togreet him: "Rabbi Feinstein, did you meet my nephew Ikey? Can you believe ashaygitz [unobservant] like me has a yeshiva bochur [student] in thefamily?"
Rav Moshe finally looked at me. I was mortified. My aunt was addressing himirreverently. She was joking with him. She had called me Ikey, not Yitzchok,or even Isaac.Then it got even worse. She walked over to him. Surely she knew not to shakehis hand. She didn't. She kissed him affectionately on the cheek as she didmany of her favorite patients. She then told him my uncle would see him in aminute and returned to the office.Rav Moshe and his attendants turned and looked at me, I thought accusingly.I wanted to die. In a panic, I walked over to him and started to apologizeprofusely: "Rabbi Feinstein, I apologize. My aunt, she isn't frum[religious]. She doesn't understand..."
He immediately placed his fingers on my lips to stop me from talking. Hethen softly spoke two sentences in Yiddish that I will remember to my dyingday: "She has numbers on her arms. She is holier than me."
Rav Moshe had understood what I had not. Our holiest generation was definedby the numbers on their arms.

Dr. Isaac Steven Herschkopf is an attending psychiatrist at the NYU MedicalCenter and the author of "Hello Darkness, My Old Friend: Embracing Anger toHeal Your Life." This excerpt is from a forthcoming memoir.