Cong. Orach Chaim, NYC
March 17, 2025
A few words about my father-in-law ZTL’s career, impact, and legacy, which I can only describe in broad strokes, based on my own impressions. But I hope they will resonate.
As a young man, my father-in-law was fully immersed in the American branch of the Lithuanian yeshiva world – more specifically, and this was not at all a given, in the religious Zionist Mizrahi camp of that world – primarily under the influence of his renowned father, Rav Yitzhak ZTL. Great scholars and community leaders frequented their home on a daily basis. But he was also the proud beneficiary of the best American culture had to offer. In his home, there was no inherent contradiction between the two.
Was there ever any tension between the yeshiva world and the secular American world, especially the academic world my father-in-law came to inhabit and later to master so successfully? Of course there was, possibly even more than today. But he and other young scholars of his generation were guided not by fear or conformity, but by confidence in what they believed was right and true, and they met those challenges head on. We are fortunate that pioneers such as he cleared an intellectual and cultural path for our own generation to follow.
I’ll share a telling anecdote I heard from him more than once: Before graduating high school, my father-in-law had a discussion with one of his yeshiva administrators about enrolling at Brooklyn College for night classes the following semester. The administrator was fully supportive, as was expected at the time, but he also added a caveat: “Don’t take biology.” Apparently, it was feared that exposure to the theory of evolution and other naturalistic approaches to creation might lead an impressionable young yeshiva bochur astray.
My father-in-law ended the story, very simply, like this: “What did I do?” he asked. “I took biology.”
Now, he told this story not to be flippant or disrespectful – his respect for all educators in every type of yeshiva was unqualified – it was rather out of pride in his intellectual and moral independence, an independence that he believed was well within the bounds of his cultural inheritance, his masoret avot. Throughout his lifetime, in many contexts, he maintained that same confident independence.
My father-in-law was animated by a passionate intellectual curiosity and an equally passionate need to share his knowledge. He was a natural and inspiring teacher who advanced almost overnight from his undergraduate studies at Brooklyn College to become one of its youngest instructors ever, in the Department of Political Science. His passion for learning and his teaching career were inexorably linked. His Torah – I use the word in its broadest sense – was truly a Torat Hesed. “Kindness” or “lovingkindness” does not do justice to the word hesed. The quality of hesed, as described often by Rabbi Soloveitchik, is not only mercy, or the desire to share one’s material possessions, it is also meant in the spiritual sense, of inviting others to partake in your intellectual gifts and achievements. It is both a moral and intellectual abundance that cannot be constrained.
Rabbi Shmidman’s Torat Hesed overflowed continuously from the private domain of his creative mind to the public domain of the classroom and synagogue. As many of you know, his hiddushim – new insights into the Chumash and other texts – would flow like a ma’ayan ha-mitgaber – an unstoppable wellspring – sometimes for only a few minutes when you met him on the corner on the way to or from shul, but often for hours at a time. As a darshan – an interpreter of ancient texts and a gifted orator, whose public addresses were always incisive, relevant, and uplifting – he had few equals.
My father-in-law lived and thrived in many worlds. He was equally at home in the company of roshei yeshiva from REITS, Chasidim from Brooklyn, his students at Yeshiva University, and his colleagues and students at CUNY. He lived in many worlds, but he did not lead multiple lives. Wherever he was and with whomever he interacted – in shul, delivering a sermon or leading the services; in his dining room, giving a parsha shiur; in a classroom, teaching constitutional law or Tanakh; in his kitchen, counseling a congregant; and even on the tennis court – to all of these settings, he brought his entire integrated self.
In this hall, especially, the sanctuary of Kehilla Kedosha Orach Chaim, a beit tefilla le-khol ha-yehudim – Rabbi Shmidman’s integrity and warmth has had an immeasurable and lasting impact – for many of us, his persona saturates the walls and permeates the air we now breath. He and Rabbi Skydell, she-yibadel le-hayyim, have made this a place for every Jew to feel at home.
To be clear: His commitment to traditional Halakha was unwavering and uncompromising, as manifest by his responses to practical halakhic queries, some of which we’re learning about for the first time from your moving stories. He saw fearless leadership as his mission: At his installation ceremony, his address included what can be called a rabbinic manifesto, listing the qualities required to be an effective rabbi. Prominent among them, he said, “a rabbi must be a leader who is not afraid to lead.” Over the course of his career, including situations where he might have chosen otherwise, my father-in-law lived up to that ideal.
But while always standing firm for what he believed in, at the same time he practiced an ethic of inclusion that transmitted the joys of worship, learning, and religious fellowship to everyone, at any level of knowledge or observance, because his love for every Jew was unconditional.
How can we summarize Rabbi Shmidman’s impact?
For some great men and women, you require the distance of time to properly assess their influence. Here, in contrast, the results are immediately visible. Although it’s impossible to quantify, we know how deeply it was felt and will be felt for decades to come. Beyond the thousands of students and congregants – including second and now third-generation congregants – fortunate enough to study with and learn from him, he had the ability, as many of you know intimately, to touch your soul and often to reorient the direction of your life. And he did this with humility and wisdom and grace.
Of course, it was not only him but also my mother-in-law, she-tibadel le-hayyim, who had, and continues to have, such a lasting impact on this community. They were true partners in this endeavor; my mother-in-law was not only his helpmeet, but an independent force. In their own modest way, they were both in the business of crafting souls.
As a young man, my father-in-law was fully immersed in the American branch of the Lithuanian yeshiva world – more specifically, and this was not at all a given, in the religious Zionist Mizrahi camp of that world – primarily under the influence of his renowned father, Rav Yitzhak ZTL. Great scholars and community leaders frequented their home on a daily basis. But he was also the proud beneficiary of the best American culture had to offer. In his home, there was no inherent contradiction between the two.
Was there ever any tension between the yeshiva world and the secular American world, especially the academic world my father-in-law came to inhabit and later to master so successfully? Of course there was, possibly even more than today. But he and other young scholars of his generation were guided not by fear or conformity, but by confidence in what they believed was right and true, and they met those challenges head on. We are fortunate that pioneers such as he cleared an intellectual and cultural path for our own generation to follow.
I’ll share a telling anecdote I heard from him more than once: Before graduating high school, my father-in-law had a discussion with one of his yeshiva administrators about enrolling at Brooklyn College for night classes the following semester. The administrator was fully supportive, as was expected at the time, but he also added a caveat: “Don’t take biology.” Apparently, it was feared that exposure to the theory of evolution and other naturalistic approaches to creation might lead an impressionable young yeshiva bochur astray.
My father-in-law ended the story, very simply, like this: “What did I do?” he asked. “I took biology.”
Now, he told this story not to be flippant or disrespectful – his respect for all educators in every type of yeshiva was unqualified – it was rather out of pride in his intellectual and moral independence, an independence that he believed was well within the bounds of his cultural inheritance, his masoret avot. Throughout his lifetime, in many contexts, he maintained that same confident independence.
My father-in-law was animated by a passionate intellectual curiosity and an equally passionate need to share his knowledge. He was a natural and inspiring teacher who advanced almost overnight from his undergraduate studies at Brooklyn College to become one of its youngest instructors ever, in the Department of Political Science. His passion for learning and his teaching career were inexorably linked. His Torah – I use the word in its broadest sense – was truly a Torat Hesed. “Kindness” or “lovingkindness” does not do justice to the word hesed. The quality of hesed, as described often by Rabbi Soloveitchik, is not only mercy, or the desire to share one’s material possessions, it is also meant in the spiritual sense, of inviting others to partake in your intellectual gifts and achievements. It is both a moral and intellectual abundance that cannot be constrained.
Rabbi Shmidman’s Torat Hesed overflowed continuously from the private domain of his creative mind to the public domain of the classroom and synagogue. As many of you know, his hiddushim – new insights into the Chumash and other texts – would flow like a ma’ayan ha-mitgaber – an unstoppable wellspring – sometimes for only a few minutes when you met him on the corner on the way to or from shul, but often for hours at a time. As a darshan – an interpreter of ancient texts and a gifted orator, whose public addresses were always incisive, relevant, and uplifting – he had few equals.
My father-in-law lived and thrived in many worlds. He was equally at home in the company of roshei yeshiva from REITS, Chasidim from Brooklyn, his students at Yeshiva University, and his colleagues and students at CUNY. He lived in many worlds, but he did not lead multiple lives. Wherever he was and with whomever he interacted – in shul, delivering a sermon or leading the services; in his dining room, giving a parsha shiur; in a classroom, teaching constitutional law or Tanakh; in his kitchen, counseling a congregant; and even on the tennis court – to all of these settings, he brought his entire integrated self.
In this hall, especially, the sanctuary of Kehilla Kedosha Orach Chaim, a beit tefilla le-khol ha-yehudim – Rabbi Shmidman’s integrity and warmth has had an immeasurable and lasting impact – for many of us, his persona saturates the walls and permeates the air we now breath. He and Rabbi Skydell, she-yibadel le-hayyim, have made this a place for every Jew to feel at home.
To be clear: His commitment to traditional Halakha was unwavering and uncompromising, as manifest by his responses to practical halakhic queries, some of which we’re learning about for the first time from your moving stories. He saw fearless leadership as his mission: At his installation ceremony, his address included what can be called a rabbinic manifesto, listing the qualities required to be an effective rabbi. Prominent among them, he said, “a rabbi must be a leader who is not afraid to lead.” Over the course of his career, including situations where he might have chosen otherwise, my father-in-law lived up to that ideal.
But while always standing firm for what he believed in, at the same time he practiced an ethic of inclusion that transmitted the joys of worship, learning, and religious fellowship to everyone, at any level of knowledge or observance, because his love for every Jew was unconditional.
How can we summarize Rabbi Shmidman’s impact?
For some great men and women, you require the distance of time to properly assess their influence. Here, in contrast, the results are immediately visible. Although it’s impossible to quantify, we know how deeply it was felt and will be felt for decades to come. Beyond the thousands of students and congregants – including second and now third-generation congregants – fortunate enough to study with and learn from him, he had the ability, as many of you know intimately, to touch your soul and often to reorient the direction of your life. And he did this with humility and wisdom and grace.
Of course, it was not only him but also my mother-in-law, she-tibadel le-hayyim, who had, and continues to have, such a lasting impact on this community. They were true partners in this endeavor; my mother-in-law was not only his helpmeet, but an independent force. In their own modest way, they were both in the business of crafting souls.
In this, they inherited a great tradition established by the first Jewish power couple. As they completed their journey to Canaan, the Torah says that Abraham and Sarah brought with them not only vast material goods but also ha-nefesh asher asu be-charan; read literally, “the souls they fashioned in Haran.” As Rashi famously comments, wherever they went, Abraham and Sarah brought men and women under the wings of the divine presence. Like my in-laws, Abraham and Sarah’s influence was no doubt achieved by means of a gentle but irresistible charisma.
My father-in-law’s impact on his congregants and students is obvious and will last for generations, but what will be – or at least should be – his enduring legacy for Judaism and Jewish life as a whole?
This, of course, is impossible to predict. But fortunately, lo ba-shamayim hi – it is not for Heaven to determine. His legacy is in our own hands to shape and to realize.
In a word, the world needs more Rabbi Shmidmans — and you don’t have to be a rabbi, or even a Shmidman, to be a Rabbi Shmidman. His ethics can and should serve as a model for Jewish leaders and laypeople alike. Though certainly a unique and irreplaceable individual, and like all of us the product of his time, environment, and talents, my father-in-law’s life-message is timeless and universal. His career was the fulfillment of the rabbinic promise that talmidei hakhamim marbim shalom ba-olam – “Torah scholars increase peace and harmony in the world.”
Note the object of the sentence, “ba-olam” – the entire world; not just the yeshiva world, not only the Orthodox world; the promise goes beyond even the Jewish world. What he felt, practiced, and transmitted – love of all kinds of learning, love of all human beings, love of what is good and right and, above all, love for his family, his community, Israel, and the Jewish people – should be instituted and maybe, some day and in some manner, institutionalized – in our community and beyond.
Rabbi Shmidman’s career of hesed – of Torat Hesed – can and should be transformed from one man’s ethic to a great public vision; from a life well lived to a noble lifestyle for all of us to emulate.
What this might mean in practice remains to be seen. But whatever my father-in-law’s ultimate legacy becomes, it can start right here, tonight, with all of us who were blessed and continue to be blessed to be his students. Yehi zikhro barukh.
What this might mean in practice remains to be seen. But whatever my father-in-law’s ultimate legacy becomes, it can start right here, tonight, with all of us who were blessed and continue to be blessed to be his students. Yehi zikhro barukh.
