Thread by @SethAMandel

Indeed. I’ve been in Rav Gissinger’s home with the phone ringing off the hook and a line of ppl down the block at 10pm who wanted him to check their etrog. He had shown me this kindness on more than one occasion. He was brilliant and kind and wise the most humble person. BD”E.

https://twitter.com/sbarchenger/status/1172605467538931714

I was crushed when I found out yesterday Rav Gissinger died. You’d ask him a complex halakhic question, he’d call you back mere hours later. “Shlomo Gissinger here!” he’d say when you picked up.

If I had a question for him I’d go to maariv at his shul, and afterward he’d be walking out but you couldn’t see him because he was of modest height and students would encircle him to walk with him. What you saw was a floating cloud of ppl. That’s how you knew. Amud anan.

Could I take X medication on Tisha b’Av? He’d know the chemical makeup of it and so be able to tell you not just yes or no but *why.* What it did in your system, how it interacted with mind and body. Could you eat X w/o a hechsher? Like a good scientist, he knew every molecule.

There’s a line of thought in Orthodox Judaism: Saying ‘no’ is easy; it takes a real scholar to say ‘yes.’

That was Rav Gissinger. Nothing scared him away from finding the essential truth of any situation.

But here’s the thing most ppl didn’t know about Rav Gissinger. It wasn’t just halakhic riddles. There is no question he hadn’t been asked. There’s an unplanned pregnancy? Someone’s in legal trouble? Substance abuse? Gambling addiction? No one was judged or turned away. No one.

In the Orthodox community there aren’t always the social resources ppl might need—though that’s improved massively. Rav Gissinger saved lives. It’s as simple as that. Ppl who had nowhere else to turn put their fate in his hands and they came out the other side.

I didn’t realize the full extent until I went away to college and met totally secular runaways who’d heard about this rabbi in Lakewood so they figured hey, can’t hurt. Another life saved.

I once was at a party at Rutgers and mentioned I had this kashrus riddle no one could solve so I called Rav Gissinger. A girl standing next to me looked over with tears in her eyes. I mean you just don’t know what ppl are going through and what it means to throw them a lifeline.

Anyway, the humblest man you ever met in your life, but he was a genuine gadol hador, a generational giant. Gone too soon because he’s gone at all. May the many, many, many whose lives he affected find comfort.