A Balancing Act

Below are a few words I wrote about my father, whose sheloshim is marked today.

Perhaps you can learn a shtikel Torah leilui nishmato.

As we mark the sheloshim for Grandpa, I want to begin with a piece of Torah that feels, to me, like a window into his life. In the Gemara, in Masechet Pesachim (68b), we find the following:

רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר: אֵין לוֹ לְאָדָם בְּיוֹם טוֹב אֶלָּא, אוֹ אוֹכֵל וְשׁוֹתֶה, אוֹ יוֹשֵׁב וְשׁוֹנֶה. רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אוֹמֵר: חַלְּקֵהוּ, חֶצְיוֹ לַאֲכִילָה וּשְׁתִיָּה, וְחֶצְיוֹ לְבֵית הַמִּדְרָשׁ. וְאָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: וּשְׁנֵיהֶם מִקְרָא אֶחָד דָּרְשׁוּ, כָּתוּב אֶחָד אוֹמֵר: ״עֲצֶרֶת לַה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ״, וְכָתוּב אֶחָד אוֹמֵר: ״עֲצֶרֶת תִּהְיֶה לָכֶם״. רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר סָבַר: אוֹ כּוּלּוֹ לַה׳, אוֹ כּוּלּוֹ לָכֶם. וְרַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ סָבַר: חַלְּקֵהוּ, חֶצְיוֹ לַה׳ וְחֶצְיוֹ לָכֶם.

When Grandpa was in yeshiva, a Rav once came over to him and his friends while they were learning and asked them: “Where is the chatzi lachem?” They got up, went out to the sports field, and started a basketball game. That wasn’t just a moment—it was a model for a life.

Grandpa lived his life balancing worlds. He was deeply, seriously immersed in Torah learning, and at the same time, he created for his family a life full of rich, memorable, and sometimes unexpected experiences.

We even saw that balance in moments that became family legend. When we were growing up, we were taken to have a private audience with the Steipler Rebbe. On the side of חציו לה׳, we were zocheh to learn Mishneh Berurah with him at the Shabbat table, to hear his divrei Torah, and to watch the way he davened—slowly, deliberately, with care for every word. Just this past Chanukah, I saw him fully absorbed—either on the phone dealing with a court case or shteiging in his Gemara. When I asked to borrow his siddur for Shacharit, he handed it to me immediately. I was struck by how worn it was—the pages threadbare, almost falling apart. I offered to buy him a new one, but he refused. He wanted that siddur, the one that had accompanied him through years of tefillah. That, too, was part of his chatzi laHashem—constancy, depth, and loyalty to the things that mattered.

And on the side of חציו לכם, he gave us a world of experiences. Because of him, I once took a photo with a celebrity. I caught my first fish with him alongside me. I got to play basketball with him in the park on Sunday mornings while my brothers were in school. At the Shabbat table, alongside the learning, we played blindman’s bluff and listened to his spooky stories including "The Monkey’s Paw."

He even helped shape the way we think and speak. Grandpa would “help” me with book reports—reading the first page, the middle page, and the last page, and then dictating an A paper. From him I learned words like opined, succinct, myriad, and mediocrity. And yes—he wrote my valedictory speech when I graduated elementary school.

He moved comfortably between worlds. One moment advising on court cases, the next immersed in Torah. One moment asking for accordion music, the next for Jewish music—his tastes wide, his appreciation deep.

At the shiva, someone told us how much it meant to have Grandpa daven in his shul, how he would come early and daven with intention. Grandpa didn’t just live a life of “half and half.” He showed us that the two halves are not in tension—they enrich each other. His Torah shaped his life, and his life gave depth and warmth to his Torah.

As we move forward, that is the legacy he leaves us. To live fully, to care deeply for the people around us, to take joy in this world—and at the same time, to stay anchored in something higher, something lasting. If we can carry even a small part of that balance forward, then his voice, his values, and his presence will continue to guide us. May his neshama have an aliyah, and may he be a meilitz yosher for all of us, continuing to bring nachas to the family he loved so much.