April 21, 2025 • 28 mins
Grandpa Sheldon Kirshner - Reflections and stories Part 1
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Funeral is at four o'clock PM today, and today is
April twenty first, twenty twenty five. So I wanted to
read to you something that I wrote, just reflections that
I wrote and stuff that I wrote the family, and
(00:21):
I wanted to share with you some reflections that I
wrote on Grandpa. Some of my family has heard this already,
but Dina is hearing it for the first time. So
here we go. And I specifically wanted to write this
before the funeral today because I wanted it to be
my words and I didn't want to be influenced by
any other words that are written. So in order to
(00:44):
ensure that it's as authentic as can be, I wrote
it before anyone else. Okay, Dina hasn't heard it yet.
So Grandpa was the most unique person I ever met.
The way Torah blended into his personality was so real
and authentic. While I've had Rebeam who had this type
(01:06):
of blend, Grandpa stood out because of his personality. He
carried Toro with a show business personality expressed in his
humor and even tone of voice. Toro personified this unique personality.
It's impossible to comprehend how this translates itself in real
life through imagination alone. You need to meet him. And
(01:29):
to those of you that didn't, you missed out. Every
family Simha was like a continuous share a radio show style,
entertaining yet deeply serious, humorous, but deeply spiritual. When I
say serious, I mean focused on Toro. There are people
who live with joy, then there are people.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Who are joy. Grandpa was joy.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
His humor was not a part of his personality, It
was so much more. It was integrated into his essence.
He brought light into a room just by being himself,
making Yiddish kite look beautiful as the most natural, life
giving path a person could walk. In Chicago, everybody knew Grandpa.
People would ask me who I was, and I'd say,
(02:16):
I'm married to the granddaughter of Sheldon Kirshner.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
That was all it took.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
He was known by everyone across every sect of Orthodoxy,
graside Garadi Tioni.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
He related to them all.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
He was a tamil rochem, especially in te Nach, with
a special love for the Moblin's commentary for Parnossa. He
worked as an electrician, designing complex traffic like traffic like
patterns for the city, but he was not an electrician
who happened to learn. He was a maggot cheer, giving
(02:48):
malbom in shoals in the community throughout the week. He
was a torah teacher who worked in electricity to support
his family. He also did a lot of kresse with
his electrician skills, helping people, making it cheaper for people
who weren't able to afford what the full price would
(03:11):
have been. Sometimes people think religious Jews are deprived of
the pleasures of life, but Grandpa made Yiddish kite soga
schmack so fulfilling that it became clear if there was
any deprivation, it was on.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
The other side. He approached life.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
With its mianistic a wholesome sincerity. One of the most
beautiful examples of this was his wedding to Bubby. It
was in a basement with no guests. This authentic torah
was passed on to each of his seven children.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
There are many.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Ways to tell whether the torah is being transmitted and
lived in a way that is authentic part and parcel
of their personality, and there are ways to tell whether
the parents are being mechanical each child in a way
that torah is sweet to them One of the biggest
proofs to me is not just the fact that all children, grandchildren,
and great grandchildren are shower tore imtzals, but all of
(04:07):
them have a simpl sakayan and have chosen the path
that is unique from each other. Not only that, but
at times they even chose a different sect of Orthodoxy.
Grandpa supported each path, and the love for Torah didn't
stop at observance. It extended into learning and a passion
(04:27):
for teaching. He was the life of every party, the
center of every Kiddish. It's hard to picture a Kirshner
simpo without him. People often say when someone passes, they'll
be missed or they will be an empty seat at
the table, and a while those words are always true,
they don't come close to describing the loss we feel
(04:48):
with Grandpa. This is a loss felt deeply across multiple generations.
The Kirshner extended family was like immediate family, and this
was well known across the city, by the way, and
I was told this even before I got married into
the family. I'm gonna finish what I wrote, but I'm
gonna add some words of my own over here.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
This is the words that I wrote. Here are my own.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I'm gonna add more words off script in a minute.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Most of us lived nearby.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
We bonded over simphlas and shavice meals, over holidays and
ordinary days. Grandpa helped prepare so many of the grand
the grandchildren for their bar mitzvahs. I would imagine there
are great grandchildren as well on their Yeah, great grandchildren
as well, which further bonded their connection. We always say,
(05:41):
may the Nifter be a militz yusher, an advocate in
heaven for the family.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
We say it, and we hope. But with Grandpa, it's
hard to imagine anything but that.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
You can almost hear him going up to Shamayan and saying,
I don't know if these would be the exact words,
but you could, this one needs a shit, this one
of parslaw, this one show him bias. I don't think
those would be the exact words, but I do think
he had a special attachment to the family.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
He wasn't like that Mullach.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Type presence, which is just gonna go up to Shamayim
and see how everything's good and leave it at that.
He's gonna remember what it felt.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Like down here. That's what I think.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
But because Grandpa cared. He cried not from being he
cried from being so deeply real. At every aliyah the
iliyas he would get at every simphra, he cried. Everybody
knows that it's And I'll end with this story. It's
a small one, but it captures the spirit. One time,
(06:50):
after dobbining in anshe matelaw the show where he served
as Goadby that was Ala.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
He came over to me and he asked, how's my
son doing?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You See, I'm married his granddaughter, so automatically I become
his grandson. And if I'm his grandson, naturally my father
must be his son. The only thing is my father
was in the same class as him, so my father
clearly was.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Not his son. But so I said, he's doing well today.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
He's learning or rasholkan elog nishmas his father. It's the
York site of his father. People who overheard were completely confused. Wait,
his son is learning his father's your site. Who's the
son again? It didn't make sense, but it made people laugh,
(07:38):
And that was Grandpa. Sometimes he created the humor, but
sometimes Hashm made the humor.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Ashem just made the world funny around him.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Perhaps it's because when you make your will his will,
he makes.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
His will your will.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I say, with son ko kurzonoha, with sona Kurtznra, that's
the mission on Turkeyovos, Grandpa, were going to miss you
so so much. Please being male, it's yuyscher for the
entire Kirshner family, Gershman family, left In family, Kleiman family,
the other Kirshner family, Newman family, and for all of
(08:18):
klaustral But you're in a shama, have a true in
lofty alia hama komnach.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Av riish line.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Just to add on a couple more words. I remember
in nineteen ninety eight, so I had a the brother
of a friend who was marrying into the family, and
I just remember that my father just going to town.
(08:49):
I lived in Saint Louis, and I never you know,
I heard tons of stories about my father's rebem in Yeshiva,
but I didn't really hear stories about anyone else. But
once the Kirshner name came up. I was in tenth grade.
Once the Christian name came up at the shavistable. So
my father went to town just saying how special this
(09:11):
family was, and he's like wow, he could get over
it that there's someone that he knows that's marrying into
the Kirshner family. He just kept repeating it. It was
just so impressionable to him. Now, little did he know
that eventually I would be doing that but about ten
years later. But at that time that was that's an
(09:32):
authentic response, because you know, it's like Masie, He's not
saying it to impress anyone. That was my father, who
was able to read people very very well. That was
just his first response. And he's definitely a very special person.
(09:54):
There's many traits that stand out, but one thing that's
very unique is the way the extended family stays in
touch with each other, to the point where it certainly
felt like this during the first several years I was
married into the family, and that it felt everyone felt
like immediate family for the first several years, especially when
(10:18):
Saptat Sylvia was alive, because then you even had the
Baltimore branch also was like all immediate family.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
But it's still felt.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Very much like a media family. Just to add on
one more thing that you see, we didn't speak about
Bobby Rito, but you have to realize how open their
house was. I remember I had a friend that came
(10:48):
to Chicago, and this was many years ago. This was
back when Bobby was around, and he just I don't
know why he went into their house. To me, it
sounded like he burkel rises the house like I was
still new to the family. So he came in to
see me, and I said, like, so, where were you today?
(11:11):
He's like, oh, I was at uh. I was at
Sheldon's house. There was no one there. I was just
there sitting on the recliner. And I was like, but
how did you get the key? And he's like, oh,
everybody knows that there's a key in the freezer over there,
and I think that's where it wasn't I'm not sure
actually because it's been so many years, but there's there
was a key somewhere there and just everybody knew. Everyone
(11:36):
knew exactly where the key. I didn't know where the
key was because I was still new to the family.
But he just sat on the recliner all afternoon. Nobody
was there, and he came back to the house. Now
what's interesting is that at the time he told me this,
I was at my in laws and I.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Believe Grandpa was there, and even my.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
In laws looked at each other like this guy might
be a little bit old, But to Grandpa, the guy
was not off like yeah, this is.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, why not, Like what's the problem, what's the problem?
Just continues straight.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So that's something that that really stands out. We're gonna
add a new dimension to this. The new dimension I
want to add is in America. The to me, the
(12:34):
places where Torah has the highest intensity, the places where
there's a rua toro which like radiates Kishmakite in America
at this point A lot of times, not always, but
a lot of times it's in Haredi places. For me,
I'm just saying for me, I like you'll just like
(12:56):
walk into the Chicago community Colol and you'll see just
people are on fire learning toro. You walk into tell Zishiva,
there's a cult Torah. People are are just you see
how how happy they are and how into it they are.
We have the stender guy, mean doob. We went to
(13:16):
the Chicago community Icolo and there was no other name
for him other than the stender guy.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
The stender guy was like a sixth grade kid.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
We don't know who he was, but he was so
a rangatan in Tosos the whole night that the stender
was vibrating and it was like the sender was taller.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Than he was.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
But like you see all these things that adds like
acuteness to the whole thing. And there's also these things
called him milcomptis toro that happens a lot of times
on yantif. I remember in Saint Louis we had it
between Minchre and marv And we've spoken about in Saint Louis,
who are you gonna get to have him alcompish Altro.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
We're in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But Barajashem and Saint Louis we had a rabbi Herbert
and by Greenblat. So the mocam was amazing. But it's
another way to get people into it. It's not a library.
A study hall is not a library. And the haadi
circles you really get to see it. You really get
to see it big time. When you get to the
(14:12):
more than non karadi circles, I think you have to
go to Ertisral.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I'm not saying you have places where you also.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Have a rua katoro, but a lot of them have
made Aliya already.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You have places in rtzal.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
But I think what makes Grandpa unique is that he
also had that geshchmakkite. It was a little bit in
a different way, perhaps in a more inspirational way from
any He did not have that brand of yiddiskite, yet
he still lived. Tora permeated every part of him. The
(14:53):
most recent conversation I had with him, other than when
I made a quick visit in the nursing home to
see him at the shoal, he had the words a
mullech and billum just written on his seat. And in fact,
if you go there now, it's still there. He says,
a mullik in billum and how he has certain letters circled.
(15:15):
There's something with those letters billum bays lamid iron memso fit.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Okay, okay, Stovie, can you remember those letters?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Okay, A mullich iron man so iron man is in
both words, right, Okay, Now you have lamid kof Okay,
so those words are not in billumka the lamit is.
But if he has on his standard even now he
has Grandpa. And if you go to Ashim just the
(15:46):
other day I saw it, you take if you circle.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
The iron of a mullech.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
The iron men say he has the bays lamed from
Billum circle to the eye iron men, which a Mullik's
on top, Billum's on the bottom, okay, or the other
way around bays Lamit is circle to the iron men.
So you have Billum and then he has the other circle,
(16:14):
the lamid koff and the iron mema Billum a mulley
got it. That's it if you mean what he has
is a mullik in Billum. He has it spelled vertically
whatever right to left is, and then he has it
also spelled from top to bottom without changing anything, which
(16:35):
shows you that they're one and the same, almost like
bill on you have bays lamed iron men, So right
you have iron men Lamit kuff. So you have those
words going that way, going from right to left. In
those same letters, you have it going from top to bottom.
It spells the same thing. So he has that on
(16:57):
a cender. It was something I went from Minheal. He
was there and I asked him what is this about?
And he was just showing me bill and a mulloch.
But I like, when you first look at him, you
know he has the tura of like a regular person
exactly what Hashem.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Intended for a human being to be for.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Real, like like Hashem doesn't want shm already has Malachem,
but he wants people to live in the physicality of
this world and elevate.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
It to kudusha.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And in a certain way, Grandpa did this better than
anyone I know. Another thing, when entering the family, everyone
said you have to have a varta for every single meal.
I loved personally, I loved that and I don't know
why it ever stopped. At some point, like many years
(17:53):
into the marriage, it stopped, maybe because everyone else was
giving their debrita.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
But people said that it like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It doesn't matter who you are, Like even you're not
even narrating to the family, you're just dating someone, but
you're gonna be asked and the meal will not continue
until you say your door toro. So sometimes it feels
almost like a joke because of the way of his delivery,
but then you realize the meal really isn't continuing. So
he he certainly took torres seriously. And I'm sure as
(18:26):
we go through the day and I hear words from
other people, there will be more memories and even stories
that will come to mind. There's a certain type of
resilience that Grandpa has that you see, like the fact
that he did get married a second time and at
(18:50):
the Cheva Broncos. I don't know if it was Scheva
Broncos or what it was, but I just remember this
being said. It's not really so much of a story
about Grandpa, but.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
There was.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Someone who got the name mixed up, and you know
we're dealing with at that point. Grandpa was well into
his seventies when he got married for the second time.
So someone got the name mixed up. Another person in
their seventies got the name mixed up. So someone said
(19:24):
this joke, and this is the joke.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
The joke is, there was two people in their mid
nineties that were dating each other.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
One was ninety six, the other was maybe ninety four
or maybe just they were both in their mid nineties.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
And the guy he, you know, he wanted to marry her.
He wanted to get married.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Maybe this was the second marriage, maybe this was a
third marriage. I don't know, but and he asked her
to marry him. Okay, So the following morning he was thinking,
he's like, you know, I know, last night I went
out with her and I asked her to marry me,
but I don't remember what she said. I don't remember
(20:11):
if she said yes or no. So so he called
her up and he said, I'm sorry, but like I know,
we went out last night and maybe we're engaged.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
I asked you if you'd marry me, and I'm sorry,
I just don't remember what you said. And she said,
you know, I'm so happy you called because I remember
last night someone asked me to marry them and I
said yes, but I just.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Couldn't remember who. I couldn't remember who it was. Now
I know it was you.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
So so that's but but that's you know, resilience. It
doesn't matter the age, just we still have life. And
as long as we have life, we're living it to
the fullest. We're just gonna go. We're gonna So we're
(21:11):
talking about Grandpa. We mentioned a little something about Bobby Rido.
I there's one thing that really stood out, just to
mention a Bobby for just a moment. I think the
most impressionable words that I heard at the Shiva House.
This was back I guess ten years ago, was someone
(21:32):
spoke about the way she benched Licht and they said
that Bobby is the is the proof that even even
regular people could be great.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I think that was the line.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
And apparently when she benched was something super super special,
like on par with the most crushable reptence and you
it was a there's a certain inspiration that the common
person could get from people like that. And I think
Grandpa was very much the same regarding that. I mean,
(22:10):
he really wasn't just a regular person, but in many
ways he had the same you know, the same.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Normal you know taie is.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Or I don't know that's the right word, just you know,
he had this he had a personality to him, and
it was like you feel like you could do it too.
It wasn't like we said before. It wasn't like looking
at it like that person's an angel.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
He could do it.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
I can't do it. No, if he could do it,
well I could also do it. That's what it looked like.
And so both of them were was very great. Well,
there was some other there was another story that hopefully
we'll say so we are going to end off with
(23:05):
that poem again, the poem which speaks about just the
story in Anshi Mato, but before we do. It's difficult
to speak about Grandpa without speaking about his toro. And
really it was in more recent times that I started
to really get the feeling that his torah was unique.
(23:28):
Is almost to the level of like rua kra kodash.
It actually felt to me like this is something that
like you can't just make up. I don't remember which
partsh it was. I think it was something in Partia's Noah.
And when I remember the dwar toro, I believe I
recorded it. I have to find the recording, and I
(23:50):
believe that I set it over in shul and a
dog show. But it was a very unique approach, something
very different from anything that I've ever heard, and it
just every think fit in like a puzzle, and he
presented it in such a way like this was the
way to learn it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
This was just like the push up shot.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And when he presented it, it was like there's no
other way to learn it. But yet I was learning
it differently for all these years. And when I think
of the Duar toro, so I'll say it, I have
a similar experience when I listened to Raviochlen's wig. I
know their styles are different, but there is in that
regard there is some type of a similarity, and when
(24:29):
you hear from Grandpa you try to wonder, like where
when is he figuring this stuff out? How is how
is he getting this clarity that he just goes on
and on going from this partia asking questions from another partia,
and yet he's giving you a completely different shot than
anything that most people have ever heard before. So I'm
(24:52):
sure that the people that have that know all of
the dire toro. So it's definitely to die to record it,
either on audio or in writing, record all of the
dirietora that he said, because it's not just taking things
from the stone hummage and reading it. And I don't
even think it's just the molelm like I sometimes.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It really was just learning the psulka. It really was.
It was.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
It was different than anyone else After hearing his tora,
it was the only way I was able to get
the partial to make sense. I'm thinking of one thing
in particular, I just have to go back to remember
what the devar tour was. But it wasn't just one thing,
and this was something that became clearer and clearer as
time went on, and it was something just very fascinating,
(25:40):
and I think if a person didn't notice it, it's
only because he had noni is to it, so you're
totally not expecting it. So it's almost like the brothers
of Yosef never recognized Yosef despite the fact they're looking
at him, and despite the fact that they could hear
his voice. Why couldn't they recognize his voice? So one
of the answers is because when you have a preconceived
notion as to who the person is, their perceived notion
(26:02):
was that Yosef was a slave, so they can't imagine
that this king in front of them is actually their brother.
So it could be something similar if you have Grandpa,
if he was dressed as a roshaeshiva, so then people
would recognize that these dum are like unbelievable and the
clarity that he speaks with is just totally amazing. But
(26:24):
when he has the tua not of rosheshiva, it might
take a couple of times before you realize that actually
the clarity is amazing. And maybe sometimes it did come
from this stone rummage, but I know in most recent
years a lot of it was his own or from
the malvin and the Torah would go on and on,
and he would ask questions, and he gave answers that
(26:46):
actually answered the questions.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
It was something different than I'm used to hearing. Hopefully
we'll hear more about that, Okay, I wish everyone with
just uh, we're gonna hear the poem.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And then hamlka and ask line, this is a poem
just about the story, the cute little story of him
asking how my son's doing after dovening at Aunt Shay
(27:26):
Mattala's hall.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
No, no, this is a poem. This is the same story,
but a poem.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
After dovining at anshe Matala's hall, he asked me gently,
not odd at all, how's my son doing?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
He said, with delight.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
You see, I'm his grandson by marriage, is right, so
my father, by logic became his own, even though they'd
grown up in the same zone. I smiled and replied,
he's learning today. It's the York side of his dad,
so he's learning away. People nearby just stood there, confused, used,
(28:00):
but Grandpa, of course was deeply amused. Sometimes he crafted
the humor he brought, and sometimes Hashan with a wink
just taught. When one lives with Simha with Torah and cheer.
The ribonoschel Eilam makes laughter appear. Grandpa will miss you
more than word. Show your wisdom, your warmth, your spiritual glow.
(28:25):
Please be our Melit's Yoischer. Guide us with love, and
may your nashama rise gently above
Funeral is at four o'clock PM today, and today is
April twenty first, twenty twenty five. So I wanted to
read to you something that I wrote, just reflections that
I wrote and stuff that I wrote the family, and
(00:21):
I wanted to share with you some reflections that I
wrote on Grandpa. Some of my family has heard this already,
but Dina is hearing it for the first time. So
here we go. And I specifically wanted to write this
before the funeral today because I wanted it to be
my words and I didn't want to be influenced by
any other words that are written. So in order to
(00:44):
ensure that it's as authentic as can be, I wrote
it before anyone else. Okay, Dina hasn't heard it yet.
So Grandpa was the most unique person I ever met.
The way Torah blended into his personality was so real
and authentic. While I've had Rebeam who had this type
(01:06):
of blend, Grandpa stood out because of his personality. He
carried Toro with a show business personality expressed in his
humor and even tone of voice. Toro personified this unique personality.
It's impossible to comprehend how this translates itself in real
life through imagination alone. You need to meet him. And
(01:29):
to those of you that didn't, you missed out. Every
family Simha was like a continuous share a radio show style,
entertaining yet deeply serious, humorous, but deeply spiritual. When I
say serious, I mean focused on Toro. There are people
who live with joy, then there are people.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Who are joy. Grandpa was joy.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
His humor was not a part of his personality, It
was so much more. It was integrated into his essence.
He brought light into a room just by being himself,
making Yiddish kite look beautiful as the most natural, life
giving path a person could walk. In Chicago, everybody knew Grandpa.
People would ask me who I was, and I'd say,
(02:16):
I'm married to the granddaughter of Sheldon Kirshner.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
That was all it took.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
He was known by everyone across every sect of Orthodoxy,
graside Garadi Tioni.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
He related to them all.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
He was a tamil rochem, especially in te Nach, with
a special love for the Moblin's commentary for Parnossa. He
worked as an electrician, designing complex traffic like traffic like
patterns for the city, but he was not an electrician
who happened to learn. He was a maggot cheer, giving
(02:48):
malbom in shoals in the community throughout the week. He
was a torah teacher who worked in electricity to support
his family. He also did a lot of kresse with
his electrician skills, helping people, making it cheaper for people
who weren't able to afford what the full price would
(03:11):
have been. Sometimes people think religious Jews are deprived of
the pleasures of life, but Grandpa made Yiddish kite soga
schmack so fulfilling that it became clear if there was
any deprivation, it was on.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
The other side. He approached life.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
With its mianistic a wholesome sincerity. One of the most
beautiful examples of this was his wedding to Bubby. It
was in a basement with no guests. This authentic torah
was passed on to each of his seven children.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
There are many.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Ways to tell whether the torah is being transmitted and
lived in a way that is authentic part and parcel
of their personality, and there are ways to tell whether
the parents are being mechanical each child in a way
that torah is sweet to them One of the biggest
proofs to me is not just the fact that all children, grandchildren,
and great grandchildren are shower tore imtzals, but all of
(04:07):
them have a simpl sakayan and have chosen the path
that is unique from each other. Not only that, but
at times they even chose a different sect of Orthodoxy.
Grandpa supported each path, and the love for Torah didn't
stop at observance. It extended into learning and a passion
(04:27):
for teaching. He was the life of every party, the
center of every Kiddish. It's hard to picture a Kirshner
simpo without him. People often say when someone passes, they'll
be missed or they will be an empty seat at
the table, and a while those words are always true,
they don't come close to describing the loss we feel
(04:48):
with Grandpa. This is a loss felt deeply across multiple generations.
The Kirshner extended family was like immediate family, and this
was well known across the city, by the way, and
I was told this even before I got married into
the family. I'm gonna finish what I wrote, but I'm
gonna add some words of my own over here.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
This is the words that I wrote. Here are my own.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I'm gonna add more words off script in a minute.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Most of us lived nearby.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
We bonded over simphlas and shavice meals, over holidays and
ordinary days. Grandpa helped prepare so many of the grand
the grandchildren for their bar mitzvahs. I would imagine there
are great grandchildren as well on their Yeah, great grandchildren
as well, which further bonded their connection. We always say,
(05:41):
may the Nifter be a militz yusher, an advocate in
heaven for the family.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
We say it, and we hope. But with Grandpa, it's
hard to imagine anything but that.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
You can almost hear him going up to Shamayan and saying,
I don't know if these would be the exact words,
but you could, this one needs a shit, this one
of parslaw, this one show him bias. I don't think
those would be the exact words, but I do think
he had a special attachment to the family.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
He wasn't like that Mullach.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Type presence, which is just gonna go up to Shamayim
and see how everything's good and leave it at that.
He's gonna remember what it felt.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Like down here. That's what I think.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
But because Grandpa cared. He cried not from being he
cried from being so deeply real. At every aliyah the
iliyas he would get at every simphra, he cried. Everybody
knows that it's And I'll end with this story. It's
a small one, but it captures the spirit. One time,
(06:50):
after dobbining in anshe matelaw the show where he served
as Goadby that was Ala.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
He came over to me and he asked, how's my
son doing?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You See, I'm married his granddaughter, so automatically I become
his grandson. And if I'm his grandson, naturally my father
must be his son. The only thing is my father
was in the same class as him, so my father
clearly was.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Not his son. But so I said, he's doing well today.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
He's learning or rasholkan elog nishmas his father. It's the
York site of his father. People who overheard were completely confused. Wait,
his son is learning his father's your site. Who's the
son again? It didn't make sense, but it made people laugh,
(07:38):
And that was Grandpa. Sometimes he created the humor, but
sometimes Hashm made the humor.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Ashem just made the world funny around him.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Perhaps it's because when you make your will his will,
he makes.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
His will your will.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I say, with son ko kurzonoha, with sona Kurtznra, that's
the mission on Turkeyovos, Grandpa, were going to miss you
so so much. Please being male, it's yuyscher for the
entire Kirshner family, Gershman family, left In family, Kleiman family,
the other Kirshner family, Newman family, and for all of
(08:18):
klaustral But you're in a shama, have a true in
lofty alia hama komnach.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Av riish line.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Just to add on a couple more words. I remember
in nineteen ninety eight, so I had a the brother
of a friend who was marrying into the family, and
I just remember that my father just going to town.
(08:49):
I lived in Saint Louis, and I never you know,
I heard tons of stories about my father's rebem in Yeshiva,
but I didn't really hear stories about anyone else. But
once the Kirshner name came up. I was in tenth grade.
Once the Christian name came up at the shavistable. So
my father went to town just saying how special this
(09:11):
family was, and he's like wow, he could get over
it that there's someone that he knows that's marrying into
the Kirshner family. He just kept repeating it. It was
just so impressionable to him. Now, little did he know
that eventually I would be doing that but about ten
years later. But at that time that was that's an
(09:32):
authentic response, because you know, it's like Masie, He's not
saying it to impress anyone. That was my father, who
was able to read people very very well. That was
just his first response. And he's definitely a very special person.
(09:54):
There's many traits that stand out, but one thing that's
very unique is the way the extended family stays in
touch with each other, to the point where it certainly
felt like this during the first several years I was
married into the family, and that it felt everyone felt
like immediate family for the first several years, especially when
(10:18):
Saptat Sylvia was alive, because then you even had the
Baltimore branch also was like all immediate family.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
But it's still felt.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Very much like a media family. Just to add on
one more thing that you see, we didn't speak about
Bobby Rito, but you have to realize how open their
house was. I remember I had a friend that came
(10:48):
to Chicago, and this was many years ago. This was
back when Bobby was around, and he just I don't
know why he went into their house. To me, it
sounded like he burkel rises the house like I was
still new to the family. So he came in to
see me, and I said, like, so, where were you today?
(11:11):
He's like, oh, I was at uh. I was at
Sheldon's house. There was no one there. I was just
there sitting on the recliner. And I was like, but
how did you get the key? And he's like, oh,
everybody knows that there's a key in the freezer over there,
and I think that's where it wasn't I'm not sure
actually because it's been so many years, but there's there
was a key somewhere there and just everybody knew. Everyone
(11:36):
knew exactly where the key. I didn't know where the
key was because I was still new to the family.
But he just sat on the recliner all afternoon. Nobody
was there, and he came back to the house. Now
what's interesting is that at the time he told me this,
I was at my in laws and I.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Believe Grandpa was there, and even my.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
In laws looked at each other like this guy might
be a little bit old, But to Grandpa, the guy
was not off like yeah, this is.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, why not, Like what's the problem, what's the problem?
Just continues straight.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So that's something that that really stands out. We're gonna
add a new dimension to this. The new dimension I
want to add is in America. The to me, the
(12:34):
places where Torah has the highest intensity, the places where
there's a rua toro which like radiates Kishmakite in America
at this point A lot of times, not always, but
a lot of times it's in Haredi places. For me,
I'm just saying for me, I like you'll just like
(12:56):
walk into the Chicago community Colol and you'll see just
people are on fire learning toro. You walk into tell Zishiva,
there's a cult Torah. People are are just you see
how how happy they are and how into it they are.
We have the stender guy, mean doob. We went to
(13:16):
the Chicago community Icolo and there was no other name
for him other than the stender guy.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
The stender guy was like a sixth grade kid.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
We don't know who he was, but he was so
a rangatan in Tosos the whole night that the stender
was vibrating and it was like the sender was taller.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Than he was.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
But like you see all these things that adds like
acuteness to the whole thing. And there's also these things
called him milcomptis toro that happens a lot of times
on yantif. I remember in Saint Louis we had it
between Minchre and marv And we've spoken about in Saint Louis,
who are you gonna get to have him alcompish Altro.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
We're in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But Barajashem and Saint Louis we had a rabbi Herbert
and by Greenblat. So the mocam was amazing. But it's
another way to get people into it. It's not a library.
A study hall is not a library. And the haadi
circles you really get to see it. You really get
to see it big time. When you get to the
(14:12):
more than non karadi circles, I think you have to
go to Ertisral.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I'm not saying you have places where you also.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Have a rua katoro, but a lot of them have
made Aliya already.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You have places in rtzal.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
But I think what makes Grandpa unique is that he
also had that geshchmakkite. It was a little bit in
a different way, perhaps in a more inspirational way from
any He did not have that brand of yiddiskite, yet
he still lived. Tora permeated every part of him. The
(14:53):
most recent conversation I had with him, other than when
I made a quick visit in the nursing home to
see him at the shoal, he had the words a
mullech and billum just written on his seat. And in fact,
if you go there now, it's still there. He says,
a mullik in billum and how he has certain letters circled.
(15:15):
There's something with those letters billum bays lamid iron memso fit.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Okay, okay, Stovie, can you remember those letters?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Okay, A mullich iron man so iron man is in
both words, right, Okay, Now you have lamid kof Okay,
so those words are not in billumka the lamit is.
But if he has on his standard even now he
has Grandpa. And if you go to Ashim just the
(15:46):
other day I saw it, you take if you circle.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
The iron of a mullech.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
The iron men say he has the bays lamed from
Billum circle to the eye iron men, which a Mullik's
on top, Billum's on the bottom, okay, or the other
way around bays Lamit is circle to the iron men.
So you have Billum and then he has the other circle,
(16:14):
the lamid koff and the iron mema Billum a mulley
got it. That's it if you mean what he has
is a mullik in Billum. He has it spelled vertically
whatever right to left is, and then he has it
also spelled from top to bottom without changing anything, which
(16:35):
shows you that they're one and the same, almost like
bill on you have bays lamed iron men, So right
you have iron men Lamit kuff. So you have those
words going that way, going from right to left. In
those same letters, you have it going from top to bottom.
It spells the same thing. So he has that on
(16:57):
a cender. It was something I went from Minheal. He
was there and I asked him what is this about?
And he was just showing me bill and a mulloch.
But I like, when you first look at him, you
know he has the tura of like a regular person
exactly what Hashem.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Intended for a human being to be for.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Real, like like Hashem doesn't want shm already has Malachem,
but he wants people to live in the physicality of
this world and elevate.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
It to kudusha.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And in a certain way, Grandpa did this better than
anyone I know. Another thing, when entering the family, everyone
said you have to have a varta for every single meal.
I loved personally, I loved that and I don't know
why it ever stopped. At some point, like many years
(17:53):
into the marriage, it stopped, maybe because everyone else was
giving their debrita.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
But people said that it like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It doesn't matter who you are, Like even you're not
even narrating to the family, you're just dating someone, but
you're gonna be asked and the meal will not continue
until you say your door toro. So sometimes it feels
almost like a joke because of the way of his delivery,
but then you realize the meal really isn't continuing. So
he he certainly took torres seriously. And I'm sure as
(18:26):
we go through the day and I hear words from
other people, there will be more memories and even stories
that will come to mind. There's a certain type of
resilience that Grandpa has that you see, like the fact
that he did get married a second time and at
(18:50):
the Cheva Broncos. I don't know if it was Scheva
Broncos or what it was, but I just remember this
being said. It's not really so much of a story
about Grandpa, but.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
There was.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Someone who got the name mixed up, and you know
we're dealing with at that point. Grandpa was well into
his seventies when he got married for the second time.
So someone got the name mixed up. Another person in
their seventies got the name mixed up. So someone said
(19:24):
this joke, and this is the joke.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
The joke is, there was two people in their mid
nineties that were dating each other.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
One was ninety six, the other was maybe ninety four
or maybe just they were both in their mid nineties.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
And the guy he, you know, he wanted to marry her.
He wanted to get married.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Maybe this was the second marriage, maybe this was a
third marriage. I don't know, but and he asked her
to marry him. Okay, So the following morning he was thinking,
he's like, you know, I know, last night I went
out with her and I asked her to marry me,
but I don't remember what she said. I don't remember
(20:11):
if she said yes or no. So so he called
her up and he said, I'm sorry, but like I know,
we went out last night and maybe we're engaged.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
I asked you if you'd marry me, and I'm sorry,
I just don't remember what you said. And she said,
you know, I'm so happy you called because I remember
last night someone asked me to marry them and I
said yes, but I just.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Couldn't remember who. I couldn't remember who it was. Now
I know it was you.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
So so that's but but that's you know, resilience. It
doesn't matter the age, just we still have life. And
as long as we have life, we're living it to
the fullest. We're just gonna go. We're gonna So we're
(21:11):
talking about Grandpa. We mentioned a little something about Bobby Rido.
I there's one thing that really stood out, just to
mention a Bobby for just a moment. I think the
most impressionable words that I heard at the Shiva House.
This was back I guess ten years ago, was someone
(21:32):
spoke about the way she benched Licht and they said
that Bobby is the is the proof that even even
regular people could be great.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I think that was the line.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
And apparently when she benched was something super super special,
like on par with the most crushable reptence and you
it was a there's a certain inspiration that the common
person could get from people like that. And I think
Grandpa was very much the same regarding that. I mean,
(22:10):
he really wasn't just a regular person, but in many
ways he had the same you know, the same.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Normal you know taie is.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Or I don't know that's the right word, just you know,
he had this he had a personality to him, and
it was like you feel like you could do it too.
It wasn't like we said before. It wasn't like looking
at it like that person's an angel.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
He could do it.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
I can't do it. No, if he could do it,
well I could also do it. That's what it looked like.
And so both of them were was very great. Well,
there was some other there was another story that hopefully
we'll say so we are going to end off with
(23:05):
that poem again, the poem which speaks about just the
story in Anshi Mato, but before we do. It's difficult
to speak about Grandpa without speaking about his toro. And
really it was in more recent times that I started
to really get the feeling that his torah was unique.
(23:28):
Is almost to the level of like rua kra kodash.
It actually felt to me like this is something that
like you can't just make up. I don't remember which
partsh it was. I think it was something in Partia's Noah.
And when I remember the dwar toro, I believe I
recorded it. I have to find the recording, and I
(23:50):
believe that I set it over in shul and a
dog show. But it was a very unique approach, something
very different from anything that I've ever heard, and it
just every think fit in like a puzzle, and he
presented it in such a way like this was the
way to learn it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
This was just like the push up shot.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And when he presented it, it was like there's no
other way to learn it. But yet I was learning
it differently for all these years. And when I think
of the Duar toro, so I'll say it, I have
a similar experience when I listened to Raviochlen's wig. I
know their styles are different, but there is in that
regard there is some type of a similarity, and when
(24:29):
you hear from Grandpa you try to wonder, like where
when is he figuring this stuff out? How is how
is he getting this clarity that he just goes on
and on going from this partia asking questions from another partia,
and yet he's giving you a completely different shot than
anything that most people have ever heard before. So I'm
(24:52):
sure that the people that have that know all of
the dire toro. So it's definitely to die to record it,
either on audio or in writing, record all of the
dirietora that he said, because it's not just taking things
from the stone hummage and reading it. And I don't
even think it's just the molelm like I sometimes.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It really was just learning the psulka. It really was.
It was.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
It was different than anyone else After hearing his tora,
it was the only way I was able to get
the partial to make sense. I'm thinking of one thing
in particular, I just have to go back to remember
what the devar tour was. But it wasn't just one thing,
and this was something that became clearer and clearer as
time went on, and it was something just very fascinating,
(25:40):
and I think if a person didn't notice it, it's
only because he had noni is to it, so you're
totally not expecting it. So it's almost like the brothers
of Yosef never recognized Yosef despite the fact they're looking
at him, and despite the fact that they could hear
his voice. Why couldn't they recognize his voice? So one
of the answers is because when you have a preconceived
notion as to who the person is, their perceived notion
(26:02):
was that Yosef was a slave, so they can't imagine
that this king in front of them is actually their brother.
So it could be something similar if you have Grandpa,
if he was dressed as a roshaeshiva, so then people
would recognize that these dum are like unbelievable and the
clarity that he speaks with is just totally amazing. But
(26:24):
when he has the tua not of rosheshiva, it might
take a couple of times before you realize that actually
the clarity is amazing. And maybe sometimes it did come
from this stone rummage, but I know in most recent
years a lot of it was his own or from
the malvin and the Torah would go on and on,
and he would ask questions, and he gave answers that
(26:46):
actually answered the questions.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
It was something different than I'm used to hearing. Hopefully
we'll hear more about that, Okay, I wish everyone with
just uh, we're gonna hear the poem.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And then hamlka and ask line, this is a poem
just about the story, the cute little story of him
asking how my son's doing after dovening at Aunt Shay
(27:26):
Mattala's hall.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
No, no, this is a poem. This is the same story,
but a poem.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
After dovining at anshe Matala's hall, he asked me gently,
not odd at all, how's my son doing?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
He said, with delight.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
You see, I'm his grandson by marriage, is right, so
my father, by logic became his own, even though they'd
grown up in the same zone. I smiled and replied,
he's learning today. It's the York side of his dad,
so he's learning away. People nearby just stood there, confused, used,
(28:00):
but Grandpa, of course was deeply amused. Sometimes he crafted
the humor he brought, and sometimes Hashan with a wink
just taught. When one lives with Simha with Torah and cheer.
The ribonoschel Eilam makes laughter appear. Grandpa will miss you
more than word. Show your wisdom, your warmth, your spiritual glow.
(28:25):
Please be our Melit's Yoischer. Guide us with love, and
may your nashama rise gently above
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