The legendary Rabbi Dr. Alter Benzion Metzger passed away at age 92. May his memory be a blessing.
He was a professor at YU’s Stern College for women. He was an author and scholar. At weekday farbrengens he would simultaneously translate the Rebbe’s sichos into English for the little radios people would wear during the farbrengens. He was actually present at the Rebbe’s first farbrengen, when Rebbe accepted the role as Rebbe, on the 10th of Shevat 5711/1951. He heard the Rebbe’s first Basi L’Gani and likely all (or nearly all) of the subsequent Basi L’Ganis said annually since.
He was a broad-ranging & eclectic thinker, an unusual Chassid, a big head swirling with ideas – so much going on! He was a passionate intellectual, with both a thunder & a chuckle, a giant in both simple faith & complex philosophy, & knower and appreciator of people.
I spent 7 summers with him at the ILSTP (Ivy League Torah Study Program run by NCFJE) or as he called it “The Program.” I enjoyed his wise company, his insights and observations. I learned a great deal from him. He had so much to say, whether it was a lecture or lesson or just a quip (of which he had many!), such a breadth of knowledge!
One of my best classes here at Shabbos House over the years explores 3 Jewish movements’ interpretation-turned-philosophy of a 3-word verse from Habakuk. I developed the class to include 3 Dr. Seuss books as illustration but the kernel of the idea I gleaned from a side comment, a little gem, a nugget that Rabbi Metzger casually dropped, almost as a throwaway line, as a I concluded a Tanya class at the ILTSP/MyJSF class one summer morning.
Speaking of his comments on my Tanya class. I remember him asking me to encapsulate Tanya’s Beinoni in three words. He had this expression he liked: “Struggle is Significant!”. He would thunder it, he would mumble it. It was a deeply ingrained and oft-repeated mantra. I like to teach Tanya by theme, and I’ve titled my Tanya 15,27,30 series “The Struggle is Significant” for Rabbi Metzger.
Despite his depth & breadth of vast stores of knowledge, despite all his scholarly background, he had a hyper focus on original wording, key phrases, I remember him teaching this way at ILTSP/MyJSF: He had an educational technique of asking adult students to shout out repeatedly key classic phrases (I remember him leading chants of “Lechatchila Ariber” and “Shomaya K’Oneh” etc) ingrained! – even before they fully understood what the terms meant.
True, Rabbi Dr. Alter Metzger was enamored with ideas, but he also deeply appreciated people & thought lovingly of them. He’d mention their names, extol their virtues. I remember one of “the program” (as he’d call it) alumni, (I knew him also via the Chabad on Campus family), Rabbi Metzger often mentioned him by his Hebrew name & his mother’s Hebrew name, (accentuated by an exclamation point) & repeatedly mention the extraordinary dedication and sacrifice this person had for Jewish observance. He’d mention people in that way, whether you knew them or not.
And he told me this story from a visit to the former Soviet Union, about the Aramaic prayer from the Zohar said when we open the Ark to take out the Torah. I shared it with the students this Shabbos in his memory.
Rabbi Metzger was a very real person. The genuine article, the real McCoy – as my Zeide Moshe would say. Rabbi Metzger was unique and I’m grateful to have spent those summers with him. May his memory be a blessing.