Rabbi Yaakov Perlow of Blessed Memory

This is a tragic loss for Klal Yisroel. But for me it’s personal. He was known to the world as the Novominsker Rebbe and the head of the Council of Torah Sages of Agudath Israel (commonly called the Moetzes).

But I will always remember him as Rabbi Perlow, my 12^thgrade Rebbe.

Along with my then fellow twelfth graders (class of 64) at HTC’s high school (now called Fasman Yeshiva High School) - we were his very first students. A distinction not soon forgotten by any Rebbe whose calling was to teach Torah. Through the years long after he left Chicago, he would always greet me when he came back and we happened to cross paths. The last time I saw him was when he came to HTC a few years ago for a lecture. (No longer recall the subject.) When he saw me, he addressed me by my first name and asked how I was doing. At the time it was well over 50 years since he had been my Rebbe.

Rabbi Perlow was an excellent Baal Mazbir – explaining with clarity many difficult portions of the Gemmrah. I loved being in his Shiur He was a dynamo… revolutionizing the high school with a program that encouraged students to excel in their Torah study by spending extra time in the Beis HaMedrash. It was a voluntary program but many students took him up on it. And they did indeed excel.

But the Yeshiva was not my only connection with him. He had a small Minyan in a house that was converted to a Shul (a shtiebel of sorts) where my father was his main Baal Tefilah (Chazan) for Shabbos, Yom Tov and the Yomim Noraim (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur).

His tenure in Chicago lasted for 7 years when in 1970 he was offered a position as head of Breuer’s in New York. Some time after that he opened his own Yeshiva in Boro Park and shortly after that he joined the Agudah Motetzes and eventually became its head.

While he was student in Yeshivas Chaim Berlin under Rav Yitzchak Hutner Rabbi Perlow attended Brooklyn College and got his Bachelor’s Degree. I recall a friend of mine telling me that when he asked Rabbi Perlow why he attended college, he answered that he believed it would help him better understand certain portions of the Talmud.

What many people may not know about Rabbi Perlow is that my own Rebbe, Rav Ahron Soloveichik was also his Rebbe at Chaim Berlin (before Rav Ahron accepted the position as the Rosh HaYeshiva at HTC).

Rabbi Perlow was invited to eulogize Rav Ahron in Yeshivas Brisk at the Hespid Shloshim. He accepted and flew in to Chicago. And informed us that it was Rav Ahron who taught him his first Rambam.

Now he’s gone. Baruch Dayan HaEmes. May his memory be for a blessing.

I rarely deal with memorials to the recently departed unless I have a special connection to them. But because of this insidious deadly virus, I have done so two days in a row.

When will this plague end?