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| Furst Hall | Room 103 Zysman Hall |
The Rav gave Gemara classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in Furst Hall and Zysman Hall.
"When the Rav gave shiur it was like angels were descending from heaven. It came together like a symphony orchestra." Hershel Schachter YU Commentator
Lamport Auditorium
In this beautiful hall, the Rav gave his yearly public yerzheit lectures in honor of his father's memory. The lectures would last for hours. The audience often numbered as many as 2,000 people, including those listening to a simulcast in an adjacent room. Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky was known to comment on the enormous kiddush Hashem produced by such well-attended (unheard of in those days) Torah discourses.
"The breadth and depth of the Rav's grasp of Torah in all its diversity--Tanach, Talmud, Rishonim, Poskim, Aggadah. Piyut - was dazzling. Concerning R. Yosef ibn Megash, the Rambam writes that 'his mind was frightening and awesome.' So may it be said of the Rav. A mind like the Rav's appears only rarely in each century. His impact on peoples' thinking was powerful and many who heard a single shiur were dramatically influenced. Great lomdim and laymen alike, were captivated by the force of his logic and presentation, which left a permanent mark on their future study. " (Rabbi Menachem Genack, Jewish Action)
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| Morgenstern Dormitory |
The Rav stayed here in room 102 on Tuesday and Wednesday nights for decades. In earlier years, he stayed in the Rubin Dormitory, also on the first floor. He would commute from Boston on Tuesday mornings and return to Boston on Thursday evening.
"The Rav's modesty was astounding. His apartment in the Morgenstern dorm was the height of simplicity and he treated every visitor young and old with the utmost respect." Howard Jachter, The Rav as an Aging Giant (1983-1985) - Legacies (YU Commentator)
On Tuesday nights, the Rav lectured before a public audience of several hundred people from 8-10 PM at the Moriah Shul on Broadway and W. 80th street in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The lecture was organized by the Chevra Shas Haklalith of New York. (Maurice Laub, Tuesday Evenings with the Rav, YU Commentator)
"The Tuesday evening shiur follows an unwritten scenario. It is announced for 8:00 o'clock and everyone is seated at his seat, never assigned, but a regular seat nevertheless by dint of custom, before 8:00. We are not only students but worshippers, so there will always be a service or two or three before the shiur. The people around me converse about the events of the day, bust mostly I hear stock market talk, law court talk, and professional rabbinic talk. The Rav rarely comes at 8, usually ten minutes after 8. His arrival is ushered in by a sudden hush. Everyone rises and waits till he takes his seat next to the Ark. It is pro forma to rise when a rabbi enters, but our rising is not a mere formality; ours is so obviously a mark of respect, love and affection. The Rav strides in briskly, removes his coat, changes to a yarmulka, ascends the bimah around which all of us are seated in a flattened U pattern, waits patiently till the microphone is affixed to his jacket and begins with his opening question, "Where are we?" waits for no answer but proceeds immediately to where we left off last week.
"...I usually make a mental note about the ease or difficulty of a passage to come and I usually am wrong. What I think easy turns out to be an illusion, for the Rav uncovers meaning after meaning, each increasingly complex and my head begins to swim with the revealed intricacies and I look at myself in a befuddlement as a simpleton who cannot make a judgment as to what is hard and what is easy. Of course, all the complexities are eventually resolved and the passage suddenly is lucid and easy again, but only in the sense that a beautiful structure, so pleasing at first glace, takes on greater beauty after an examination of what went into it between blueprint and actuality. On the other hand, I am sometimes stumped by a passage that seems very hard to me and I try to work it out in advance, often without success. At the shiur I learn that it really is very easy - all it needed was a single reference to another passage or to a statement in a commentary, or another meaning to a key word. And what seemed so hard is now so simple! The Rav's shiur is a series of surprises, topsy-turvy Talmudic terms, and delightful astonishments. " (Maurice Laub, Tuesday Evenings with the Rav, YU Commentator)