Rabbi Reuven Mann zt”l

Jessie Fischbein 

I came to Masoret, Institute of Advanced Judaic Studies for Women, when I was 19 years old. I went to college in the morning, then got a ride to a ramshackle shul in Inwood (I am grateful to the many women over the years who drove me and my baby to and fro when I had no car), and we banged our heads against the gemara from 2-3:30pm. From 3:30-5pm was shiur. For about 7-10 years Rabbi Mann taught us gemara on a very abstract level. He went through the sugya, he went through the Rishonim. We learned to break down a machlokes. "Which side makes more sense to you?" We'd divvy up the room and debate. There were rousing arguments and there were silences where we all pondered. Once one side was clear, it became almost impossible to understand the other side.

Until we went through the whole thing again, to understand the other side. Then we began to understand אלו ואלו דברי אלוקים חיים, both sides are the words of the living God. A machlokes is two logical sides and both are based on reasoning. We searched to find where they agreed and where they disagreed.

And what about a three-way machlokes? R' Mann famously had a methodology for that, too. It's still a two-way debate, with 2 of the 3 positions having a sub-debate. We analyzed many machloksim that way. Then we went through the Rishonim and analyzed their analyses of the machloksim. It was rigorous. It was invigorating. I'd never seen learning like that.

Chumash was even more eye opening to me. I am indebted to R' Mann for sugyas in Brachos (davening, kiddush), Moed Katan (aveilus), Succah (teshvu k'ein taduru which affects my attitude toward living in the succah to this day), Pesachim (so many aspects of the seder). He always kept it practical even while he opened up new worlds of ideas. But Chumash, I never heard anyone learn Chumash like this. Taking the story and asking the most basic questions. Questions anyone would ask but didn't dare. Questions everyone should ask. I learned with him for over 30 years and every year he found new questions. I always had a sense of infinity of Torah because he could do the same area year after year but he was always excited to find new questions. "We never asked this question, did we?" And he always wanted us to sit and enjoy the question before we rushed to answer. "Just enjoy the question." "It's a great question, right?" He also was extremely methodical about asking the questions, teaching us how to organize the questions, what were the essential questions and what were the smaller questions. All this trained us to use the questions to break open the area.

Even the meforshim did not escape the merciless questions. Many was a time Rabbi Mann shrugged and left the question open.

One of my favorite parts of Masoret was the silences. We used to sit and think. After we got the facts and after we asked the questions and after we were guided as to which questions were the essential questions, it was time to think. We all sat quietly to think. What would happen next? What would we think of? We offered possibilities. R' Mann always wanted to hear everyone's opinion before he offered his own thoughts. He was not there just to tell us what he thought; he was there to teach us how to learn. "It's always good if you can be your own chevrusa," he would say. I used to make cartoons with "Rabbi Mann"isms in the old days. I remember drawing a cartoon with a stick figure learning in the mirror with a sefer, being their own chevrusa.

I frequently think about what he taught us about the kruvim (cherubim). Their "na'ar" youthful faces, because learning Torah is approached with youthful energy, as if you are seeing the area for the first time and learning it as if it is new. And there are 2 kruvim because learning Torah is social. Torah is for sharing. On the last day of shiur, at 81 years old, Rabbi Mann had his full youthful vitality and was excited to share Torah.

Rabbi Mann loved Rivka Immenu. He loved how proactive she was, how clever. He loved Esther, how she charged the people to fast for 3 days and used the time to make a huge strategic plan designed to pit Haman and Achashverosh against each other. 

And Rabbi Mann blew me away when analyzing midrashim. Never had I learned midrashim in any way that made sense until Rabbi Mann opened my eyes. He could take a midrash that was incomprehensible, that seemed to be a fairy tale, and crack it open until it was a shining light of wisdom and insight. It was breathtaking. Again, he used the same methodology. Ask the basic questions. Stick to what we know to be true. Keep hashkafic points clear (we needed guidance with that, but over the years he taught us many sources that helped). Think, think, think. And his answers were delightful. Pure delight to have something incomprehensible end up not just making sense, but being a pathway to character development or a whole way of life. His Torah not only brought intellectual joy, it was incredibly useful in my life. His shiur on lo sachmod, the Ibn Ezra on Do not covet, for example: understanding my "portion" and what that really means and how internalizing that can prevent jealousy. 

And the witty observations he made ad hoc. "When someone cuts you off in the car and you get annoyed, think about it--you never cut anyone off in your life? And let's say maybe you didn't, maybe you're makpid (scrupulous) about that particular. Did you never do anything annoying in your whole life? Impossible."

And that time he came in all excited, that he wrote to someone who had killed someone while drunk driving. He wrote to them to explain to them the concept of teshuva, to not despair. This person was not Jewish. He had read something they wrote in the paper and felt compelled to share with them that there was hope, that the Jewish idea of teshuva could change their life. He was fired up by that notion. Later, this Jewish idea of teshuva guided me as a parent when I made mistakes, and in my attitude towards my children when I understood not to get angry but to pass on the idea that you can try again.

And the Rambam. I had never learned Rambam before. He broke it down and analyzed it and asked questions. A whole new world of learning opened up. Hashkafically and halachically. Was there a year we didn't look at Hilchos Teshuva before Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur? (Yes, when he started learning the Rav with us.)

And his shiur on Para Aduma (the red heifer), which I've merited to give over many times. Who would dare study Para Aduma? I remember sitting breathless with my notebook open, as he went through the sources about how hard it is to understand and how he painstakingly went through the Sforno, step by step. Who else could explain it in a way that I can now give over to high schoolers, to people with no background, and people nod, "Yes, that makes so much sense." People walk away happy, enlightened.

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen to the side, in Masoret in the early days. My husband reminded me that when our first child was born, Rabbi Mann moved the entire Masoret to my in-laws for two weeks so I could attend with my newborn. Later, whenever the baby cried, I would quickly get up and listen from the next room so I wouldn't disturb him. R' Mann was incredibly sensitive to noises (he hated even having the air conditioner on during shiur in the summer) but he tolerated his discomfort when the babies made noises because he valued women's learning and wanted me to learn as long as I could keep coming. Many women came to Masoret during their maternity leaves. 

The summer programs were their own exciting entities. Rabbi Mann set up a month of weeklong full day learning, shiurim by different teachers, some years including evening classes. We got a variety of classes those summers. They brought me back to my year in Israel. If anything, I found the Torah more exciting than my year in Israel because I appreciated Torah so much more once Rabbi Mann taught me how to ask questions, analyze text and midrashim, and was there to provide satisfying answers. And if he couldn't find an answer, that didn't bother him either. He didn't push to find answers that didn't work. He let the questions stand. That was an important lesson, too.

Until R' Mann moved to Arizona, Masoret was 3:30-5pm. Some years he only had 3 students. If he was willing to teach only 3 people, I was happy to be one of them. It was only because R' Mann persisted in teaching women even if there was a tiny group that I benefited to learn the Torah I learned. He also pushed me to teach. If he knew I was giving a shiur or if I was stuck on a question and had to give shiur on it, he would go out of his way to go through the area in shiur. For many years, shiur was sometimes questions that occurred to him, and just as often questions we brought to him. There is something very special about getting Torah tailored to your questions. He also encouraged us to discuss middos (character development) questions with the group. Torah was not just intellectual, it was something we were trying to live, and we had all sorts of interpersonal issues that benefited from a Torah perspective. That doesn't mean we always agreed with him. He loved a good fight and he was often intentionally provocative, making extreme remarks that forced us to push back.

When he moved to Arizona, his shiur shifted to over the phone. I invested in one of those fancy triangle conference phones. I almost had the codes to the group call memorized. It was easier at that point to have my children running around in the background because of the mute button. I knew for a fact that Arizona does not do daylight savings time because they don't turn the clock. R' Mann adjusted his schedule to us so we kept the same time for shiur. The only time shiur changed was during Chanuka candles if shiur ended up being in the middle of shkia, sunset. 

A few years ago, R' Mann moved to Israel and wanted to change to Zoom. I resisted, but it was an improvement on many levels. I am so blessed to have gotten to see my Rebbe's face shining with happiness every day as he taught us new Torah. His Torah blossomed even more in Israel. He was finding new audiences, reading new books, starting to give shiur in Hebrew (with meticulous preparation), having his weekly articles translated. I never especially enjoyed Rabbi Mann's long politics discussions, but I even find myself missing those now. I was hoping for more insider Israeli politics once he was there, and he did indeed discuss Israel more frequently. I miss seeing Rabbi Mann with the window open to the Har Habayis view, receiving daily whatsapp photos of pages of seforim he planned to cover (interspersed with videos and pictures of his newest grandson). I excruciatingly miss the multiple times a week opportunity I had to ask anything on my mind about Torah, about life, about hashkafa, about a strange midrash, about the reasoning behind a mitzva.

Rabbi Mann spent endless time with me discussing my pregnancy losses and how that fit into the laws of nature and hashgacha pratis (divine intervention). We were close and there was great love between us, but neither of us make small talk and if there wasn't Torah (or a personal problem I wanted advice about), there was no conversation. I am endlessly grateful that I got to sit in shiur with my Rebbe numerous times a week for decades, and bring up anything on my mind. He welcomed debate, he welcomed our thoughts and opinions, and he was an endless font of Torah creativity. He taught methodology, he was a master speaker, he was meticulously organized and could also be spontaneous, he was a writer, a voracious learner, he loved psychology, he loved helping people. That reminds me of what he called "cheap chessed." Rabbi Mann was a proponent of cheap chessed, chessed that was easy for you to do. He loved helping people on airplanes, since it was one and done. I can go on and on, as you can see. I am bereft. I miss the learning terribly. It was a reliable and joyous part of my week, something I looked forward to and was excited about, and Rabbi Mann welcomed everyone into his shiur.