רבי דן
One thing's for certain. He has/had name recognition. You may have not known what he was doing at the moment, whether the
Yeshiva was active or not, but you knew the name. It's tough not to with a name like that.
Reb Dun showed us that if you try hard you can make it in the
Olam HaTorah even if you're a
Galitzyaner... " In the daily paper we were told that he was the "primary
talmid of
Reb Shlomo Heiman." I assume they mean
living talmid. I'm sure some other
talmidim in the past would take umbrage to that statement. The other things we learn are quite impressive; how he came here as a teenager and become a
Ben Torah despite not having his parents here. We were also informed that "virtually the entire Monsey community attended the
levaya." I wish they wouldn't do that. There was no need for that line. The obituary could've been just as good with out that line, with is totally baseless anyway. I'd be surprised if there were 1,000 people there. But that's "neither her nor there." How do we classify
Reb Dun? where do we put him in the roster of American
Gedolim or
Litvishe Gedolim in general? You might say that the terrible
machlokes that
BM"E found itself entangled in, both back in the day
and again a few years back, when it was an internal Ungarisher Machlokes, hurt his reputation and the reputation of his
Yeshiva for all eternity. The big ancient building on Main Street sits virtually empty. I think the
minyan on
Shabbos is alot bigger than the
Yeshiva is.. I would say that it's not one of Hershy Friedman's better investments as far as donating to
Mosdos goes.Even the "
Beis Medrish Elyon hat," the bent-up hat with pinches, is almost no more. Besides for
Reb Don and some old timers, nobody wears it anymore.
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