Architect Of A Revolution - The Life and Legacy of Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz

how many times in the last week have you your family used an art scroll book foolish sitter Gomorrah master Taniya nedra SH Rashi Ram bond cookbook emunah filler children's books how many times and how many hundreds of thousands of times many millions of times all over the world have people use our scroll books in two words in two words what made it possible mayor slaughter woods [Music] good evening in the early 1920s the young ruff and his wife came to the United States after 12 years of learning in lumber Poland he quickly gained respect as atomic locum he was a mile mush BF and in 1927 he became the rough of a shul Torah education was scarce and shmear Shabbos was dwindling in the America of the twenties thirties forties life was hard for Erin's law to ascend Robeson froma but they persevered their youngest son was born in 1943 the doctors did not think he would make it they gave him a very small chance to live but he fooled them the way he fooled naysayers all of his life Mary Jakob salata wits was a normal kid went to yeshiva Sarge aged a good head not an athlete he was a stutterer but he had a great sense of humor and he had real good artistic talent after high school he went to him as sifter to Ferris yerushalayim and he became enamored with the godel Hedorah red moisture Feinstein's itself he became very very close to him and after the receiver's Patera he remained very close to the new Russia Shiva red velvet fine stench leader if you had told anybody in those days that mayor's ladder Woods would transform the Jewish world that he would become the Rebbe of Claudius ro if it said you were crazy but just as he fooled the doctors he fooled the pessimists after he left the Shiva he formed our scroll studios art scroll they made illuminated decorated colorful scrolls brochures subas and that was a decent living and then came 1975 mara had a very close friend mayor Fogle he was a Shiva Rebbe great Rebbe everybody loved him and then without warning he died in his sleep shocking and mayor wanted to do something in his memory he wanted to do something that would be lasting that was different they would have an impact and he came up with this idea of writing a translation and commentary on McGillis esther and finishing it by the Schleich aim by the end of the Schleich aim morning period [Music] really an impossible job well my father's thought on McGillis esther I was 10 years old I remember coming down every morning he'd be sitting at his desk with piles of farm papers notebooks all over and when I got asleep he'd be in the same position and we're talking about McGillis Esther talking about putting a color jacket and on a jewish book who ever heard of that before for 30 days he come out didn't eat and come and in the sweep he came to me with a finished product hand bound with something beautiful everyone's so excited and what's coming on next to my let's go when you think about it especially in the 70s and 80s it was a massive accomplishment that who made that of feel for beauty and he had a feel also for eternity and when he combined those two in arts grow a miracle happened no one could have imagined the influence that it has had and then we hit a dead end there are so many things that we wanted to do that we felt that we should do but couldn't do because the funding was not available they struggled mightily in the beginning they with he would call me on Friday mornings and he says Judy I need a few thousand dollars the cup of my payroll could you lend it to me I always got back Young's it was always difficult for him he was always afraid that he there was no income coming in my young dish and he would that and so we needed to borrow money for young to this product but there are four temperatures our continued there was no money they had a borrow money they had to mortgage their houses that means mayor nos and Shia and never that I hear and complaint I think we have to close my office's that's not going to work like I have for many clients but I'm not doing well he had to go on it was going to work and then and then Hakadosh barukh who sent someone to the door it was looking back maybe it was a yellow Hanavi that our reason i got in touch with arts world was that i was enormous ly grateful for art school for having opened up Hebrew literature religious literature to me for the first time in way that I could understand I wanted to be do something to thank art scroll and I didn't know whether there was any way to do it but I decided and I would get in touch with them and so what I'd said to them was I got the better understanding of how money was raised just to finance the enterprise and I said you know that you're not doing this very efficiently you need a foundation they said will you set up the foundation and I said sure I'll be glad to set up the foundation and now that the Mussoorie Heritage Foundation was created it enabled so many of my father's dreams to become a reality so many of the titles that we use on a daily basis were made possible because of the foundation and available at an affordable cost to all of us my father understood the responsibility of running the foundation with integrity grab my slot a--which insisted all the business functions are the hair of the bazzara Heritage Foundation we'd unscrupulously well ethically and to the highest standards and then we were ready for our most ambitious project 73 vol elucidation of Tommy gobbler my father wanted to be involved in project they beautify the Jewish people Jay's father had vision and the foresight to involve us and to make the commitment but it's Jehu fulfill the commitment and carried it all the way through and there were some some difficult times in there where he had to make decisions and go forward and he stayed true to all of that all the time and to finish it the way his father would have wanted it done and to publish 73 failures in 15 years those values were impossible in this office work working through the night we could not miss that deadline he was extremely strict about that if we were going to miss a deadline then he would call in more stuff but it was Ohio Mustafa was not an option to be late thousands and thousands of people are learning Gemara even though they may not have had the trainee when they were young youngsters or they didn't take to it but now because of the availability of arts world they were able to get into you more and to finish the surface and to be clinicians that slaughter of tough yummy is because there was art school that's clear as they without art scroll tough yummy would not have achieved the popularity that it did his life was his children as my nephew our Morgenstern said at the Lavanya now if this fell when he spoke he said Zadie he was so into your children and your grandchildren when did you have time for art squirrel it was so busy and had so much to accomplish and so many people to deal with and take care of and yet everyone felt that family was first with him from the day I got engaged he treated me as a daughter and he always said there's no in-law children in this family you're all my children and he carried through with that always he couldn't have done it without Emma she always encouraged him she was always at his side whenever he would come to Eric tea stall automatically I would I I had to call him within five minutes of landing I automatically call him because otherwise he as if he had nothing could do like what you didn't call me yet I've been I've better already five minutes of better ten minutes what doesn't mean you didn't call me he had another family to the art scroll family everybody who worked with us in our scroll my soda everybody was loyal to him and loved him because we all know he was loyal to us and he loved us you know lost my mother eight months later I lost my father eight months later lost their mr. legend I missed the those children Alicia was able to go to him and talk to me or anything he had great concern for his employees that was one of the things that I learned from him how careful you have to be with someone else's livelihood how you have to worry that he gets paid on time and how have to worry that he shouldn't lose his job over some minor thing when you walked by that office store and you looked him and he looked up from whatever he was busy you got a smile like it was a son and that was just a pick-me-up I'm about you up and my parents were in religious my grandparents were religious and to have somebody that religious but being a religious part of my life to care about me so much and to be able to appreciate and always you know ask how am i doing how is my day how am I feeling it it's a very special thing he didn't hesitate to critique you but when he would compliment you you just felt engulfed by his warmth to me the thing that struck me so much about him was his pursuit of perfection perfection from everyone and he pushed everyone for perfection because he expected perfection from himself he was perfectionist if you want excellence got a demand excellence it's not a person who looked for covered at all but when you looked at him you saw this was an author mashallah he carried himself a certain way and it was a real gentleman he was a scholar whatever he did he did with great quality and had to be right he could very easily speak to other leadership so - you'll see and at the same time - a businessman a banker from a different world even though it was a bridge but Ian's self was on both sides it's just a bridge he was on both sides he had so many people who considered him to be one of their best friends and he really was not just dedicate errs and supporters troubled people down-and-out people people who need of encouragement you could go to him with a personal problem and he would do whatever he could to help you I was once finished preparing his speech and he said to me am I ready and I said I'm ready I'm just debating one thing should I should I not say it I said what is it I told him he looks at me says say it just say and I said okay I will say three hours later he comes over to me says I thought about it a lot please don't say it not a good idea and if I should have said it or not said it is not the point the point is that this man who was so busy led hundreds and thousands of people that would do anything for five minutes he said the words to me I thought about it a lot which is a simple statement that he loved me and I think there are hundreds and thousands of people who believe that as well that he simply loved us and wanted us to be the best that we busted it was a there's a man that loved me and I knew it but you made me feel good you made me feel real the way it rapping there's a lot of it's made me feel was like that he only talked for me and it was a personal connection about me and him and the rest of the world was secondary and then if you do a little research and you speak to other people everybody I spoke to said the same thing I was amazed Ladda was his best friend now someone may take offense to that because they think they were there his best friend but the truth of the matter is so many people thought that mayor's lie which was their best friend you know sometimes you have relationships with people and Maestas and you know you're a donor so they're friendly but this was a lot more than just you know you felt his friendship I guess maybe there was the rebeis lotto it's the editor of the Talmud and then there was the mayor that we knew he was just so easy to talk to to be with it's his soul was so open and kind but just to have him as a friend always it felt so good to talk to him and call him and get opinion on things share happy occasions mayor was just probably one of the busiest guys that I know but he always found the time that called me up he just he had all the answers that every single thing he said came with not just experience but also DA style he used to tell mechanic I have no choice the man did me a favor I own forever and it's really that meter of a course at TAFE it was so strong by him anything that I did for him he was effusive in his thanks and his praise beyond the call of anything that one would normally see but his his a car sort of was with without precedent but not only the people that he knew the people who came in contact with him what about the hundreds of thousands of people all over the world whose lives have been changed or it certainly improved because of what he accomplished I don't think it's possible for the Atlanta scowls colo to have done any outreach whatsoever without having the polished professional appearance of art school varam art school books charts that art school is produced in order to provide people something to see to look out to draw them in and the first thing I would do was look and try to find the article sitting before they're all gone he made the turn out that this is part of the life of a person today everybody learns everybody's learning and the credit go Stuart Mayer it may as a granola brothel was a visionary person he saw opportunity he saw a need even visualize things that 99% of castle did not visualize he saw the future it's obviously a call but he answered and her banishment because whatever he touches in it it was cold in our generation the greatest teacher of the Jewish people I think beyond anyone's belief was Rabbi Meir tsarevets he made the Torah available to the english-speaking Jewish world to thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands perhaps even millions of Jews if it weren't for art scroll not thousands but there's hundreds of thousands of us the us spans that length and breadth of the Jewish people we'd never learn what we're learning we'd never understand the text that we are wrestling with if it wasn't for art's girl taking us and holding us by the hand it's not enough to have the Gemara to Homer finish nice you also need inspiration you also need to want to learn and he provided that as well he made art scroll pardon the Jewish life not just from the study side but from everyday side but in my opinion it was the biggest Marvel story Cogswell ever had today there isn't a a city anywhere you want to bus on the train somebody will be there with an odd scroll wherever I went there was the article there's a scroll on the ship article South Africa arts go we're very appreciative that we're able to see the fruits that wherever we go around the world wherever we travel in walking any sinigang key you see a shot scene book there you see an art scroll book there the article revolution is it's all over I just saw somebody talking about how he grew up with how things changed he says when he grew up was BA the for arts go like it's a whole new chronological concept like ba this is BC the BCE ba before arts college there's all kinds of movements you know there's the oh you there's a good and we're all doing good things but art scroll has reached places that none of us have reached Gedaliah says now very often he says I don't know how dad had time for everything but he really did he was a person I looked up to and that whoever knew him looked up to me there's only a few people my life that he say really made a big difference and he's one of them they're really really that really that you know changed my life there's nothing we could ever do in our lifetime to thank mayor nothing for what they did for us and our family the sense of loss gets greater as time goes by I feel the void so often when I think of who I can call when a critical issue comes up when a serious matter or when I just need somebody to whom I can complain he was a sounding board and advisor and mentor he was somebody who left a void in everyone's life because he could deal with everyone at their level and valued each and every person we're gonna carry on the work that you do for over 46 years I worked with mayor every single day and many many nights a friend who cared for me for every part of my life he was a teacher he was a mentor he was an educator he taught me he brought out the best in me and I miss him dearly a normal person with been for himself and would have realized that he is the catalyst for all this didn't exist my mayor I'm God's waiter and I'm gonna do for as long as he wants me to and I prayed that under Gaddafi his leadership this will continue and I have no doubt that it will because he laid a solid foundation he has made Torah popular he has changed the lives of countless people was this may be the smoothest transition from a founder to a successor I've ever seen in a non-profit secretary a key to a successful organization is how it passes down to the next leadership we have all the confidence in Gedaliah he has the skills to drive the love and he's going to do it with Daniela by his beside I have no fear that arts role will continue and thrive and grow just as mayor would have wanted and even more so I can't even believe it that there is a video transition is so smooth so seamless Gedaliah inherited his power his charm his vision and kathai is gonna pull heart scroll right through for the next 50 years they give him a profit that he succeeds kadali was thrust into this role unexpectedly and i will say from the moment it happened he automatically had people surrounding him who were helping him tremendously the night my father passed away I was on the phone with Jay many many times kept on calling and supportive the friends and supporters of my father have been the most incredible people in my life his friends became my friends how many of them pick up the phone - Dalia how are you doing is there anything I can do for you where do you see that it's because there was a genuine love it's a family relationship and you're just a friend with somebody so the person passes away and that's it the friendship is over but when his friends felt that they were part of the family families forever [Music] for 41 years for 41 years and the next office was my friend my mentor my inspiration my SIA knees twin and now and now in the next office is my friend my mentor my inspiration my Siamese twin development [Music] you [Music]