Many believe that there are two segments in the Orthodox community that while being linked and joined as co-religionists, will never see eye to eye. The more Modern community is represented by the OU, the RCA and Yeshiva University. The more right-wing community – the more yeshivishe/Chasidishe community - is represented by Agudath Israel and the pronouncements of the Roshei Yeshiva of the yeshivot such as Lakewood, Ner Israel, Chaim Berlin and Torah VoDaas.

Others would argue that a third group is emerging that is different from the aforementioned two: Open Orthodoxy. Creating its own yeshiva (Yeshivat Chovevei Torah), a new rabbinic organization (International Rabbinic Fellowship) and a now defunct lay leadership group – Edah, demonstrates to many their independence from the Modern Orthodox group. Now is not the time to analyze these sociological trends, but in my opinion, there is both a lot of truth and a lot of misinformation regarding these trends. But in general, I do believe we have recently gone from two to three divisions within Orthodoxy.

But I will share with you a piece of data, which I found very interesting. Four weeks ago this week, the Yeshiva World buried one of its greatest leaders, the late Rabbi Nosson Zvi Finkel a’h, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Mirrer Yeshiva in Jerusalem. In preparing my remarks in shul, as I often do, I logged on to www.yutorah.org, which offers thousands of written and oral shiurim that can be downloaded for free. I peruse through some of my favorite teachers or seek out topics of interest. I stumbled upon the eulogy that Rabbi Hershel Schachter gave for Rabbi Finkel in the Bais Medrash (study hall) of YU. I listened to it and was very moved by it. But what struck me was not just the beautiful tribute, but the amount of ‘hits’ the shiur received, which had been posted a mere few days earlier. Two thousand seven hundred people opened the shiur; I would presume most listened as well. This number is off the charts.

I immediately emailed my friend Rabbi Rob Shur who runs the website. I asked him what he thought. He told me that many Modern Orthodox Jews are very interested in the goings on in the yeshiva world. I think this is definitely true but I believe there may be some other factors as well, which I would like to address this morning.

In the beginning of the parsha Avraham seeks a plot to bury his eishes chayil Sarah. He approaches the children of Ches saying:

"גר ותושב אנוכי עמכם. תנו לי אחזת קבר עמכם ואקברה מתי מלפני" (בראשית כ"ג:ד)

“I am an alien and a resident among you; grant me a holding for a grave with you that I may bury my dead from before me” (Bereshis 23:4).

Rashi explains that he stated I am a foreigner but I am currently a resident. Mizrachi, one of the commentaries on Rashi, notes that one cannot be both an alien and a resident at the same time, so Rashi had to tell us that the terms are not mutually exclusive and refer to different phases of his life.

Rabbi Soloveitchik, however, articulated his vision of living a Torah life in America quite differently. Rabbi Abraham Besdin captured the Rav’s thoughts in his “Reflections of the Rav” (pp. 169-177).

“Avraham’s definition of his dual status, we believe, describes with profound accuracy the historical position of the Jew who resides in a predominantly non-Jewish society. He was a resident, like other inhabitants of Canaan, sharing with them a concern for the welfare of society, digging wells, and contributing to the progress of the country in loyalty to its government and institutions… However, there was another aspect, the spiritual, in which Avraham regarded himself as a stranger. His identification and solidarity with his fellow citizens in their secular realm did not imply his readiness to relinquish any aspects of his religious uniqueness. His was a different faith and he was governed by perceptions, truths, and observances which set him apart from the larger faith community. In this regard, Avraham and his descendants would always remain ‘strangers.’

This idea can be found throughout Rav Soloveitchik’s thought. He identified Yosef as more successful in bridging his secular and religious components than his brothers and for that reason they were jealous of him. Ultimately his view won, as he became a leader in the not-so-free world of the Pharaohs. This view punctuated the Rav's talks to Mizrachi defending his stance to side with the Zionists but eschew any anti-religiousness or atheism in their ranks. He believed one can successfully live in both words – with a foot in one and a foot in the other – always knowing that the foot in the Torah world was home and the foot elsewhere was a bit alien. A quote of his I keep in my office states, “Providence demands of us to embrace the outside world with a yarmulke on the head and a Gemara in the hand.”

In my opinion, the three branches of Orthodoxy each stress ger and toshav differently. Some are more comfortable in society and some less. These are mostly legitimate differences, so long as halacha is not compromised.

This leads me to offer a few words of homage to Rav Nosson Zvi Finkel zt’l. Reb Nosson Zvi is a scion of a long line of rabbis who have led a revolution in Torah study since the 19th century. He was born in Chicago in 1943 and named for his paternal great-grandfather, known as the Alter of Slabodka, the famed mussar yeshiva on the outskirts of Kovno, Lithuania, which branched off into the Mirrer Yeshiva and others. But what makes this story different is the education which Reb Nosson Zvi received at the Modern Orthodox Arie Crown yeshiva in Chicago. Permit me to quote from his own words in a recent tribute penned by Rabbi Yechiel Spiro.

"At the time, my name was Nate. I was a tall and lanky kid wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball cap, and I was exhausted from the trip. It was well over 24 hours since I had left Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. In the early 1960s, it could take nearly a day and a half for one to travel from America to Israel. I was anxious to get settled and get a good night’s sleep.

I was related to the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Leizer Yudel Finkel, and was relieved to see him coming down the corridor. I greeted him with a smile and a warm ‘Shalom aleichem!’

But his response surprised me. ‘So, tell me a chiddush on what you’ve been learning.’ I could not believe it. Couldn’t the entrance exam wait until the morning? As it was, I was coming from Arie Crown Day School in Chicago. The level of learning in the Mirrer Yeshiva was certainly quite a jump from my high school, and I felt a bit anxious about coming to the Mir without the intensive background that most boys had.

I don’t really have a chiddush,’ I said. The rosh yeshiva looked at me, and instead of inviting me into his apartment, directed me to the bais medrash. ‘Don’t come down until you have a chiddush.’

I felt like crying. I could not believe this was happening. Slowly, I walked up the steps, sat down on one of the benches, and stared blankly at the pages of the Gemara. A half hour passed and once again I went down to Rav Leizer Yudel. ‘Well, do you have a chiddush?’ I admitted that I did not, and again I was sent back to the bais medrash. Now I began to worry. Maybe I had made a terrible mistake by coming to the Mir. Maybe I would never fit in. But all the while, regardless of my nervousness and negative thoughts, I knew somehow - by the love and caring that emanated from the rosh yeshiva - that this was a test that I must, and would, pass. So I went back to the bais medrash to develop an original Torah thought.

A half hour later, I emerged with ‘efsher ah diyuk in ah Rashi, perhaps a thought on a Rashi.’ Hesitantly, I approached my cousin once more and shared my ‘chiddush.’ Rav Leizer Yudel’s face broke out into a wide grin. He smiled at me, opened his arms and placed a kiss on my forehead. ‘Shalom aleichem! Welcome to the Mirrer Yeshiva!’ After eating and talking for a while with the rosh yeshiva and his rebbetzin, I was shown to my room. I thanked my cousins for their warmth and hospitality and gladly lay down to sleep.

Nate the ball player transformed into the Rosh Yeshiva of one of the world’s largest yeshivas with over 6,000 students. He married his second cousin, the daughter of the previous Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Binyomin Beinish Finkel and succeeded him upon his death in 1990. Rav Nosson Zvi transformed ‘the Mir’ into a Torah empire, with branches in Jerusalem and Kiryat Sefer in Central Israel.

Rabbi Finkel suffered for a long time from Parkinson’s Disease. He did not let it control him, despite his arm flailing and physical challenges. Just hours before his sudden death, he had traveled to Bnei Brak to to pay a shiva call and returned to Jerusalem where he delivered shiurim both in English and Yiddish.

Rav Nosson Zvi was not just the scion of a dynasty that brought the Mirrer Yeshiva from Lithuania through Kobe Japan and Shanghai. He was a scholar in his own right and cared deeply for ‘his boys.’ One story will have to suffice, again courtesy of Rabbi Yechiel Spiro.

In Junuary 1991, the Mirrer Yeshiva was not immune from the Scud Missile attacks Saddam Hussein would unleash upon Israel. When the first alarm screeched through Jerusalem, the students at the Mirrer ran to their sealed rooms and donned their gas masks. They then sealed their rooms from the inside. Obviously, their was great fear and tension.

The silence in one of these rooms was disturbed with a harsh knock on the door. “Who is it?” called out the room’s leader Menachem, a bit perturbed at someone’s irresponsibility, contemplating the tape he will now have to undo.

"It’s Nosson Finkel.” Menachem at first couldn’t believe it and thought it was not an appropriate time to impersonate the Rosh Yeshiva. He undid the tape and standing before him was the Rosh Yeshiva panting and exhausted. Menachem showed the Rosh Yeshiva a seat and assisted him with his gas mask. He then asked why he came and how he got there?

"I had arranged beforehand with a taxi driver to come pick me up in my home the moment that the first alarm went off,” said the rosh yeshiva. "I just wanted to be with my boys.”

We lost a great man a week and a half ago. Rabbi Schachter at YU tearfully began his eulogy stating that Reb Nosson was really ‘one of us.’ He didn't go to college but his beginnings were on these shores in one of our schools. And look what he became!

Indeed! Many who attended YU or other Modern Orthodox institutions went on to Torah greatness, but either buried their past or condemned it. Reb Nosson Zvi would tell students, “I am you! I came from where you came from. Don’t tell me you can’t succeed in Torah!”

Ger v’Toshav anochi imachem. We believe that we co-exist in both worlds. We want the best Torah education and the best general studies instruction for our children. We celebrate the merit scholarships, the college degrees and the wonderful contributions graduates of our Modern Orthodox day schools make in the world. Indeed so many of our graduates and their work are a true Kiddush Hashem. The religious side of our persona is the principle side, which must survive and thrive with or without the positive aspects of secular studies and culture which we embrace. We aim for both, but if a choice need be made, the Torah takes precedence.

We need to celebrate with at least the same vigor, the graduates who go on to Torah greatness like Nate the Cubs fan who had, by some estimates, 100,000 crying men and women attend his funeral.  Here is a man who never forgot his beginnings and I believe credited them for making him who he was. Yes, he wasn't going to send his children to Arie Crown or any Modern Orthodox schools and his thousands of students won't either, but that is irrelevant. We produced a gadol. Let it be shouted from the rooftops.

And more are coming. And we need to honor them and be proud of them.

Richard Joel, YU’s fourth president, tells a story about a talk he gave at seudah shlishit at a large Modern Orthodox shul. Someone asked him the following question: do you think YU will produce the next gadol hadoror nobel laureate? Without missing a beat, the president answered the question without complaining of its hypothetical and conjecturing nature. “I can tell you one thing,” he said to the questioner. “Lakewood is not going to produce the next nobel laureate and Harvard will not produce the next gadol hador!”

I have to believe that the 2,700 plus individuals who opened Rabbi Schachter’s eulogy saw it as a lament on one of our own. Yes his preaching differed from ours in many ways, but he never stopped being one of us. And we need to be proud and shepp nachas over his accomplishments. As Torah Jews we must mourn such a loss.

Ger v’toshav anochi imachem. Y’hei zichro baruch. May his memory be for a blessing.