"Titein Emes L'Yaakov..."

"He gave Truth to Yaakov..."

-Michah 7:20

Last night, R' Yitzchak Sherin (sp?) came to Yeshiva last night to speak about his grandfather, R' Yaakov Kaminetsky, who's yartzheit is sometime next week, we don't really know when (R' Yaakov died on 30 Adar II, 1986, and in most years, there is no 30 Adar). He decided to speak about R' Yaakov's view on mitzvos between man and man. There are 2 categories for mitzvos: bein adam laMakom (between man and God), and bein adam lachaveiro (between man and man). He said that R' Yaakov viewed #2 not as between man and man, but between man and the Image of God, and the passuk says in Breishis, "And He created man in the image of God." And R' Yaakov treated everyone as if they were the Image of God. When he said that, it blew me away. And Rabbis Wolicki and Lipman. And other people. It was ridiculous. And in his talk, R' Yitzchak told us these stories about R' Yaakov and like, wow. R' Yaakov was ridiculous. For example, when he had guests, he would only talk to them about things they were experts in. If someone was an economist, he'd talk to them about economy; if they were a historian, he'd talk to them about history, etc. He knew psychology about people so well, and he didn't even learn it formerly. Every Friday in the spring, his doctor would come to give him allergy shots, so they'd talk medicine. He had a psychiatrist he'd talk to. That's how he knew psychology of people so well. A lot of his explanation on Chumash (Emes L'Yaakov, I recommend it to EVERYBODY), he starts off by saying, Ok, imagine you're in this situation...etc. R' Yaakov was just unbelievable.

Oh, did He ever give Emes to [R'} Yaakov...