The Songs of Spring: MTA, Weinbach and Me

“Where are the songs of spring?… Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.”

To Autumn, John Keats (1820)

On a global, national and personal level, the spring of 1967 was fecund with memories for me. Israel won the Six-Day War; Vietnam exploded; The Dirty Dozen dominated the big screen; Batman the small one. The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper eclipsed The Supremes’ You Can’t Hurry Love!

Most importantly, I was graduating high school.

As much as I hated grade school, and subsequently despised college, I loved high school. Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Manhattan, familiarly known as MTA (Manhattan Talmudic Academy), was perfect for me. My classmates Harry Zvi, Iziu. Jamie, Chuck, Aaron, Saul, Sam, Zeno, et al., became lifelong buddies. I remained friendly with many teachers. I even grew close to our principal, Rabbi David Weinbach.

Unfortunately, it was because I spent so much time in his office.

We were introduced at the beginning of my sophomore year, courtesy of my Latin teacher.

There were but five students in Latin. (Not too many of us planned moving to the Vatican.)

At the beginning of our first class, I was joking with my classmates when our teacher walked in. Glaring at me, he demanded: “You! What’s your name?”

“Herschkopf.”

“Herschkopf, you dirty dog! You spit on my wife’s grave!”

(Apparently, unbeknownst to us, his wife of many decades had recently passed.)

And so, my two-year Latin adventure began. Iziu, Sandy, Buddy and Nate sat contiguous to his desk. He placed me in a different area-code, in the far corner of the empty room. (As we entered every day, Iziu bade me adieu, as we were going to different destinations.)

If, during class, I dared raise my hand, he glared at me until I put it down. And yet, I learned a great deal of Latin, which I still occasionally use.

This was not apparent in my test scores. Reflecting our class’s intimacy, tests were informal. He read passages in Latin in English; we translated. He arbitrarily subtracted credit for every mistake.

Retrieving my first test, I was relieved to see I scored over 90. Then, I noticed the minus sign. It was downhill from there. My subsequent scores were -212, -333, -613. No matter how diligently I studied, I could not make it back to zero.

I had no choice but to apprehensively approach him and diplomatically point out his grading system was very subjective, (to say the least.) He constructively responded: “Quod Licet Jovi, Non Licet Bovi.” (What is permitted of Jupiter is not permitted of an ox.)

In desperation, I went to Rabbi Weinbach’s office. When I showed him my tests, he started rubbing his forehead with his thumb and index-finger. He asked me if I had discussed this with my teacher. I recounted our dialogue; he rubbed faster.

After a moment’s silence, he asked me if I would accept a grade of 85. I quickly calculated that 85 is better then -613. I nodded. (In retrospect I should have asked for more. I wasn’t a very good negotiator then.)

My eight report-cards over the next two years had a negative three-figure Latin grade in red-ink marked over by 85 in blue-ink. My parents asked me about it. I claimed there were secretarial issues.

Over the next two years, Rabbi Weinbach and I grew friendlier. I joked with him I was placing bets with classmates that I could correctly predict my Latin grade before the year started. He grinned.

My senior Talmud teacher was Rabbi Moshe Tendler, chairman of the college’s Biology department. Between his responsibilities there, his medical research, and his synagogue in Monsey, he was stretched thin.

Two months before year’s end, he assigned each of us a Talmud page to study, prepare, and present to the class. He then seemed to forget about it; accordingly, so did we.

One day, a half-hour before class ended, he unexpectedly called upon Ephraim Love to recite his page. Seated behind him, I saw his ears flush. He was obviously unprepared, as were we all. He hesitantly read the first two words: “Tonu Rabbanon.”

He paused. Only when Rabbi Tendler pointedly stared at him did he finally translate: “The rabbis ask.”

He paused again. Rabbi Tendler looked up again.

Effie continued: “In actuality, the literal translation is ‘Ask the rabbis’. Why is it phrased that way? Why does the verb precede the noun? What is the Talmud trying to tell us? Is it suggesting the function of rabbis is to ask? Is it implying questions might be more important than answers? It behooves us to focus on this important issue. Does anyone have any thoughts they would like to share?”

Effie’s voice was now strong and confident. Apparently, Effie, (a future politician), intended to filibuster for 25 minutes until he would be saved by the bell.

Rabbi wasn’t voting for this: “Veiter!” [Yiddish “Forward!”, i.e., proceed on!)

Like any successful politician however, Effie was determined to stay “on message”:

“Why is it the rabbis, plural, who ask? Surely, they were not asking the exact same question, in the exact same words, exactly in unison. Surely, it was one rabbi who had the question, even if the others agreed with it. Why not identify the rabbi who asked the question? Does he not deserve credit for this excellent question? Is this to teach us that the message is more important than the speaker? Is this to teach us humility?”

Wow! Effie was really good at this! I was impressed.

Rabbi was not. He banged his hand on his desk: “Love, Veiter!”

Effie would not be dissuaded: “Is it possible that, in fact, it was the rabbi who asked the question himself who did not want to be identified? Is it possible he realized there was greater honor in being identified as part of this prestigious group rather than taking credit individually? Is this a message that is still relevant to us today? Does anyone have any thoughts on this important subject?”

Rabbi banged his hand again. When he got frustrated like this, he sometimes resorted to rhetorical questions:

“Can anyone please explain to me what Love is doing? Can anyone explain why he won’t go past the first two words? Can anyone tell me how to get him to proceed further?”

I had a glint in my eye. Saul, sitting next to me, seeing it, shook his head. Like Effie, I would not be dissuaded. Perhaps it was spring fever, senioritis, knowing we were imminently graduating, or sympathy for Effie; I raised my hand.

Rabbi Tendler, with whom I had a good relationship, looked at me disbelievingly. He spread his hands, shaking his head, as if to say “What in God’s name are you doing?”

I said: “Rebbe, don’t you know…”

He, and the rest of the class, stared at me disbelievingly.

I stood up, spread my arms like a Las Vegas headliner, and started singing The Supremes’ familiar lyric: “You can’t hurry love! No, you just have to wait! Love don’t come easy! It’s a game of give-and-take.”

I sat down to stunned looks and absolute silence. With two fingers, Rabbi Tendler motioned me to leave, which, at that point, I was relieved to do.

When Rabbi Weinbach saw me enter his office, he immediately, wordlessly started rubbing his forehead. He remained silent as I detailed exactly what happened, but his thumb and index-finger moved from his forehead to his lips. When I was done, still without saying a word, he motioned me, with some urgency, to leave his office.

As I closed the door behind me, his secretary Naomi started asking what he had said, but we were interrupted by the sound of hysterical laughter from behind his door.

Saul and I sat together in our local synagogue. Whenever, thereafter, I entered, he hummed “You Can’t Hurry Love.”

Rabbi Tendler allowed me back into class the following day. Neither of us ever addressed the issue. Five years later however, he came to speak at my medical school. My friend Larry Rosman, who knew him from Yeshiva University, but had not attended MTA, and I attended his lecture.

We approached him afterwards. He warmly inquired how we were doing. Larry shared with him he was dating a girl (ironically who grew up near MTA.) Looking at me, with a glint in his eye, Rabbi replied: “Good for you, Rosman, but you know… you can’t hurry love.”

Larry looked at me confused.

Some years before he passed away, Rabbi Weinbach required brain-surgery at my hospital. (I was worried that his rubbing his forehead on all my visits to his office had caused it.)

The outcome was excellent, but with brain-surgery, someone has to ascertain there has been no diminution of cognitive functioning. I was honored that he, and his wife Lee, asked me to do so.

We sat in his hospital-room and spoke for an hour. Within minutes, it was obvious that his thinking and memory were completely intact. Indeed, he shared with me, because Latin teachers were impossible to replace, he would have granted me any grade I demanded to avoid exposing our teacher’s senility. (Now he tells me.)

He also confessed, after my “Recital”, he had trouble keeping a straight face whenever he encountered Rabbi Tendler.

Neither of us wanted to end the conversation. We only did so when the neurosurgeon and Lee entered the room.

I could see from the looks on their faces they were understandably concerned with my verdict. Before I could say anything however, Rabbi Weinbach grabbed my hand:

“This was the finest student in the history of MTA!”

I looked at them and said: “He is obviously psychotic.”

How I miss him, MTA, and the songs of spring.

[I shared an earlier version of this cochairing our MTA class’s 50th reunion at the school in 2017. Chuck, Aaron, Joey, Saul, Sam and Effie all attended. When I entered, Saul hummed “You Can’t Hurry Love.”]