Reb Yitzchok (Itche) Rosengarten, son of Rav Zev Wolf Rosengarten who hosted Rav Shteinman when he was in Switzerland during World War II, served as Rav Shteinman’s driver and assistant for 49 years after coming to Eretz Yisroel to study in Ponevezh.
He recently spoke about Rav Shteinman, sharing several stories. Rabbi Rosengarten said that Rav Shteinman never said a word to him about his driving.
“He was always studying by heart and thinking in learning,” he said. “On one occasion, we were traveling to an election rally in Haifa when his face suddenly lit up. He told me that he had now managed to understand a difficult Rav Chaim and felt this was in the zechus of where we were going.”
On another occasion, when a number of people were traveling with them, Rav Shteinman reminded him after several hours that they eaten nothing since morning.
“At the first place there’s a grocery. Buy everyone ice cream,” he said.
“This was the greatest wonder,” Reb Itche said. “Not to want the smallest thing for himself is a level of greatness. But to want others to have every enjoyment of the world at the same time is an even loftier height.”
Rav Rosengarten began driving Rav Shteinman after he needed to visit an eye specialist in Yerushalayim several times.
“The doctor gave him a small Gemara to read and he read easily,” Reb Itche recalled. “I interposed and told the doctor he knew it off by heart. Indeed, when he gave him something else to read, he was not able to.”
“When I gave him eyedrops half an hour before his pure soul rose to heaven, his weak lips moved and he said, ‘Yasher koach,’” Reb Itche added. “He never forgot to thank me for every journey and anything I did for him.”
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}
Beautiful story.
Their attention to the simple things is what makes gedolim great.