After the petirah of HaGaon HaRav Gershon Edelstein, z’tl, right-wing journalist Yinon Magal posted a story about the Rosh Yeshivah.

“A beautiful story that I heard from the man that it happened to,” he wrote. “You want to know who HaRav Edelstein, z’tl was? Listen to this story. About ten years ago, I was a guest by one of the Rosh Yeshivah’s sons (who himself is a big Rav.)”

“And I saw that he had a sefer of his father’s chiddushim on his bookshelf. I took out the sefer and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Someone had defaced the title page – crossing out the title ‘Rosh Yeshivas Ponevezh,’ the title ‘HaGaon HaGadol’ – leaving only ‘Rebbe.'”

“It pained me a lot to see this [because at that time, some extremists had come out against the Rav, z’tl, for some of his decisions]. I took the sefer and said to the Rav’s son: “How far can these extremists go? To deface and destroy a sefer inside the home of the Rav’s son?”

“The Rav’s son answered – and I’ll remember his response for the rest of my life: ‘It’s not them, it’s him!'”

“Him – that is, the Rosh Yeshivah himself is the one that crossed out the titles. He was in his son’s home and saw the titles they used for him, the praises. So he crossed them out.”

“כל מי שבורח מהכבוד – הכבוד רודף אחריו!”

“Ten years have passed and look what unbelievable kavod he received upon his petirah!”

Apparently, that sefer was not the only one “defaced” by the Rosh Yeshivah, z’tl. B’Chadrei Chareidim published a photo of the sefer Asifas Shmuos, a compilation of the Rosh Yeshivah’s shiurim published by his talmid, HaRav Yisrael Cohen.

The cover page of the sefer states:  “ליקוטי דברים בהלכה ובאגדה מתורתו ומשנתו של רבנו ראש הישיבה מרן הגאון רבי ירחמיאל גרשון אדלשטיין שליט”א

HaRav Edelstien, z’tl, crossed out לקוטי” and “מתורתו ומשנתו” and “ראש הישיבה” and “מרן.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)