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<p>40 years ago, parashas Pinechas, my bar mitzvah peshetl at Shabbos lunch
was about the contrast between Pinechas’s extremism and that of
Shim’on and Leivi.</p>
<p>That peshetl was written by a master of thoughts on the parashah,
future-Rabbi Matis Blum zt”l. Reb Matis fell victim to CoVID-19 over
Shabbos. 10 Nissan, 5780.</p>
<p>These are disjointed thoughts… Not collected into some polished
tribute. My attempt at coping with devastating news when I just read it.</p>
<p>When I was 11 or 12 years old, I started attending the Bachurei Minyan in
Yeshiva of Central Queens. It was organized by a <em>bachur </em>named Matis
Blum. We finished significantly before my and Matis’s father’s
Shabbos morning <em>minyan</em>, so my father got him to learn with me from
after davening until they got home from shul.We learned together every
Shabbos, 10 months a year (not camp) through R’ Matis getting semichah,
his marriage, and until I got married and moved away.</p>
<p>That’s in addition to attending his <em>shul </em>as the <em>bachurim
</em>ceased to be <em>bachurim</em>, and it evolved into congregation Torah
Ladaas.</p>
<p>Torah Ladaas is also the name of his VERY popular collection of seven
<em>sefarim </em>of <em>divrei Torah</em> on the <em>parashah</em>. At the
time we started learming, Matis was already putting out a weekly <em>parashah
</em>sheet named Torah Lodaas in honor of the yeshiva he attended. The sheets
were typewritten and mimeographed. I don’t know if he invented the
concept of <em>parashah </em>sheet, but if not, he was an early adopter.</p>
<p>Torah Lodaas was collected into one <em>seifer</em>, then two, and is now
available in 7 volumes, and is amazingly popular. </p>
<p> R’ Matis was a close <em>talmid </em>of R’ Pam zt”l. I
recall R Pam showing up at a <em>shul </em>function — an incredible
honor for a function that didn’t draw much more than 2 dozen
<em>bachurim </em>and young married men in a basement.</p>
<p>In 2008 Rebbetzin Etti passed away at just 45 years of age, leaving Reb
Matis a single parent with children in the home. Shortly after the funeral, I
blogged about her truly bitachon-filled attitude toward fighting a brain tumor
in a post titled “<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The Kindness
of Hashem (opens in a new tab)"
href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/the-kindness-of-hashem" target="_blank">The
Kindness of Hashem</a>“.</p>
<p>And now he too passed away at a much younger age than we hope for.</p>
<p>A true anav. I recall R’ Matis asking me why it would take me so long
to finish YU. I explained that 126 credits, 50 min per week for a semester
each credit, my major had a lot of requirements. He asked me why I
didn’t just study for the CLEP (College Level Equivalency Placement)
tests and skip half those requirements. R’ Matis had no conception that
he had unique gifts. He didn’t understand that most people can’t
just polish off all that material on their own.</p>
<p>We lost a soft-spoken brilliant man, both a <em>ba’al middos </em>and
a <em>talmid chakham</em>. <em>Yehi zikhro barukh</em>!</p>
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