On his 20th yahrtzeit - 18 Shevat 5750/1990

By Yochonon Donn

Every morning, at exactly 45 minutes before the netz, as you round the bend of the ramp descending to the Kosel, a minyan for Shacharis begins in an unobtrusive corner of the plaza. The minyan itself seems to be unassuming - an elderly 91-year-old man, some middle-aged businessmen, a sprinkling of kollel yungeleit and some American visitors to Israel eager to take part in one of the most famous minyanim in the world.

Famous?

Yes, Reb Beinish Finkel's minyan is about to start.

Reb Meyer Birnbaum - forever immortalized as "Lieutenant Birnbaum" by Yonasan Rosenblum in the book published by ArtScroll/Mesorah - told Hamodia that, although 20 years have passed since the petirah of the Mirrer Rosh Yeshivah, his name is still firmly attached to the minyan in which he davened every morning.

Reb Meyer says that the minyan still has over 30 people on any given day.

"That was, I think, only because it was called 'Reb Beinish's minyan.'"

Why is it still called after someone who passed away so many years ago?

"I call it Reb Beinish's minyan because we follow whatever hanhagos he had," he said. "Whatever he told us to do we did."

For example, Lt. Birnbaum recalled that Reb Beinish would give tzedakah to every single person he met that was collecting, sometimes even crossing the street to give.

During chazaras hashatz, Reb Beinish would go from minyan to minyan to "collect" Birchas Kohanim from each of the many colorful minyanim going on at the time at the Kosel.

Lt. Birnbaum also said that he never saw Reb Beinish putting on tefillin - except for once. When he picked him up in the morning, Reb Beinish would be waiting at his house, already wearing tallis and tefillin. On one occasion only did he see him put on tefillin - when they left before the zman of wearing tefillin.

The relationship Lt. Birnbaum, now 91, had with Reb Beinish was a surprisingly close one.

"You have no idea how close we were, unbelievable," he said. "He flattered me all over the world."

Lt. Birnbaum said that when his 12th child was born, he wanted to select a name in honor of Reb Beinish, who was still living at the time.

"No one knows what kind of tzaddik [Reb Beinish] is," he told his wife, "but we do."

So the Birnbaums named their son after Reb Beinish's father, Harav Leizer Yudel Finkel, zt"l.

Matters took on an interesting twist when Leizer Yudel Birnbaum grew up and had a son of his own. He decided - like all of Lt. Birnbaum's children - to name him Binyamin Beinish, after Reb Beinish Finkel.

When that boy was once in Manchester and the gabbai there wanted to give him an aliyah, he told him his name was "Binyamin Beinish ben Eliezer Yehudah" - the exact name of his namesake.

Excitedly, the bachurim crowded around him after davening.

"Do you know what kind of special name you have?" they asked.

"No," he answered. The bar mitzvah-aged boy was treated to a special initiation regarding the person who had thoroughly inspired his grandfather for a quarter of a century.

For nearly a decade, until Reb Beinish's passing in 1990, Lt. Birnbaum would pick him up to daven vasikin and then drive him home afterward.

"Every time I speak - it's probably already a 100 to 150 times that I spoke at Bais Yaakovs, yeshivos and shuls, temples, whatever you call them - I always make a point to mention Reb Beinish, because he was such an inspiration to me," says Lt. Birnbaum.

"From where I was and where I am now, compared to twenty to thirty years ago, he changed my life around," he added.

Lt. Birnbaum's predawn car ride to the Kosel for the vasikin minyan, and the legend it has become among young yeshivah bachurim learning in the Mir, is chronicled in Rosenblum's book. People have attributed their shidduchim to it and many have tried to attend the minyan at least once in the course of their trip to Eretz Yisrael.

Lt. Birnbaum still goes to the Kosel every day to "his" minyan, but doesn't drive anymore.

"I sold my car," he laughs. "For the first time in thirty years, I am on the receiving end. Now they take me!"

Lt. Birnbaum said that the closeness he developed with Reb Beinish extended to others as well.

For example, Lt. Birnbaum once introduced a bachur who ate with him on Shabbos to Reb Beinish. And for all his years learning in the Mir, Yaakov Shmuel Marcus enjoyed a relationship with the Rosh Yeshivah nearly without parallel among the bachurim.

"I'm very busy but when I heard it was for Reb Beinish Finkel, I stopped whatever I was doing and came to the phone," said Rabbi Marcus, today Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivat Ohr HaTorah in Flatbush, when reached by Hamodia.

Rabbi Marcus said that when he first came to learn in the Mirrer Yeshivah in Yerushalayim, he resolved to daven k'vasikin at the Kosel every Friday morning. He had heard about Lt. Birnbaum's car ride to the Kosel so he went to his house early Friday morning for a hitch.

After davening, Lt. Birnbaum introduced Rabbi Marcus to Reb Beinish as "my nephew." From that time, said Rabbi Marcus, "he had a soft spot for me.

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