My 1984 red Nissan Sentra died on a freezing cold Sunday afternoon in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot next to Colonial Village Shopping Center in Pikesville.

It was late in the afternoon, the sun was already setting, and there I was lifting the hood as if I had the slightest idea of what I might find or fix under there.

This was before cellphones. And I knew that a bunch of children were waiting for their “Munchkin” doughnut holes back in my Randallstown home.
Going through my wallet while still trying to turn the ignition on, the car just wouldn’t turn over. I knew that calling road service would take an hour or two.

A man walked over to my car. It was Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb. He had been recently appointed the new spiritual leader of Congregation Shomrei Emunah. He didn’t know me from anyone.

But I knew who he was.

Rabbi Weinreb asked if he could give me a lift home.

When I told him “home” was off of Winands Road in Randallstown, he said “no problem.”

He took me all the way home and wouldn’t accept an offer for gas money.

This is how I officially met Rabbi Weinreb.

Over the years, Rabbi Weinreb was always there for me and for this community. Just knowing he was in town gave the community integrity and grounded it in respect.

Whether I watched him on my computer speak during Tisha B’Av, or I just went to his Cross Country Blvd. home to pick his brain a bit, there was always time.

I missed his presence here when he left to lead the Othodox Union, but it also made feel as if this important international organization was indeed in good hands. Who best to help the OU heal after the wounds left behind by the toxicity of the Rabbi Baruch Lanner situation?

So when I read recently that Rabbi Weinreb’s future as the OU’s leader is coming to a close, it makes me take pause. He is one of the men I can point at to my children and say, “see that man, he is one of the great ones.”

I do not fully understand why the OU made such a decision. But if we don’t want men such as Rabbi Weinreb leading Orthodoxy, who else really is there?

A short while back, I was at Barnes and Noble picking up a book on the Jewish views of heaven. Rabbi Weinreb turned the corner of the bookshelves and came right to the Judaica section. I felt the energy of greatness standing there next to me.

It’s so seldom one gets to experience that.

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Thank you for this piece. This is my first time loking at your blog. 
I don’t know what the OU’s Mr. Savitsky has in mind. Rabbi Weinreb is a world resource.  I hope and trust that if he leaves the OU he will find a great new forum in which to work for the greater Kehal.