The Jewish world lost one of its greatest personalities last week. Rabbi Yehoshua Zvi Shmidman was a rare combination of largeness of spirit and greatness of intellect. Among his students/followers were hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of people of all ages and backgrounds. They were drawn to him because he exuded love and warmth for each person, great psychological and emotional insight that allowed him to help each person who sought his counsel and profound understanding of all facets of human knowledge. First and foremost, he was a great talmid chakham. To hear one of his drashos was an exhilarating experience. He could be mefalpel with Reb Akiva Eiger, cite an existentialist philosopher and tell a side-splitting joke in a single derashah, weaving all these together into a single work of artistry.

He learned with, and had close personal relationships with, all the gedoilim of the previous generation. He taught a class on Jewish philosophy at YU in the early Seventies to a motley collection of bright rebels and from those classes emerged a cadre of some of today's leading scholars, many of whom still cite that class as the singular influence that determined the trajectories of their lives. He was Rabbi of large kehillos in New York and Montreal, where he was loved and admired, but most people, especially his congregants, thought of him more as a teacher, guide and friend than as a Rabbi in the formal sense.

He combined the wisdom of a great sage with the simplicity, guilelessness, sweetness and curiosity of a child. He was niftar with Shma on his lips on the 7th day of Av. Tehei nishmaso tzerurah be-tzror ha-chaim.