Memorial Book for Rabbi Zelig Sharfstein of Cincinnati, Ohio

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Eliyahu HaGiladi: If Rabbi Sharfstein made up his mind – he could not be moved. I remember once on one of his visits to Australia we went to a place called Surfers Paradise. Something like your Miami but much smaller. Rabbi Sharfstein did not like the mechitsa at the shule of the Chabad Rabbi there. It was the only shule in the town. He went there every morning to daven – but when it came Shabbos and there would be women in shule – He refused to daven there. He felt the mechitsa was not good enough. No matter how much I tried to convince him “with umpteen heterim” - he would not budge, and he stayed home. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t long before the mechitsa was adjusted to Rabbi Sharfstein’s specifications. So it was, whether it came to the laws of a shule, or kashrus or a Mikvah – he could not be budged. The Torah could not be compromised – and he as its representative could and would not budge.
 
Indeed, without a doubt, Rabbi Sharfstein is deserving of these tributes of Novi, Tishbi, and Giladi. The tributes that he repeated in the name of Rabbi Silver, that Rabbi Silver repeated at the request of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and were in my mind prophetically tributes that applied to their pupil – Rabbi Sharfstein.
 
But there is also one more tribute that I would like to add. A tribute not mentioned by Rabbi Silver but a trib[ute]
 
 
 
In honor of Shloshim 5 Adar 2, 5768