Naomi Adir a"h A Heroine Among Heroes - Yated Ne'eman

The incredible story of Naomi Adir (Nechama Raitza bas Avraham) who died this week at the age of 99.

People are often urged to reach deep within themselves to find gifts and talents they never knew existed. Once in a great while, we are introduced to someone who can inspire the world with their life by demonstrating to us the ability to live way beyond our assumed capabilities. Naomi Adir  a”h, who passed away in New York this week at the age of 99, is the world's teacher in this vein.

While I never had the zechus of meeting Ms. Adir, I had two phone conversations with her that were enough to introduce to me the brilliant depth of a life lived for Klal Yisroel. 

In August of 2015 I called her and told her that I often see her name on a plaque in Telshe Yeshiva and in one of Cleveland’s kollelim and she should know that her generosity is remembered every day. I asked her to tell me a little about herself. She said she was 96 years old and blind at the time. She said she always had a passion for Jewish education and focused her charity dollars strictly on it, because the future of our people depends on that.

Born in 1918, she taught from the age of twenty in the New York City public school system in the elementary and junior high school divisions. She also taught dance and was a folk dance performer.

She never got married and hence had no children. Living all the years with her parents, she saved all her earnings. After more than two decades, her father asked her, “why are you saving all of your money? What will you do with it?” She answered, “One day, I will have to retire and I have no children to care for me. I will need the money then to take care of myself.” Her father told her, “Don’t you realize that you are working for the New York City board of Education? You have an excellent pension plan and you will be able to collect social security. Do something special with your money now.”

Naomi told me, “I thought about it and said what my father says makes sense. I am going to use my money to help ensure the future of our people. I’m going to find Jewish boys and girls who are unable to afford a good Jewish education and I will enable them to receive the education they deserve.”

Naomi told me that she lived mostly in the secular world and she had never learned Hebrew. But she was a teacher and thus appreciated the power of education and always intuitively knew that giving Jewish children specifically a Torah education was going to help guarantee a Jewish future. So she knew that she wanted to fund Orthodox Jewish schools in Israel. She gave and raised close to one million dollars for Chinuch Atzmai in the 1960s.

She said that she never spent any of her money on herself. She wouldn’t buy new clothing, rather spend her money on educating Jewish children leTorah ulemitzvos. Her moment of pleasure she said was when she handed over a check, knowing that it would educate a fresh crop of Jewish children.

Early on, she never allowed her name to be placed on any plaque, only the name of her parents. After a while she was convinced by an acquaintance that she is setting an example that others can follow, and she should allow herself to get recognition for that reason. On that basis, she agreed to allow her name to be publicly associated with her donations. After a few years, she decided to expand her giving to Torah education in the United States as well and she made significant contributions to yeshivos and kollelim across the United States. True to her original plan, she gave away all of her money and lived off her pension the rest of her life.

As mentioned, Naomi never married and didn’t leave over biological children, but she has thousands of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren whom she enabled through her vision and generosity to become healthy, educated and productive Torah Jews.

Naomi will live forever through the future generations of “her children” who will spread their wings as a result of her selflessness.

Naomi told me that she wants Jewish women to know that they can make a difference philanthropically just like she did.

What strikes me most about her story is the genius in devoting herself and her resources expressly to education and the emotional nourishment she derived from that. Our heartstrings are pulled by every worthy tzedakah imaginable, but somehow educating Klal Yisroel’s children feels like a burden. It’s just something we have to do. While we may know intellectually how important it is, our hearts don’t seem to feel it in the same way.

If we want to know how Chazal viewed the world it would be worthwhile to look at the tefillos they instituted in davening. We just concluded the Yom Tov of Chanukah and are looking forward to Purim. Let’s take a look in the siddur at the tefillos instituted for those days. On Chanukah the threat was “lehashkicham Torasecha uliha’aviram meichukei retzonecha.” The response to that is “v’ata berachamecha harabim amadeta lahem b’eis tzarasam, ravta es rivam…” On Purim, the threat was “lehashmid laharog ule’abeid es kol haYehudim mina’ar v’ad zakein taf venashim beyom echad ushlalam lavoz.” what is the response to that? “V’ata berachamecha harabim heifarta es atzaso…” What happened to “amadeta lahem b’eis tzarasam”? Could the threat of “lehashkicham torasecha” be more painful than the threat of “lehashmid laharog ule’abeid es kol haYehudim”? This question might illustrate the depth of feeling Chazal expected from us towards living a life of Torah and mitzvos. Indeed, who can ever imagine a more excruciating and gut wrenching expression of pain, love and life than parents telling their children in the kinnus, “Lo zachinu legadelchem laTorah, nakrivchem ke’olah ve’haktarah”? And who can ever imagine a greater call to action than the words of Yoshiyahu of “alai lehakim” when reading the possuk “arur asher lo yakim es divrei haTorah hazos”? A call to action that brought about the greatest wave of teshuva in our history.

In Russia, there was an expression “Mat'-geroinya,” a mother-heroine, to describe a woman who bore ten children or more. Naomi Adir is a mother-heroine among the heroes of our people.