He Lost His Sight, Not His Spark: The Blind Survivor Who Learned Torah 16 Hours a Day

In Cheshvan 5781, Rabbi Shalom Yosef Taub, of blessed memory, passed away at the age of ninety-five. His life story is profoundly moving: born in the Hungarian town of Rachov, enduring the horrors of Auschwitz, and surviving the Nazi inferno with nothing but a torn striped uniform on his back.

Those who knew him understood that Rabbi Shalom Yosef was one of the hidden righteous of our generation.

A Life Built Around Torah

Rabbi Yaakov Lustigman relates that after the Holocaust, Rabbi Taub immigrated to the United States. In 5722 or 5723, he moved to Israel together with his wife.

He supported himself through honest manual labor, yet Torah remained the center of his life. When we speak of “setting fixed times for Torah,” we often imagine an hour or two a day, perhaps the time between Mincha and Maariv. For Rabbi Taub, fixed times meant something entirely different.

Even while working, he learned approximately twelve hours a day. After retiring, that number rose to sixteen and even seventeen hours daily, sometimes more.

The Coffee Room of the Belz Beit Midrash

The renowned maggid shiur, Rabbi Menashe Reisman, testified that entire generations of children and yeshiva students in Belz came to recognize the quiet figure of Reb Shalom Yosef. For more than twenty years, he sat together with his learning partner, Rabbi Michl Forgas, in the coffee room of the great Belz beit midrash in Jerusalem.

They learned with extraordinary focus, entirely absorbed in the Torah. The steady flow of people coming and going, the chatter, even the clatter of cups and kettles never distracted them.

Why the coffee room? Quite simply, it was the most comfortable place for them. In winter, the beit midrash was too cold. In summer, the air conditioning made sustained learning difficult. The coffee room, with its constant warmth and boiling kettles, allowed them to sit for long hours and learn without interruption.

When the Light of His Eyes Dimmed

At the age of seventy-seven, Rabbi Taub’s eyesight began to deteriorate due to diabetes. At first, with the help of a magnifying glass, he continued reading the sacred letters of the Gemara he loved so dearly.

After several months, his condition worsened and he lost sight in one eye. He was forced to give up learning Rashi and Tosafot, but he could still make out the larger text of the Gemara and continued learning with determination.

Eventually, his vision disappeared entirely, and he became completely blind.

For a man who had lived immersed in Torah day and night, this might have been a breaking point. For Reb Shalom Yosef, it was not.

Reinventing a Life of Learning

Within two weeks, he completely transformed his routine.

In his living room, he set up a tape recorder. To the right sat a shoebox filled with Kol HaDaf cassettes, shiurim delivered by Rabbi Michl Zilber. To the left sat an empty shoebox.

Each day began the same way. He would wake up, wash his hands, pray with deep concentration, eat a small meal, and carefully make his way to the living room. Sitting at the table, he would take a cassette from the full box, place it into the recorder, and listen attentively to the Gemara, along with Rashi and the early commentators.

When the shiur ended, he would move the cassette into the empty box and immediately begin another. In this way, he listened to about fourteen cassettes a day, each nearly an hour long. If something was unclear, he rewound and listened again. All told, he spent close to sixteen hours a day immersed in Torah through recorded learning.

Learning Without Sight or Sound

As the years passed, his hearing began to weaken as well. The volume rose higher and higher. Still, he continued. He learned entire tractates and reviewed Shas repeatedly, seated beside the tape recorder.

In his final years, when he could barely hear with one ear, he would sit hunched over, pressing his ear directly against the machine. Yet throughout it all, he radiated joy. A gentle smile never left his face. Even without sight and with almost no hearing, Reb Shalom Yosef was the happiest man in the world.

Only one thing caused him sorrow: Tractate Eruvin. Each time he reached it, he sighed deeply. “How can you truly understand Eruvin without diagrams and drawings?” he would say, regretting that he had not mastered it fully before losing his vision.

Nothing Was Ever Given Up

Even during Selichot and the High Holy Day prayers, he never gave up. He would ask someone to stand beside him and quietly recite the entire text into his ear.

He never complained. He never sought recognition. He accepted every challenge with calm and faith.

Rabbi Shalom Yosef never merited having children of his own. Still, he never resented the joy of others. His home was always stocked with sweets and treats for children who came with their parents to wish him a good Shabbat or Yom Tov. He welcomed them with genuine delight, as if they were his own.

“Nu, We’ll Go Back to the Tape”

Years after losing his sight, people began to discuss the possibility of cataract surgery. Perhaps he could see again and return to learning directly from the page. The doctors hesitated, concerned about his advanced age and fragile health.

After lengthy deliberations and receiving a blessing from a great Torah leader, it was decided to proceed. Rabbi Shalom Yosef was filled with excitement. Soon, he would see again. He would return to the Gemara itself, and the tape recorder could finally be set aside.

At the hospital, he lay down on the treatment bed, hopeful and calm. At the very last moment, the doctor changed his mind and explained that he could not risk operating on someone so elderly and ill.

Rabbi Shalom Yosef rose from the bed, smiled broadly, and said with quiet humor, “Nu, shoyn, geyt men tsurik tsum tape…”
No big deal. We’ll go back to the tapes.

May these words be for the elevation of the soul of the righteous Rabbi Shalom Yosef ben Rabbi Moshe Dov HaLevi Taub, of blessed memory.