“Thank You Reb Meir”

On the 8th yahrtzeit of Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz z’l, I deeply thank him for his extraordinary and selfless contribution to Child Safety and abuse prevention by taking the Karasick “Let’s Stay Safe” Child Safety Book as an ArtScroll project.

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Here is an article I wrote in Mishpacha Magazine shorty after his petira/passing.


So Much Wisdom
By: Rabbi Yakov Horowitz

It was likely the most polite — and temporary — rejection of my professional life.

“Reb Yakov, I’d like to be the first donor to this important project,” Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz said to me with a smile, taking a checkbook from his desk, “but this really isn’t what we do.”

I had come to Reb Meir’s ArtScroll office nearly a decade ago asking him to publish our Let’s Stay Safe child safety book at a time when that topic was simply not discussed in polite company. Truth be told, the book was most certainly not congruent with the Mesorah/ArtScroll mission that spreads Torah literacy and scholarship worldwide in perhaps an unprecedented scale in our glorious history.

Despite the fact that it may have been more prudent to take a pass on the book, Rabbi Zlotowitz and yblch”t Rabbi Nosson Scherman took an active role in publishing the book, recognizing what the ArtScroll name would do to mainstream child safety education across the widest spectrum of Orthodox Jewish homes.

Rabbi Zlotowitz was such a wise and practical man and I learned so many life lessons from observing him. In fact, when leaving his office, I often had the same feeling I get each year after reading Koheles during Succos — a sense of difficulty in processing all that rapid-fire, excellent advice in real time.

It is hard to believe that Reb Meir’s time on this earth is over, and even harder to believe how he managed to accomplish all that he did in just 73 years.

Yehi zichro baruch.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 666)