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FESTSCHRIFT | 83

RABBI DANI RAPP, א”טילש – THE EARLY YEARS

To mark the occasion of Rabbi Dani Rapp reaching ten
years leading the East Denver Orthodox Synagogue, it is my privilege to humbly share
some words in honor of my dear friend.

I merited to have witnessed first-hand much of Rabbi Rapp’s formative years, and am
the beneficiary of many fond memories of growing up together, all of which I cherish
to this day.

Members of EDOS may know him as Rabbi Rapp, but to me, he has always been Yitz-
chok Tzvi Hirsch, or Dani.

Our shared resume includes growing up together in Kew Gardens Hills, Yeshiva Dov
Revel, Little League baseball, Camp Morasha, MTA, roommates at Kerem B’Yavneh,
Yeshiva University, Columbia Law School, and more. I am proud to have gone through
much of our early lives together, during which I was happy to be positioned in the
shadow of Dani’s ever-growing stature, and I am immeasurably grateful for the Torah-

infused influence he has had on my life.

אתוקני אדסח בר רמא ?איה יאמ .איתא אלו אלזאד אדחל הל יוו

Woe to the one that goes and does not come back. And what is it? Rav Chisda said: Youth.
Talmud Bavli, Masechet Shabbat 152a

In elementary school, Dani was our class math whiz, our teachers’ choice for reading
aloud in Chumash or Gemara (an early sign of the Talmid Chacham he was to soon
become), a huge supporter of the Miami Dolphins (sorry, Broncos fans), and unsur-
prisingly, the class clown. Each year, on the first day of school, our newly assigned
teachers would realize what lay ahead for them in dealing with this particularly preco-