I am the Centennial Historian of Rice University. This means, among other things, that every day when I go to work I am surrounded by people who are smarter than I am. Isaac Dvoretzky was also smarter than I am, in fact dramatically so, but his intelligence was of an unusual kind. He was a brilliant student, an accomplished chemist and so on, but the combination of his lived experience and his lifelong intimacy with the Torah gave him something beyond the grasp of most of us. His intelligence was sharp indeed but it was tempered by a deep warmth of human understanding and a generosity of spirit that made every hour spent with him a gift. He was a teacher and a learner, honest in his inquiry into the past and always hopeful for better things to come.
Isaac Dvoretzky was incandescent. He gave off light. What a privilege to have known him.
Bonus: Here is a link to a lovely obituary. And wanting to hear his voice again I went and found his remarks on the occasion of his acceptance of the ARA Meritorious Service Award in 2003:
