Ha'aretz reports:
"This is the first time that an elderly rabbi, 93 years old, has gotten on a plane and said, 'I didn't come to ask anything of you, I came so that we can shout Shema Yisrael ["Hear O Israel"] together, I came to strengthen Torah and mitzvot [commandments] in your communities here in the Diaspora," the Steinman follower said. "He came here to tell people that if there is Torah, there is no assimilation. The idea is to put Torah in the center, to commit to it. He came to tell them, 'Leave everything and start to be ultra-Orthodox, like in Israel. It's a matter of to be or not to be.'"…
The rabbinic duo represents Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox unity, as Steinman is one of the leading Lithuanian (non-Hasidic) rabbis and the Gerrer rebbe is the top Hasidic rabbi living in Israel. Some 18 months ago, the pair traveled to North America and Central America, and about a year before that, Steinman visited France on his own. Members of the ultra-Orthodox community in Paris say that visit changed their lives, since it led to the establishment of ultra-Orthodox schools that teach only religious studies.
And who will support these future indigents? Welfare and tzedaka, primarily supplied by non-haredim and, in this case, non-Jews. Two years ago, Rabbi Shteinman did not know what a credit card was or how it could be used to buy products or make donations on the phone, let alone online. This is a sage? Please. An idiot savant, maybe; a sage, no.