THE SCENE: The third level shiur in Reb
Shimon Shkop's yeshiva in Grodno.
Reb Shimon has just tested the students. Before
leaving he turns to the class and remarks "This
much I can say about your Rebbi: when I was as
old as he is now, I did not even stand as tall as his
ankles in Torah knowledge."
The Rebbi was all of
19 years of age.
THE SCENE: Hoshana Rabba in Jerusalem 57
years later. The young Grodno instructor, who
has become the Rebbi of thousands, is lying on his
death-bed, his body racked with pain and ravaged
by disease. A young man enters the room and asks
him to pray for the recovery of a sick person.
After the young man leaves, the Rosh Yeshiva
says to his son, "Please dress me, I'm going to the
Kosel."
"But father," his son protests, "you can hardly
turn over in bed. How can you possibly go to the
Kosel?"
"Dress me please," his father insists. "I'm
going to the Kosel."
Reluctantly the son helps his father dress and
with the aid of another carries him to the car which takes him to the Kosel. At the Kosel, the
father with barely enough strength to stand, gets out of the car and entreats the Almighty for the
well-being of another. Then he returns to his
sickbed.
Such was the Mirrer Rosh Yeshiva, Moreinu Hagaon
Reb Chaim Leib Shmulevitz. Such was his youth,
such was his old age and such was his entire life. What, really, can
one say about a man who learned through the entire
Torah, both written and oral, countless times (Bavli,
Yerushalmi, Medrash, Rishonim, and Acharonim), and
knew it so thoroughly and completely in its width,
breadth and depth? What more is there to say about one
who had the entire Torah at his fingertips, and not satisfied with his own accomplishments, spent all his days
teaching this Torah by word and by deed to thousands
of disciples, young and old, brilliant and ordinary?
The Torah tells us: "And Abraham came to
eulogize Sarah and to weep for her." Reb Chaim
asked, "Why doesn't the Torah elaborate further
on this point and tell us what Abraham said?" He
suggested that the answer is to be found in Rashi's
comment to pasuk 2: "The years of the life of
Sarah." Rashi comments, "They were all equal in
virtue."
Reb Chaim explained, "Abraham could not
truly eulogize Sarah, because, as the Chazal tell
us, she was greater than he in prophecy, limiting
Abraham's capacity to fully understand Sarah's
greatness. Thus he could not describe the true
dimensions of her personality. He could, however,
offer one all-encompassing praise - 'All her years
were equally superb.' There were no lapses in her
excellence. She was perfectly consistent and consistently perfect."
If we cannot evaluate the Rosh Yeshiva, we can at
least paraphrase Abraham's comment: All his days
were equally virtuous.
Reh Chaim was born in Kovno, Lithuania, on
Motzaei Rosh Hashana 5663 (1902) to Reb Refoel Alter
Shmulevitz and his wife, Ettel, the daughter of Reb
Yoseif Yoizel Horowitz, Der Alter fun Novaradok. The
sandek at his bris was Reb Yitzchok Blazer (Reb ltzel
Peterburger), a Torah and Mussar luminary of the time,
one of Reb Yisroel Salanter's greatest disciples.
Reb Chaim's respect for his father was legendary and
he quoted him often in both Torah lectures and mussar
discourses (on ethical themes). He considered his
father's handwritten chiddushim (Torah novellae) his
most valued treasure.
During the Six Day War, when
the yeshiva was within range of Jordanian artillery, Reb Chaim sent some of the manuscripts to America with
his uncle, Rabbi Avraham Yaffen, with specific instructions that he carry them by hand and not put them in
his luggage, because "Dos iz mein gantze leben - This
is my whole life.''
He often told of the time the Mirrer Mashgiach,
Rabbi Yeruchem Levovitz, passed through
Stutchin, where his father, Reb Alter, was Rosh
Yeshiva. Reb Alter asked Reb Yeruchem to stay
on as Mashgiach.
"I have no means to support you, nothing to
give you," he said, "but the one shirt that I'm
wearing. But I'll give it to you, if you'll stay."
Reb Chaim explained this incident in his inimitable manner: "Was it really necessary to have
Reb Yeruchem as Mashgiach? The Rav of Stutchin was one other than Reb Leib Chasman - a talmid of Rav Itzele Blazer and other mussar greats. Didn't Reb Leib suffice
for the mussar needs of Stutchin? We can learn
from here that for just one additional drop of
mussar, one must be prepared to give away his
only shirt."
In 5680 (1920) when Reb Chaim was 17, both his
parents passed away within a very short time, orphaning him, a brother, and two sisters. As the oldest, Reh
Chaim felt the responsibility of supporting his brother
and sisters, so during the day he went to the marketplace to make a few groshen.
"That was during the day,'' his brother Reh Shlomo
recalls, "But the entire night, I would see him writing
his chiddushei Torah - which must have occupied his
mind during his day in the market!"
He was able to study Torah and think in Torah under
all circumstances wherever he was. At a meal, a simcha,
taking a walk, or on the bus, one could always see him
with his brow furrowed in concentration and his closed
fist moving back and forth, punctuating his Torah
thoughts.
He committed to paper his every shiur, shmuess,
chabura, va'ad and public address, leaving behind at his
passing thousands of handwritten pages, including
chiddushim on every tractate of the Talmud.
When but eighteen, Reh Chaim was invited by the
world famous Gaon, Rabbi Shimon Shkop to give the
third level shiur in the yeshiva ketana (preparatory
academy) in Grodno. Many of his students of those
years later became great Torah leaders -Rabbi Shmuel
Rozovksy (Rosh Yeshiva in Ponoviez), Rabbi Yisroel
Gustman (Rosh Yeshiva Netzach Yisroel) and Rabbi
Dovid Lipschutz (Suvalker Rov), to mention but a
few.
When Rabbi Gustman was menachem oveil
Reb Chaim's family, he related: "I was among
Reb Chaim's first talmidim in Grodno. When he
finished his shiur, and we would return to the Beis Hamidrash. A while later he would rush around
the room, rounding up the bachurim of the shiur.
'Quickly, you must come at once!' he would exclaim. 'I just thought of a new approach to understanding the Yerushalmi.' This might happen a
few times a day, even late at night. We didn't
listen to the shiur, we lived it."
His four years in Grodno with Reb Shimon had a
profound influence on his approach to Talmudic analysis.
The Move to Mir
At the age of 22, he headed a group of students who
transferred from Grodno to Mir, and for the next 54
years, Reb Chaim Stutchiner (as he was called) taught,
guided, and inspired thousands of talmidim by word
and by deed, individually and collectively, with his way
of life and his approach to learning.
His hasmada (diligence) and the intensity of his efforts in Torah study became a legend in his lifetime.
A friend once asked to study with him before
Shacharis. "Fine," said Reh Chaim. "How about
starting at one in the morning?"
"I can't tell you when he slept," said that friend
- now a Rosh Yeshiva, "but I do know that when
I went to sleep at eleven p.m.; he was still up,
learning. And he would awaken me at 1 a.m. for
our pre-Shacharis seder (session)."
During his years in Mir, while still single, he
ate the Friday night meal at the home of the
Mashgiach Reh Yeruchem. After the meal,
Reb Yeruchen1 gave a mussar discourse in his
home to scores of students, but the Mashgiach
would tell Reh Chaim not to stay: "Your mind is
always occupied with your learning; during the
shmuess it will be no different. Go to the yeshiva
and study in peace."
In his shmuessen, Reh Chaim never spoke
about increasing one's hours of learning. Rather,
he dwelt on the ruination that interruption
causes:
"Imagine a kettle of water heated to 200 degrees and
then cooled down . .. heated up to 200 and again
cooled ... ad infinitum. With all the heat expended, the water will never be brought to a boil.
And if it is heated up for sufficient duration but
once, it will forever be boiled water."
His thirst for Torah knowledge was always unquenchable.
A chavrusa of his recalled studying together
when this chavrusa's pupil, a young novice,
approached to ask some simple questions.
Reb
Chaim leaned over, straining to catch every word.
"What did he ask? What does he think? What did
he say?" Perhaps he would hear a new approach,
a new insight, something too precious to miss. He
thirsted to learn from anyone, no matter how
humble.
The importance of this eagerness to learn Torah from
anyone was a thread that he wove through many a
shmuess. In this context he often dwelled on the story
told in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 68 ):
The disciples of Rabbi Eliezer Hagadol were
gathered around his deathbed and each, in turn,
asked the nature and circumstances of his own
death. When Rabbi Akiva's turn came Rabbi
Eliezer said to him, "Your end will be the most
severe because if you had studied under me properly, you would have learned much more
Torah." And so it was. Rabbi Akiva was tortured
to death, his flesh torn from his body with iron
combs.
"Let's pause for a moment," Reb Chaim would
say, "and consider to whom this happened. To
Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest of the Tannaim
... Rabbi Akiva about whom his contemporaries
said, 'You are fortunate, Rabbi Akiva, your fame
has spread from one end of the world to the other'
(Yevamos 16). Rabbi Akiva about whom Moshe
Rabbeinu declared 'If such a man will exist, why
do You find it necessary to give the Torah to Israel
through me?' (Menachos 30).
"And from whom was Rabbi Akiva supposed
to have learned? - from Rabbi Eliezer, who was
excommunicated by his contemporaries until his
death. Nonetheless, he died a horrible death because he had failed to learn as much as he could
have from Rabbi Eliezer. And we, who know so
much less than Rabbi Akiva - how much more is
it incumbent upon us to learn from whomever we
can". Even in his youth Reb Chaim's fame as a masmid
with phenomenal memory in all areas of Torah had
spread throughout Europe.
Once, on a visit to Vilna, he stopped in at the
home of Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, the
acknowledged leader of Torah Jewry. When Reb
Chaim entered the room where Reb Chaim Ozer
was meeting with some rabbinic leaders, Reb
Chaim Ozer stood up. Upon being asked why
he had honored such a young man, Reh Chaim
Ozer answered, "When the Torah Library of the
Mirrer Yeshiva enters the room, l rise in respect."
In 1929 Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, the Mirrer
Rosh Yeshiva, took him as a son-in-law, and a scant
few years later, at the relatively young age of 31, Reb
Chaim was appointed as a Rosh Yeshiva, delivering
regular lectures. The hallmark of his lectures was depth
combined with a fabulous breadth. On the subject at hand, he would bring to bear countless references from
all over Bavli and Yerushalmi, Rishonim and Acharonim. It was not uncommon for him to cite 20 or 30 different sources from far-flung corners of the Talmud
and its commentaries during a single lecture.
The Beginning of the Years of Exile
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the
yeshiva was forced into exile, beginning one of its most
glorious chapters. Years later, he would say that under
these most trying circumstances, forced to flee form one
place to another, the yeshiva prospered as never before.
The ensuing seven years of golus - of exile in the most
real sense -serve as a shining example of the heights a
united community can scale, of the dimensions of
greatness and strength of character a yeshiva can attain
when its only nourishment is Torah, its only home Bitachon BeHashem.
On the second day of Cheshvan 5700 (1939), the
yeshiva bachurim and faculty fled from Mir to Vilna,
where they stayed for about two months, after which
they moved to Kaydan, where they managed to set up
the yeshiva once more. Seven months later they were
ordered out of Kaydan by the Lithuanian Communist
authorities, whereupon the yeshiva divided into four
groups, each numbering between 80 and 100 students.
So as not to attract attention, each group studied in a
different town in the surrounding countryside and Reb
Chaim would shuttle from one to another to say the
weekly shiur, preparing on the bumpy ride between
towns.
The hashgacha pratis (Divine Providence) of the next
few years was patently evident. Miraculously, the
yeshiva obtained transit visas for the entire group, and
after much travail managed to reach Japan via the trans-Siberian railroad. Those involved saw divine manipulation of events every step of the way, and the pasuk
"Lev melachim ve'sarim be'yad Hashem - The hearts
of kings and officials are in the hands of G-d" was for
them a living reality. Reb Chaim often mentioned in his shmuessen that
one of the most important factors in its miraculous
salvation was the yeshiva's staying together at all times.
In this connection he often spoke of the power of the
united community:
When the Jews reached Mount Sinai, the Torah
says, "Israel set camp adjacent to the Mountain". Rashi comments that the Torah employed the singular, speaking of the entire nation as one individual "As one person with one heart." The Ohr
HaChaim Hakadosh explains that this unity was a
prerequisite to receiving the Torah.
"Imagine,"
said Reb Chaim, "600 ,000 men, plus women and
children, whose release from Egyptian bondage
was only to facilitate their receiving the Torah,
thereby becoming G-d's chosen people. They
travelled to Sinai for this reason and this reason
alone. But that did not suffice. These multitudes
could not have received the Torah as individuals.
It was only as a nation, as a cohesive unit with one
body and one heart, as it were, that they could
receive the Torah and fulfill their destiny."
He would elaborate further on this theme:
"Those who separated themselves from the
yeshiva - numbering 30 or so - and tried to make
their own way out of the European inferno, did
not succeed. Only the yeshiva as a unit managed
with Divine guidance to escape unscathed."
The yeshiva stayed in Kobe, Japan, for about six
months, and then relocated to Shanghai for the next
five years; living conditions were extremely difficult, but
the yeshiva prospered. Reb Lazar Yudel Finkel had
gone to Eretz Yisroel to obtain visas for the yeshiva and
was forced to remain there; so the entire responsibility
of directing the yeshiva was borne by Reb Chaim and
the Mashgiach Rabbi Yecheskel Levenstein.
[Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Klugman]
