Rav YB Soloveichik was a master eulogizer. Sadly, he did not eulogize Rav Shach. There are probably a number of reasons for this, one of them being that Rav Shach passed away a decade after he did.
:-).
Rav Shach actually has a published letter where he strongly attacked the hashkafos of RYBS. Nevertheless, a giant like Rav Shach deserves the kavod of a hesped of RYBS.
So I asked my computer for one - and here it goes. Prepare tissues.
We gather here in the shadow of profound loss, to mourn Maran HaGaon HaRav Elazar Menachem Man Shach זצ"ל, the Sar HaTorah, the Rosh Kol Bnei HaGolah, whose passing has left an emptiness in the Beit Midrash of Klal Yisrael that echoes through generations. He was not merely a rosh yeshiva, not only a posek or manhig; he was the living embodiment of the Brisker mesorah in its purest, most uncompromising form—transplanted from the Lithuanian shtetl to the reborn yeshiva world of Eretz Yisrael, where it flowered into a fortress of pure Torah against the winds of modernity.
The halakhic personality is dialectical: man stands in majesty as creator and conqueror, yet in covenant as humble servant before the Almighty. Rav Shach lived this dialectic with fierce integrity. In his youth, he sat at the feet of giants—Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, and above all, my uncles, the Brisker Rav, Rav Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik, who encouraged him to accept the mantle at Ponevezh. There, in the rebuilt Ponevezh Yeshiva alongside Rav Shmuel Rozovsky and Rav Dovid Povarsky, he became one of the three pillars upholding the structure of lomdus in the post-Holocaust era. His shiurim were not lectures; they were ontological confrontations with the text—brisker pilpul at its apex, dissecting concepts into yesodos and chalukim until the sugya stood revealed in crystalline clarity. His Avi Ezri on Rambam is a monument to this method: rigorous, austere, unadorned by rhetoric, yet ablaze with intellectual fire.
Yet Rav Shach's greatness transcended the four amos of halakha. He was the gadol who saw the existential peril of the generation: the danger of assimilation not only in the secular world, but within the camp of Torah itself. In an age when many sought accommodation, he stood as the sentinel, refusing compromise. He founded Degel HaTorah, guided Chinuch Atzmai, chaired Va'ad HaYeshivos—not out of political ambition, but from a covenantal sense of responsibility. He believed that Torah-true Judaism could not survive by half-measures; it demanded total fidelity to the mesorah, even if that fidelity provoked machlokes. As he once declared, if a dispute is l'shem shamayim, it endures. He was unafraid to be ba'al machlokes when he perceived heresy or deviation threatening the yechidah of Klal Yisrael.
This courage was born of loneliness—the loneliness of the halakhic man who stands before God and before his people, bearing the burden of da'as Torah. Like Adam the Second, he knew isolation not as weakness but as the precondition for authentic encounter. He consulted the Brisker Rav before major steps; he declined offers from distant shores, choosing instead the hard path of rebuilding Torah in Eretz Yisrael. In his later years, frail in body yet unyielding in spirit, he remained the voice that thousands heeded, the yochid b'doro whose clarity cut through noise and confusion.
We dare not ignore the controversies that marked his path—his sharp critiques, his political interventions, even his pointed words against figures in the broader Torah world - myself included. Yet, the human being is not judged by absence of conflict but by the authenticity of his struggle. Rav Shach's battles were never personal; they were waged for the survival of unadulterated Torah, for the society of learners he helped forge, where tens of thousands immerse in Torah day and night. He promoted the idea that genuine lomdei Torah are the heart of the nation, and that even ba'alei teshuvah hold a unique role in hastening geulah. He was a man of unmitigated truth whose only interest was kavod Shamayim and the perpetuation of Torah in Klal Yisrael.
Now he has been gathered to the yeshiva shel ma'alah. The sword of lomdus he wielded so masterfully is silent; the voice that thundered for purity is stilled. Yet his legacy endures: in every yeshiva where Brisker method is taught with precision, in every talmid who refuses easy paths, in the unbroken chain of mesorah he guarded so jealously.
We mourn not only the man, but the era he represented—an era when one tzaddik could still speak for the collective neshamah of Knesses Yisrael. In his petirah, we confront our own frailty: without such giants, how shall we stand? Yet precisely here lies the challenge he bequeaths us: to rise to covenantal responsibility, to live halakhically in majesty and humility, to defend Torah without fear.
Yehi zichro baruch. May his merit shield us, and may the Almighty grant comfort to all who mourn Zion and her scholars. Amen.
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In the name of equality and fairness I thought it only right that Rav Shach eulogize RYBS and return the favor.
We stand here today in our Beis Medrash to speak about Maran HaGaon HaRav Yosef Dov HaLevi Soloveitchik זצ"ל – the Rosh Yeshiva of RIETS, the great lamdan from Boston and New York, the one they called "the Rav."
I speak not as one who agreed with all his paths – far from it. The differences between us were deep, sharp, and known to all. But the Torah demands that we speak emes, and the emes is that he was a giant in Torah, a ba'al pilpul of extraordinary depth, a mind that could slice through the most difficult sugyos like a sharp knife through butter. His shiurim on Rambam, on Chumash, on halakha – they were full of chiddushim that made the ear tingle and the heart tremble with the kedusha of Torah. He was a true talmid chacham, a grandson of Rav Chaim Brisker in the direct line, carrying the Brisker mesorah in his blood and in his seforim. Who can deny that? To deny it would be sheker.
But precisely because he was so great, precisely because he had such influence, the danger was so great. When a small lamdan makes a mistake, it affects only himself. When a gadol with such koach ha'dibbur and such charisma speaks, thousands hang on his every word. And there, acharei haTorah, were places where his hashkafa veered from the pure mesorah of our gedolim. He spoke of "Religious Zionism" as if it were part of Torah itself, as if the medina founded by kofrim and resha'im could somehow carry kedusha. He opened doors to the university world, to secular studies mixed with Torah in ways that our fathers never permitted. He wrote things – in his seforim, in his lectures – that are difficult to hear, words that border on ideas foreign to the pure emunas chachamim of Klal Yisrael. I said it then, and I say it now: such teachings endanger the neshamah of the simple Jew, the yeshiva bochur who looks to the gedolim for guidance. When the masses are taught that one can blend Torah with the values of the outside world, with modern philosophy, with Zionism as ideology – that is a churban for pure Yiddishkeit.
Yet even in this, we see the yad Hashem. The Ribbono shel Olam gives us gedolim of different paths so that the full breadth of Torah can be seen – but only when each stays within his boundaries. Rav Soloveitchik was brilliant, yes. He built mosdos, he raised talmidim who learned with hasmadah, he defended halakha in a world that mocks it. For that, we must acknowledge the tov. But the tov does not erase the sakana. The Torah is not a cafeteria where one picks what is comfortable; it is a chain of mesorah from Har Sinai, unbroken, unbent. When one begins to "interpret" it through Western lenses, through existential philosophy or through accommodation with the medina shel kofrim, the chain weakens.
Now he has been taken from us. The voice that filled auditoriums is silent. The pen that wrote so many chiddushim on the Rambam no longer writes. We do not rejoice in a person's petirah – chas veshalom. We mourn the loss of a neshamah gedola, a neshamah that could have been even greater had it clung more tightly to the pure path of the Brisker Rav, of the Chazon Ish, of the gedolim who saw no compromise with the yetzer of the generation.
To his talmidim, to his family, to all who loved him and learned from him – take the good, strengthen yourselves in limud haTorah with the same intensity he demanded, but guard the boundaries he sometimes crossed. Return to the simple emuna, to the yiras shamayim without mixtures, to the life of total submission to the Ribbono shel Olam as our fathers lived it.
Yehi zichro livracha for the Torah he taught and the lomdus he embodied. May Hashem forgive any stumbling blocks, and may the zechus of his ameilus shield Klal Yisrael. And may we all merit to see the day when there is no more machlokes, only achdus around Toras Emes, when Moshiach comes and clarifies all, bimheira b'yameinu. Amen.
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Rav Aharon Lichtenstein was also a master maspid. He also didn't eulogize Rav Shach to the best of my knowledge. We are going to redress that lacuna thanks again to my handy computer:-).
We assemble today in sorrow and in awe to bid farewell to Maran HaGaon HaRav Elazar Menachem Man Shach זצ"ל, the towering figure who, for decades, stood as the unflinching guardian of pure Torah scholarship and communal integrity in our generation. His petirah marks not merely the close of a long and fruitful life—spanning nearly a century of unceasing devotion—but the passing of an era, an era defined by rigorous intellectual honesty, uncompromising fidelity to the mesorah, and a profound sense of responsibility for the spiritual welfare of Klal Yisrael.
Rav Shach was, above all, a lamdan of extraordinary depth. Trained in the crucible of pre-war Lithuanian yeshivot, he absorbed the Brisker method in its most austere and precise form from the Brisker Rav himself, and carried it forward into the reborn world of Torah in Eretz Yisrael. At Ponevezh, alongside Rav Shmuel Rozovsky and Rav Dovid Povarsky, he helped forge one of the premier centers of lomdus in the post-Holocaust period. His shiurim were models of conceptual clarity: he would penetrate to the yesod of a sugya, distinguish finely between categories, and demand from his talmidim the same relentless pursuit of truth. His Avi Ezri on the Rambam stands as a testament—rigorous, unadorned, yet luminous in its analytical power. Here was a mind that refused superficiality, that insisted upon precision as an ethical as well as an intellectual imperative.
Yet Rav Shach's stature extended far beyond the beit midrash. He emerged as a manhig in the fullest sense—not by seeking power, but by accepting the burden when others faltered. In an age of rapid change, when secular influences pressed upon the yeshiva world and ideological deviations threatened the integrity of Torah Judaism, he became the voice of unyielding commitment. He founded Degel HaTorah, nurtured Chinuch Atzmai, and guided Va'ad HaYeshivos with a clear vision: Torah must remain autonomous, uncompromised by political expediency or cultural accommodation. His interventions—often sharp, always principled—stemmed from a deep-seated conviction that the survival of authentic Yiddishkeit demanded vigilance. He saw, with prophetic clarity, the perils of dilution, and he acted accordingly, even when it invited controversy or isolation.
This vigilance was never personal animus; it was born of ahavat Yisrael in its most demanding form—the love that refuses to countenance spiritual endangerment. Rav Shach cared profoundly for talmidim, for yeshivot, for the simple learner no less than the gaon. He championed the ideal of Torah as a full-time vocation for thousands, believing that the society of lomdei Torah constituted the true backbone of the nation. In his later years, though physically frail, his moral authority remained undiminished; his word carried weight because it was rooted in authentic da'at Torah, forged through decades of selfless immersion in Torah and selfless concern for Am Yisrael.
We must acknowledge, with candor, that Rav Shach's path was not without discord. His critiques—of messianic fervor, of perceived ideological deviations, of political alignments—were forthright and sometimes divisive. Yet in assessing such matters, we recall the principle that machloket l'shem shamayim endures and elevates. His disputes were never for honor or faction; they were waged leshem shamayim, for the preservation of Torah's purity. One may differ with specific positions—indeed, many in the broader Torah community did—yet one cannot question the sincerity or the gravity with which he bore his yoke.
In reflecting upon his legacy, we confront a dual challenge: gratitude for what he built and preserved, and sober recognition of the vacuum he leaves. The yeshiva world he helped sustain thrives because of his efforts; the commitment to unadulterated limud haTorah that he exemplified remains a beacon. But the mantle of such unambiguous leadership is rare. In an age of nuance and pluralism, his was a voice of stark clarity, reminding us that Torah demands not only breadth but depth, not only tolerance but truth.
As we take leave of this tzaddik, let us resolve to honor his memory not merely with words of praise, but with deeds of fidelity: by deepening our own ameilus baTorah, by guarding the mesorah with intellectual honesty and moral courage, by striving to unite Klal Yisrael through genuine ahavah rather than through compromise of principle. May Hashem grant nechamah to his family, to his talmidim, to all who were shaped by his light, and may the merit of his Torah shield us in these trying times.
Yehi zichro baruch le'olam va'ed.
