It might have been decades ago how is it that the hallowed months and years in yeshivah, closed off from the mundane pressures of life, are still the engine pushing them forward?
The Game-Changer // Ner Israel, Baltimore
When I arrived at Ner Israel in Baltimore in March of 1995, I had expected to stay for two months, completing my second and final year of yeshivah that had started with a life-changing experience at Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem. In the fall, I would attend a major four-year university in New York.
In Baltimore, I quickly discovered a new level of devotion to limud haTorah and an immense kavod haTorah that was evident in the lives of inspiring peers and an entire city’s residents. More importantly, I was enveloped by the love of the mashgiach Rabbi Beryl Weisbord, my rebbi Rabbi Yissocher Frand, and the inimitable Rabbi Chaim Dovid Lapidus. As the yeshivah’s liaison with the university programs available for bochurim, Rabbi Lapidus played a crucial
Vayikra 23:15).
Rabbeinu Nissim writes that when Moshe told the Jewish nation, â[Y]ou will serve Hashem on this mountainâ (
Shemos 3:12), they asked, âWhen shall we do this?â Moshe replied that it would be at the end of 50 days.
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Each member of
matan
sefiras haâomer.
The Chinuch cites
Yirmiyahu (33:25), stating that the heavens and earth were created solely with the intent that the Jewish nation accept the Torah, and they were redeemed from Egypt only so that they could accept the Torah. Counting the days from the second day of Pesach until Shavuos demonstrates our unconditional desire for the Torah, like a man who thirsts for water.
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There is a beautiful story told of the Brisker Rav, Reb Hayyim Halevy Soloveitchik. Once a man arrived late at night in Brisk. All the houses were dark save one so he knocked at the door. He was greeted warmly, and the host prepared a meal for him.
Rabbi Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik attends an event in Jerusalem on August 10, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
JTA Three times on Sunday, January 31, Orthodox men carried the body of a beloved Torah scholar wrapped in a black and white prayer shawl through the streets of Jerusalem to a freshly dug grave.
First there was Rabbi Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik, the 99-year-old heir to a vaunted tradition of Talmud study. A few hours later it was Rabbi Yitzchok Sheiner, the 98-year-old leader of a prominent yeshiva. And in the evening they took Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski, a psychiatrist and scion of multiple Hasidic dynasties, to his final resting place near Beit Shemesh.
Memories of Reb Dovid, zt”l By Rabbi Menachem Genack | February 11, 2021
In a year that has seen the loss of far too many gedolei Yisrael, we were again stunned last week with the passing of Rav Dovid Soloveitchik, zt”l.
Rav Dovid was the last surviving son of the Brisker Rav, Rav Yitzchak Ze’ev Halevi Soloveitchik zt”l, who was also known as Reb Velvel. Rav Dovid represented that longstanding Brisker tradition of intellectual rigor and lomdus.
I remember my first meeting with Rav Dovid in 1968. I was in Israel for a few weeks in the summer and went to Rav Dovid’s house to speak “in learning” with him. He was so welcoming and generous with his time, especially considering that I was not a talmid and only 20 years old at the time. As I was leaving his apartment, I was called to the apartment of his upstairs neighbor for a minyan. As it turns out, his neighbor was none other than Rav Dovid Cohen, known better as HaRav HaNazir. A close ta