More than four decades after his passing, talmidim, assistants, and the American hosts of “everyone’s rosh yeshivah” share their personal memories of Rav Shmuel Rozovsky
It was a frigid morning in late January of 1978.
A throng of men stood together in the arrivals hall at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, eyes trained on the door. Suddenly, the doors swung open and a tall, dignified rabbi appeared. Instantly, the waiting crowd locked arms, began a celebratory tune, and began to dance toward him.
A weakened Rav Shmuel Rozovsky approached the joyous crowd with surprise in his eyes and waved them off, but they remained undeterred. The leader of the group, a veteran talmid, clasped Rav Shmuel’s hand warmly and whispered some words into his ear. Slowly, the great Ponevezher Rosh Yeshivah began to smile. He beckoned the group to a nearby seating area where they crowded around him in silence. No matter that he’d just concluded a grueling flight, no matter that his
For over half a century, Rav Moshe Heinemann has been setting the bar high on kashrus, as head of the STAR-K and as a foremost authority in the ever-more-complex field of kosher certification
Photos: Eli Greengart
When the time came to build a mikveh in Lakewood shortly after Rav Aharon Kotler’s petirah in 1962, that all-important mission was entrusted to a talmid for whom the Lakewood rosh yeshivah had forseen a shining future as a moreh hora’ah for Klal Yisrael: Rav Moshe Heinemann, then a Beth Medrash Govoha yungerman in his mid-twenties.
As we sit together in the conference room of the STAR-K, the Baltimore-based kashrus certification agency Rav Moshe Heinemann has led for half a century, he recalls his visit to the venerable Rebbe Yoel of Satmar to discuss the mikveh project. “I asked the Rebbe, ‘What’s the best way to make a mikveh?’ and he replied with customary wit: ‘The best way is not to make it based on the Shulchan Aruch.’ After a pause, he continue