Once the boy arrived, it was Rav Aharon who caused the transformation

I was privileged to see Rabi Meir from behind. (Eiruvin 13b)

One night when I was seven years old, my father hurriedly awakened me. Rav Aharon Kotler was here! He had come to our neighborhood to purchase arba minim in a shop in the basement of our building.

We rushed down to the shop and I beheld Rav Aharon for the first and last time; his fiercely piercing eyes were trained intensely upon the merchandise before him, and then briefly upon me as he gave me a brachah.

A few years later, our class was taken to Pike Street on the Lower East Side to attend Rav Aharon’s funeral.

Lo zachisi liroso b’fanav.

My generation did not merit the experience of those who had been his talmidim in Lakewood to learn Torah under his transformative influence. Theirs was the generation that defined for us the concept of a “yeshivah bochur.” They were real American boys who had somehow taken the unusual step of going off to Lakewood, where they were shaped into the first generation of American yeshivahleit.

Many of those talmidim became the roshei hayeshivah of the next generation, opening up yeshivos in countless locations in America and fanning the sparks of the Torah revolution. Ironically, Rav Aharon himself had no way to communicate with an American high school boy and convince him to come and learn. He had neither the background nor the vocabulary with which to reach that boy. Usually, the suggestion came from a high school rebbi who spotted a particularly bright or earnest bochur and encouraged him to go to Lakewood. But once the boy arrived, it was Rav Aharon who caused the transformation.

But how? Rav Aharon’s shiurim were a challenge to comprehend, even for a brilliant rosh yeshivah. His mind was lightning-quick and razor-sharp and he spoke at a rapid-fire clip. Even his shmuessen were far from user-friendly; the content spilled out in a powerful cascade.

Nor was he personally available to the bochurim of the yeshivah. Most of the week, he was elsewhere, raising funds for the yeshivah and tending to the far-reaching responsibilities he took upon himself for Klal Yisrael. As a result, talmidim who needed help in their learning or personal matters had to turn to others in the yeshivah. However, those were not the interactions that formed them. The catalyst was Rav Aharon.

How?