In honor of Rosh Chodesh Elul... an exploration of the yeshivah — past and present, form and function, haven and home

Step into a yeshivah, and you enter a world of its own.

Some compare it to a teivah – that single safe refuge hermetically sealed from a world flooded with debasement and immorality.

But the yeshivah is also akin to a workshop providing each student with the right environment, tools, and mentors to produce an enduring work of infinite value: the masterpiece that is his very identity.

In honor of Rosh Chodesh Elul and the return of our yeshivah bochurim to these portals of spiritual potential, an exploration of the yeshivah – past and present, form and function, haven and home.

Power & Potential — The Yeshivah

With an intricate structure, wide range of sources, and rich trove of anecdotes, Rav Aaron Lopiansky's newest sefer provides a guide for yeshivah bochurim embarking on their pivotal journey of self-discovery. And along with the big-picture map he paints, there's a missive as well: for today's yeshivah bochur to realize his potential, he must take an active role in the journey. Because while the yeshivah provides him with tools, mentors, and support, ultimately the ben yeshivah must exercise his own initiative to chart the path to his destiny

“Going to yeshivah today is as expected as going to Brooklyn College was in my day.”

So says Rav Aaron Lopiansky, rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Gedolah of Greater Washington.

Had Rav Lopiansky followed the standard path of his era, much would look different today. It would likely be someone else serving at the helm of Yeshiva of Greater Washington, various Torah websites would have thousands fewer shiurim, and seforim stores would be stocked with significantly fewer seforim.

But Rav Lopiansky chose to buck the common trend and enroll in yeshivah. It was a sacrifice on his part, but even more so on the part of his parents. For them, sending their son across the ocean meant overcoming the strongest of human emotions.

Rav Lopiansky’s father, Reb Bentzion, had lost his first wife and children in the Holocaust. He struggled mightily to overcome the relentless longing for the past, for the sake of rebuilding a future. It was a play performed in a DP camp that infused him with the encouragement to move forward. The actors depicted the scene of a survivor, grappling with the notion of remarrying, stepping away from his past. He ultimately chooses to remarry, and at the chuppah the souls of his martyred children arrive to wish him mazel tov.

Deeply moved by this scene, Reb Bentzion turned to the man sitting next to him. “Du herst? Zei vellen nuch kumen vintchen mazel tov! You hear, they will come back to wish us mazel tov!”

He marshalled the courage to begin again and married Esther Berliner, a fellow survivor. The couple were blessed with two children, Aaron Shraga and Aryeh Leib.

If sacrifice defined their marriage, it would dictate their chinuch as well. While their children demonstrated the talent and intellect to do phenomenally well in many professions, neither wished to pursue a college degree. They wanted to go to yeshivah. In his book Seeds of Redemption, Rav Lopiansky discusses the great sacrifices his mother made for the sake of helping others. He writes:

But all of this sacrifice pales in comparison to the ultimate sacrifice that she made for us. When I graduated high school I was not yet seventeen. I wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael to learn (very uncommon in those days) and she (and my father) agreed. It was not quite the life that she envisioned for me. It meant that instead of them retiring comfortably, with the children helping them, they would be the ones to occasionally help us. It meant that the only really bright spot in their lives — their two children — would have only been with them but 17 years, and thereafter, the relationship would be based on letters, pictures, and the all-too-rare visit. Although officially I was only going “for a year,” deep down in her heart of hearts my mother knew that it meant “forever.” And she consented.

It was this sacrifice that led to so much Torah, so many shiurim, such popular seforim.

But perhaps its most direct effect is Rav Lopiansky’s latest sefer, Ben Yeshivah, Pathway of Aliyah.

As the yeshivah system continues to flourish, and the numbers of talmidim swell exponentially, Rav Lopiansky has sensed a void in the very quality that founded his own growth — sacrifice, and the sense of initiative that comes with it. Going to yeshivah has become par for the frum teen’s course — the sacrifice is no longer, and with it has gone the drive and self-determination.

Rav Lopiansky’s newest sefer presents a roadmap to help talmidim navigate the yeshivah years.

The bochur who rises above trends and takes matters into his own hands needn’t be a thing of the past.

Even as the yeshivah world continues to thrive, every bochur can pave his own pathway to aliyah.