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.

Haven & Home: Seven Stories of Homecoming

They entered yeshivah as newcomers, unsure of their places in this new and unfamiliar world. Then came a moment, an encounter, a realization that made it clear: Here, in this yeshivah, is where I belong.

Yeshivas Ponevezh: Thunder in Bnei Brak

Reb Abish Brodt, Veteran sheliach tzibbur, Lakewood, NJ

I was a chassidish young man who grew up in the Bobover cheder of Crown Heights, going on to learn the niggunim and traditions of Galician Jewry. But it was a thunderous Yom Kippur davening in a litvish citadel in Bnei Brak that grabbed my neshamah.

When I reached bar mitzvah, mesivtas in America with dorms were in their infancy. Most bochurim headed to Telshe in Cleveland, or stayed local, attending Torah Vodaath or Chaim Berlin. I went to a third option — Bais Shraga in Monsey. It was a unique place that benefitted from the influence of the talmidei chachamim who learned next door in Beis Medrash Elyon. Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz was the inspiration, his son Reb Shmuel Mendlowitz was the menahel, and the tzaddik Rav Mordechai Schwab was the mashgiach.

I attended Beis Shraga from age 13 to 16, and that is what propelled me forward. My grandfather urged my parents to send me to learn in Eretz Yisrael — an uncommon step at the time — and so at 16, I found myself the youngest American bochur in Ponevezh.

There were ten or 15 Americans there in total, some Europeans, and the rest were bochurim from Eretz Yisrael. It was an unexpected and glorious mix of talmidim: the children and grandchildren of all the rebbes and gedolim of Eretz Yisrael were there, rebbishe eineklach, and sons of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach among boys from so-called “simple” families — anyone who wanted their sons to learn knew this was the place.

Chazal say, “Hizoharu bivnei aniyim, she’meihen teitzei Torah” — be careful with the sons of the poor, because Torah will come from them. Oh did Torah come from them! My chaveirim from Ponevezh now have hundreds and thousands of talmidim among them. I can rattle off ten to 15 roshei yeshivah who learned in my vaad, along with dayanim and members of the Eidah Hachareidis. My roommate, Rav Dovid Levi, became the son-in-law of Rav Gershon Eidelstein and is now the Rosh Yeshivah of Ponevehz. He came from a home on a moshav, and he wasn’t the only one.

When I arrived that Elul, we were all around 16 years old. I was the only one with a hat. In those days, bochurim in Eretz Yisrael wore kashketlach, or Yerushalmi kappelitchen. I was unique, but I was welcomed warmly.

As a chassidish young man from New York (I was actually born in postwar Krakow, but I spent most of my childhood in Crown Heights), I had a lot to learn in this new, very foreign yeshivah. One advantage was that I understood Yiddish. Unlike me, many Israeli bochurim had to get used to the Yiddish spoken by the maggidei shiur. I made an arrangement with my roommates and friends: I’d speak to them in Ivrit and they’d reply to me in Yiddish, so that we each learned a new language.

There was no air conditioning back then in Bnei Brak — no one even imagined such a thing. I tried hard to blend in with my new chevreh; each boy owned about two shirts, so I managed with the same.

There were 40 or 50 talmidim in my shiur. That first year of yeshivah, one of our rebbeim was Rav Gershon Edelstein. During the third year, we had Rav Shach, Rav Shmuel Rozovsky, and Rav Dovid Povarsky as our maggidei shiur.

This was Bnei Brak, and the influence of the Chazon Ish — that fusion of tremendous yiras Shamayim with ceaseless limud Torah — was palpable. True, I’m chassidish, but it never felt like a stretch to say I’m a Ponevezher. When the Shabbos generator went down and we had no lights in the Ponevezh beis medrash, we Ponevezhers found a place to learn in Belz or Vizhnitz. In a way, it’s all one to me.

One moment that stands out for me, that crystallized why I had come there and what I stood to gain, occurred during the tefillos of the Yamim Noraim that first year. On Kol Nidrei night, with the heichal full to the rafters — 1,500 people used to cram inside! — the Ponevezher Rav stood up to give a shmuess. He looked like a malach, dressed in his kittel and white yarmulke, and he spoke about Mashiach. During the Maariv that followed, Krias Shema and amen yehei Shmei rabba were like thunder. Even now, more than 60 years later, I get chills at the memory.

After I got married, my wife came with me back to Bnei Brak, where I learned in the yeshivah’s kollel. I knew she would never quite be able to taste what it meant to sit on those benches, but on Yom Kippur night, she came to daven in Ponevezh. I wanted her to experience those special moments of tefillah, the thunder I had heard as a bochur and that cemented my identity as a talmid of this Torah bastion.