In Ponevezh he started learning in-depth and in Chevron he started to rejoice in learning. And in Slabodka he’s been teaching both for decades. When he dances with the Torah it all comes together

Photos: Matis Goldberg Shuki Lehrer

The shiur klali is over, and after the first wave of talmidim leaves the beis medrash, a few young men linger. They wait for a man who might be one of them, if not for the gray beard and slow pace. There is no ceremony as they walk him home, no pageantry surrounding this little group.

There is only the Ketzos and the Terumas Hadeshen and ruba v’chazaka.

A lone yungerman accompanies Rav Dov Landau across Rechov Harav Sher: Rav Akiva Eiger’s kushya is still shver.

Reb Dov stands there for a single moment, shadowed by the dark brown Bnei Brak building, looking so exhausted, yet so fresh. The posture is stooped and the face is lined, but the eyes radiate anticipation and eagerness. He heads up the walk and opens the door that will take him directly into his room, back to his seforim, back to the beloved table at which the yeshivah’s founder, Rav Yitzchak Eizek Sher, sat and learned. There’s a good chance he won’t take off his hat and frock, reluctant to expend the energy and waste the time. The Gemara is calling.

Time. There is no time. Not for events, for public appearances, for meetings. If anything is to happen — talmidim in search of advice, visitors from abroad hoping for a brachah, askanim looking for encouragement — it’ll have to be during the narrow slot called “between chavrusas,” for that’s how Reb Dov’s day goes. One chavrusa follows another, many of them young bochurim who learn with a man considered to be, along with Rav Chaim Kanievsky, one of the greatest living talmidei chachamim, or as talmidim refer to him, “a lomdishe boki,”— not just a master of Shas and poskim, but proficient in the profundity of each sugya, the cheshbon of the various Rishonim and analysis of Acharonim.

Reb Dov’s chavrusas, his shiurim, his notebooks overflowing with script — they’ve been the only story for so long. The Slabodka rosh yeshivah has spent the better part of the last six decades in this room. He’s a rosh yeshivah, but to him, “the Rosh Yeshivah” refers to his cousin and neighbor, Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, who also carries the administrative burden of the yeshivah along with the responsibilities of saying shiur and shmuessen. He’s a grandson of the yeshivah’s founder, Rav Eizek Sher, but in comportment and approach, he conducts himself differently than the Zeide — the epitome of gadlus ha’adam, the splendor of man. He’s not just a talmid of the Chazon Ish, he’s a Chazon Ish’nik, intensely scrupulous in halachah — even as he’s heir to the chassidic glory of the house of Strikov.

That’s Reb Dov.

Boy of the Books

Ephraim Dov Landau was seven years old when his parents came from Poland, settling in Rechovot. Reb Tovia Yosef, in the style of Polish chassidim, opened a seforim store and took an active role in municipal politics, eventually becoming deputy mayor. Little Dov loved to hang around the store, seated near his father, reading through the fresh-smelling seforim. (Until today, the Slabodka rosh yeshivah — who has no household responsibilities at all — keeps one job for himself: He wraps seforim to be given as bar mitzvah gifts, a skill picked up as a child helping out in the store.) Another keepsake from those days is a mastery of Toras Kohanim, which someone brought into the store for genizah. The proprietor’s son took the tattered sefer and went through it several times, ensuring that it would be anything but sheimos.

Rechovot of the late 1930s saw an influx of Yemenite immigrants, and it was among them that young Dov Landau was raised. (This past summer, just two months ago, an emergency campaign was launched for the benefit of 27 immigrant families from Yemen who’d arrived with nothing, and a fundraising event was presided over by Rav Chaim Kanievsky, Rav Shimon Baadani, and Rav Landau — in a very uncharacteristic foray into public life. He’d grown up with the Yemenite kehillah, and that bond of 80 years ago hasn’t weakened.)

Growing up, Reb Dov was very close with his first cousin, Rav Avraham Landau: Their shared grandfather was Rav Elimelech Landau of Strikov, grandson of Rav Avraham of Chechenov, heir to the riches of Polish chassidus. Rav Avraham would become a close talmid of the Brisker Rav and eventually go on to become the Strikover Rebbe while Reb Dov would choose the path of the Chazon Ish. Yet both men relished time spent together speaking in learning, and Reb Dov would regularly participate in simchahs and events at the court of his cousin.

Bonds for Life

It was an invitation that changed everything. Reb Sender Posnerson, the son-in-law of Reb Yaakov Halpern — founder of Bnei Brak’s Zichron Meir neighborhood and a confidant of the Chazon Ish, although he himself was a chassid — invited the Strikover einekel from Rechovot to come spend Shavuos in Bnei Brak.

Those 24 hours brought young Dov Landau into a new world, one he hadn’t known existed: the sublime world of the yeshivah. And once he inhaled its air, he would never leave.

On his way home, he met the Ponevezher Rav and asked if he could join the yeshivah; the Rav accepted him for the coming Elul. A recently unearthed letter written after Shavuos a few years later tells the rest of the story. The Ponevezher Rav was in America on behalf of the yeshivah and unable to make it back for Yom Tov. Desperate for connection to his beloved institution, he asked talmidim to fill him in — he wanted to know every detail about Shavuos in yeshivah. The letter is written as an update, and in it, the talmid writes to the Rav, “And after davening there was a Kiddush, and one could sense the simchah on the faces of bochurim who’d been immersed in learning all through the night. Anyone who didn’t see the joy on the face of the bochur Dov Landau cannot comprehend what true joy means….”

In Ponevezh, Reb Dov found several rebbeim: Along with the roshei yeshivah, he became close with the mashgiach, Rav Eliyahu Dessler. There was an older bochur whom he considered a mentor as well. He often recounts how when he arrived in Ponevezh, he didn’t have a shtender or sefer to call his own, but a kind older bochur took care of him. A son of the rav of Ramat Hasharon, Yaakov Edelstein drew the new arrival close.

Until the end of Rav Yaakov Edelstein’s life, Reb Dov considered him a rebbi because of that welcome. When Reb Dov was scheduled to serve as sandek at a bris and he noticed Reb Yaakov, he quickly stood up and said, “I cannot accept the honor if my rebbi is here.”

And when Rav Yaakov Edelstein — the beloved rav of Ramat Hasharon, who had taken over his father’s position in 1950 — was niftar earlier this year, Reb Dov tore kri’ah as for a rebbi.

In Ponevezh, Dov Landau, like the other bochurim, fell under the spell of the Chazon Ish, who once referred to the young man as a “Shaagas Aryeh in Kodoshim and Taharos.” Like so many other future leaders, the bochur from Rechovot merited paternal care and advice from the Chazon Ish — in learning, middos, avodah, and in his personal life as well.

Eventually, Reb Dov left Ponevezh and traveled to Jerusalem to learn in Chevron, under Rav Chatzkel Sarna.

There, he made another lifelong friend. Talmidim speak about the unusual friendship between Reb Dov and Rav Boruch Mordechai Ezrachi of Ateres Yisroel. Reb Boruch Mordechai is dynamic while Reb Dov is more reticent. Yet the bond was formed in Chevron, where, by Reb Dov’s own admission, Reb Boruch Mordechai changed his life. In Ponevezh, he says, he’d learned about ahavas haTorah, hasmadas haTorah, havanas haTorah, but Reb Boruch Mordechai taught him about simchas haTorah, how to rejoice in the svara, exult in a kushya — and until today, when the two roshei yeshivah speak in learning, the atmosphere is one of palpable excitement and joy.

Reb Dov isn’t one for travel or public appearances, and he certainly won’t leave Eretz Yisrael. (He left just once, when Rav Aharon Leib Steinman asked him to join him on a mission of chizuk to England. Reb Dov washed his hands upon landing back in Eretz Yisrael, cleansing himself of tumas eretz ha’amim.) Yet last summer, Reb Boruch Mordechai asked Reb Dov to visit his yeshivah’s summer camp, in Katzrin in the Golan. Reb Dov considered the request, although he isn’t one for trips, and, of more concern, there are opinions that Katzrin is beyond the borders of kedushas Eretz Yisrael.

But he went, because Reb Boruch Mordechai asked, and the debt to the one who showed him the joy in Torah can never really be paid.

It’s in the Name

The Alter of Slabodka, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, was succeeded by his son-in-law, Rav Yitzchak Eizek Sher. Reb Eizek was in Switzerland for health reasons when World War II broke out, and so he personally was spared from the inferno. He traveled to Eretz Yisrael, eventually establishing the Slabodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, but his son, Reb Yosef, was trapped in Europe and killed along with his wife in the Kovno ghetto. Reb Yosef and his wife left a young girl, Adina, who survived the war years in a monastery. After the war, Rebbetzin Chaya Miriam Shulman, daughter of Reb Eizek, traveled from Eretz Yisrael to Poland to find her niece, whom she reclaimed and raised as her own daughter.

It was this young woman, Adina Sher, whom the Chazon Ish suggested as a shidduch for Rav Dov Landau. After their marriage, they settled in Bnei Brak, where Reb Dov joined the Slabodka yeshivah — and where he remains until today.

As a child, Rebbetzin Landau had no siddur, and no one in the monastery reminded her to daven. She didn’t know any tefillos by heart, but she did know Bircas Hamazon by heart. So that became Shacharis, Minchah, and Maariv — prayers of a young girl grasping each holy word as if it were a raft in a raging sea.

The couple had three children. When their only son was born, Reb Dov’s father, Tovia Yosef, was still alive, which precluded Reb Dov from naming the child for his deceased father-in-law. The Rebbetzin thought otherwise, and insisted that they give a name after her father, Reb Yosef Sher, who’d been murdered, regardless. Reb Dov asked the Brisker Rav how to proceed.

“Yosi is also a name,” the Rav said, and so they named the child Yosi Avraham Yeshaya — the present-day rosh kollel of Slabodka-Kiryat Sefer. (The two daughters are married to Rav Shmuel Bretler, a respected dayan, and Rav Isser Zalman Schwartzman, rosh kollel of Ateres Shlomo.)

We All Want

Cheishek Reb Dov was appointed a maggid shiur, and eventually a rosh yeshivah, but in terms of daily schedule, little has changed over the years. It’s always been about chavrusas and sedorim.

The yeshivah has had many American and European alumni over the years, and often, when they visit Eretz Yisrael, they come to Reb Dov — between chavrusas, of course.

He is unfailingly courteous. When I was there, he softly inquired about life in Canada, how relations are with the wider community, what the challenges are — but it was clear that he was being polite, asking questions he imagines rabbanim ask visitors from abroad. When the conversation moved into areas of learning and avodas Hashem, he visibly relaxed, at home again.

Once, he welcomed an American visitor with a burst of honesty. “Please,” he begged, like a thirsty man asks for water, “ask me a kushya I haven’t yet heard.”

I happened to be sitting in Reb Dov’s room when someone asked for advice on how to imbue his children with a love of Torah. Reb Dov turned toward him, a serious expression on his face. “Yes,” he finally said, “we’re all looking for eitzos for that, to keep ourselves learning with cheishek.”

Contemporaries of Reb Dov like to relate the story of how, after the 1967 liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem, Jews came pouring in from all over the country. Many of them were desperate to see and touch the Kosel, while others, who’d lived in the neighborhood before 1948, were eager to see their old homes. The narrow streets were crowded, and local Arab shopkeepers responded to the crowds, setting up tables with all sorts of trinkets for sale.

Reb Dov went to Jerusalem too, and to the astonishment of his friends, he became deeply engaged in conversation with an Arab merchant. It soon became clear why: He’d come bearing several obscure Arab words that the Rambam uses in Peirush Hamishnayos, which needed translation — and he’d finally found translators! That was the emergency — a little more clarity in Torah.

When Reb Dov attends a simchah or public event, he is quickly surrounded by bnei Torah, a little circle of questions raining down on him from all parts of Shas. People come with halachic questions, in search of obscure mareh mekomos, looking for pshat in a cryptic piece of chassidus. Reb Dov slowly walks along, answering, answering, answering.

His regular daily schedule includes between seven and ten chavrusas, all b’iyun — and not one of them in the masechta the yeshivah is learning and on which he says shiur. He says a daily shiur to a smaller group, then a weekly shiur klali to the entire yeshivah, some 500 bochurim and yungeleit.

Reb Dov doesn’t deliver formal shmuessen or mussar talks, though in conversation he’ll reflect on different trends he may have noticed around yeshivah. He recently discussed bochurim being “into” designer clothing, recalling the Chevron of his youth.

“Reb Boruch Mordche,” he recounted, “got a new suit. It was an event in yeshivah, a bochur got a new suit. Rav Eizek Sher asked him to come home, to show the Rebbetzin, who was homebound after a stroke. He knew she would be happy that a ben Torah had new clothing. But that was then…” (Rav Sher lived in Jerusalem at the time and was a presence in Chevron, which had been rebuilt from the original Slabodka.)

Two Warriors

There’s an interesting dynamic at play when Reb Dov sits with talmidim. Slabodka has many chassidishe talmidim, and Reb Dov, despite his lineage, is far from being a practicing chassid. Close talmidim have observed him throughout the years, and his conduct is completely in line with his rebbi’s teachings. The official Chazon Ish’niks see him as their leader since the passing of Rav Chaim Greineman, and they send their sons to learn under him in Slabodka. In addition, he travels to Rav Greineman’s yeshivah in Zichron Yaakov to deliver a shiur each week. There are, however, a few exceptions, where his minhagim differ. On Erev Yom Kippur, as he dons his kittel for the holy day, he will button it in accordance with the holy traditions of his zeide. There are chassidishe niggunim too, and when he sits at his Purim tish, he will ask musically inclined talmidim to sing the Strikover and Vorka songs of his youth.

Many contemporary rebbes are his talmidim. Rav Tzvi Meir Silberberg, a close talmid from his years in Slabodka, was seen in the yeshivah beis medrash one night, sitting by himself and learning. Later, he explained that he felt a need “to sit and learn between walls that have been made holy by Reb Dov’s Torah.”

Rav Shaul Alter, the Gerrer rosh yeshivah, began his relationship with Reb Dov by writing him letters; Reb Dov was taken by the breadth of Reb Shaul’s knowledge. Those letters initially referred to Reb Dov as “Harav” and later “Gaon Yisrael” and finally, as the relationship deepened, to “Mori V’rabi shlita.” When the Gerrer rosh yeshivah marries off a child, he will always make a sheva brachos in Bnei Brak so that his rebbi, Reb Dov, can join. And even in the regimented, scheduled world of Ger, the family knows that time stops when Reb Dov makes his entrance, for Reb Shaul will greet him with a Tosefta, a Yerushalmi, a Shitas Ba’al Hamaor, and they will stand there grappling, two warriors with endless ammunition.

If Reb Dov had a best friend, it was Rav Avraham Genachovski, a maggid shiur in Tchebin. On Shabbos afternoon, the two friends would stand in the front of the Slabodka beis medrash and speak in a code all their own, exchanging mareh mekomos, the rise or fall of a voice enough to make a point. (The only time Reb Dov booked a ticket to America was when Reb Avraham was there, at the bedside of his ailing son. Reb Dov planned to visit the choleh and lift Reb Avraham’s spirits, but sadly, the young talmid chacham passed away before Reb Dov’s departure, so he canceled the ticket.)

Rav Chaim Kanievsky looks to Reb Dov to provide the unique service of looking over his seforim before they go print.

When speaking about the extraordinary properties of Mesechta Sheviis and inyanei shemittah, Reb Chaim will often retell how he sent over his Derech Emunah for Reb Dov to review. He’d been meaning to send it on a Motzaei Shabbos, then reconsidered and sent it on Erev Shabbos instead. That Leil Shabbos, a small fire broke out in Reb Chaim’s seforim room; he panicked, worried about the fate of the unpublished chiddushei Torah — and then recalled that he’d given his newest notebook to Reb Dov. The sefer was safe — and has since become a classic.

Although letters to and from Reb Dov appear in Reb Chaim’s seforim, the Slabodka rosh yeshivah himself publishes little. He’s written two seforim, Zechor Davar and Zecher Tov, in memory of each of his parents, Devorah and Tovia. He fills the margins of his Gemara with notes, but he writes in pencil, in case the ideas will be proven wrong and he’ll have to erase them. His halachic rulings are found in various contemporary seforim, particularly when it comes to analysis and applications of piskei Chazon Ish.

Last year, a complex law was introduced in the Knesset regarding child benefits, which the government pays out over several years, and matures when the beneficiary turns 18 years old. Could there be a question of ribbis, interest, in this arrangement?

MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni, the finance minister, and a full array of politicians, lawyers, and ministry officials paid a visit to the humble apartment in Bnei Brak, where Reb Dov patiently went through the fine print with them and showed them how to avoid ribbis payouts.

The Too-Beautiful Esrog

It’s hot in Bnei Brak, but the hints of the upcoming Yom Tov season are in the air: seforim on teshuvah and signs for esrog vendors and the most lightweight, practical succah ever.

Succos is a special time for Reb Dov. He cherishes its mitzvos, investing precious time and energy in the selection of each of the arba minim.

Last year, a close talmid tells me, an admirer noticed a magnificent esrog in Jerusalem and immediately purchased it on behalf of Reb Dov. He brought it to the rosh yeshivah, who was overjoyed with the perfect specimen, but then after several moments, Reb Dov said that it wasn’t for him.

He explained that there was an older talmid chacham who davened in the yeshivah and who generally brought beautiful daled minim with him. “And now he’s not feeling well. He can use the chizuk of people lining up to make a brachah on his esrog. This esrog is too nice, it will outshine his, and I can’t do that.”

The pull of the succah is magnetic; he sits in its embrace for the full seven days, rarely leaving. Reb Dov, who never allowed his family to renovate his seforim room or fix his chair, allowed an air conditioner to be installed in the succah to make it more comfortable.

The walls of Reb Dov’s succah are his self-expression, graced with selected pictures of different gedolei Yisrael. Of course, there is a picture of the Chazon Ish. Also of the Ohr Somayach and Chofetz Chaim and Brisker Rav. And finally, there is a picture of Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, whom Reb Dov reveres and considers one of the “chakima d’Yehudai,” a wise, astute leader — sort of a personal hero.

Reb Dov appreciates music, but during the year there is little time for it. On Zeman Simchaseinu, he makes time. On Chol Hamoed Succos, the old tape recorder is plugged in.

I ask a neighbor what music the rosh yeshivah listens to. “He enjoys the music of Reb Chaim Banet, so that’s what plays.”

It All Comes Together

And then comes Simchas Torah.

Reb Dov doesn’t appear the most energetic person, but the young boys gathered outside yeshivah tell me it’s because I haven’t seen him dance with the Torah.

“He doesn’t sit down, not in middle of the hakafah, not at the end of the hakafah, not at the later hakafos,” a gray-bearded avreich tells me. “He’s the liveliest person in the room.”

Reb Dov speaks before hakafos, often quoting the vort of the Chiddushei HaRim that meraked, dancing, is connected with meraked, which is the melachah of sifting: that when a person dances, he leaves his base desires below as he reaches higher. Reb Dov even chooses some of the songs — his favorites include “Ana Avda” and Rav Meir Shapira’s “Im Amarti.”

And he will dance — a pillar of love of Torah, joy in Torah, connection to Torah. But one year, he fainted from exertion. Last year, the generator blew, and the beis medrash had no light or air-conditioning. Talmidim were about to go find the local Arab who deals with such situations, but Reb Dov wouldn’t hear of it. Instead, he led the yeshivah out into the street, where hakafos continued all through the day.

In Ponevezh he started learning in-depth, and in Chevron he started to rejoice in learning. And in Slabodka, he’s been teaching both for decades. When he dances with the Torah, it all comes together.

The Cry of a Question

I slip into the back of shiur klali in Slabodka, look at the radiant man with the weary face and eyes that flash with desire to know. Reb Dov says shiur with the hat on his head, a misshapen, dusty black hat — reminiscent of that of his rebbi. In Slabodka, there is a joke: “Reb Dov was a talmid of the Chazon Ish, and you know where they met? In the hat store, because they must have gone to the same one.”

I watch as he reacts to a question, lifting his head to see the questioner, hooded eyes opening a bit wider.

And I think of a story, a fresh story I’ve just heard from a friend, who had driven from Jerusalem to Bnei Brak before Pesach of this year. As he left the city, he stopped to pick up some yeshivah bochurim waiting for rides, and the small car was quickly filled with the sounds of bnei Torah arguing in learning.

One of the bochurim shared an interesting sh’eilah he’d had about whether poison can nullify chometz and render it permitted, and he told the others that he’d asked the question to Rav Dov Landau.

The conversation continued until Bnei Brak, where the driver dropped off the anonymous passengers and continued on his way. When he parked, he realized that one of the young men had left behind a bag with household items. The driver remembered the face, but he had no idea in which yeshivah the passenger learned or what his name was.

For several days, the driver wondered what to do, and then inspiration struck. He went to Slabodka to find Reb Dov. It was bein hazmanim, but of course the rosh yeshivah was learning with a chavrusa, and my friend waited until the end of the session, then approached.

He told Reb Dov about what happened, about the bag he wished to return.

“I don’t know his name or where he lives, but I do remember one thing: He had a sh’eilah about poison on chometz, which he discussed with the Rosh Yeshivah.”

Reb Dov paused. He closed his eyes for several moments, then looked up. “Yes, I remember the sh’eilah. The boy is from Bnei Brak, Shapira is his name, his father is a rav, I believe in Ramat Elchanan.”

I think of the story as Reb Dov contemplates the question that sits there before him, the sweetest gift of all.

There is a hint of a smile. “It’s a good kushya,” he says, “a good kushya.”

There is a hint a smile on his face — something unresolved means a new challenge, a refreshing spring in which to immerse himself. At that moment, there is no happier man on earth than Rav Dov Landau, in the great Slabodka beis medrash, the Gemara open, bnei Torah all around him — and a kushya waiting for an answer.

(Originally Featured in Mishpacha Issue 680)