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

Photos: “The Rosh Yeshiva” (Israel Book Shop); DMS Yeshiva Archives; Cohen Family; Giants of Cancer Care

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 health was precarious, no matter the strange surroundings. The Rosh Yeshivah was here, and his students were thirsty for his words.

There in JFK airport, he settled into the familiar melody. “Zugt der heilige gemara…”

Rav Shmuel Rozovsky was born in the Eastern Europe of 1913, but his name remains on the lips of virtually every yeshivah bochur in 2021. His seforim are essentials, his insights the foundation of so many of today’s popular shiurim. He was one of the prime pillars of the postwar rejuvenation of the yeshivah world, a product of Europe’s finest yeshivos who helped transform a tiny group of undervalued yeshivah bochurim into Bnei Brak’s mighty Torah bastion.

Rav Shmuel was born in Grodno, where his father Rav Michel Dovid Rozovsky served as the chief rabbi. He studied at the local Sha’ar Hatorah Yeshivah and became a prized student of Rav Shimon Shkop. Rav Shmuel also studied with several older students in Grodno, and one of the earliest and most influential was Rav Yisroel Zev Gustman.

Rav Gustman recalled how Rav Michel Dovid Rozovsky begged him to learn with his prodigious young son. He soon realized that this boy was special way beyond his years. “By the time he reached bar mitzvah, there was no one like him in the yeshivah. We would learn 17–18 hours a day. He knew every single one of Rav Shimon’s shiurim — literally all of his shiurim.”

As an 11-year-old prodigy, young Shmuel would engage the older bochurim, like Rav Chaim Shmulevitz (who had a teaching position at age 18 in the yeshivah) and Rav Nissan Eckstein, who became the rav in nearby Kuźnica. Rav Shmuel “sat in the dust of their feet and drank thirstily the words of each and every one.” And they in turn loved him.

Rav Gustman recalled how Rav Shimon Shkop — in whose home he was a ben bayis — once asked him, “What’s with Rav Michel Dovid’s son? He’s a feiner bachur’l? Does he understand learning?”

To which Rav Gustman responded, “I can tell the rav that this is a gaon’isher kind [a child prodigy].”

“Do you enjoy learning with him?” Rav Shimon asked.

“Immensely! I have great pleasure from our learning,” Rav Gustman replied.

“What do you mean when you say he’s a ‘gaon’isher kind?’” Rav Shimon then asked.

“I’ll tell the rav what I mean,” he replied. “Illuyim [geniuses] are characteristically a bit meshugeh. But this boy is a geshmacker! He’s so measured, so calm; he has such beautiful middos. The description illui doesn’t suit him, because he’s already surpassed all the illuyim!”