The Rosh Yeshivah’s home is a humble structure perched — as if symbolically — at the summit of the sloping hill that is the campus of Yeshivah Ohr Hameir. But it’s what’s inside that gives a real clue as to what makes this yeshivah special. The front door opens directly into the Rosh Yeshivah’s dining room without a foyer or entrance hall preempting it showing whoever enters that the role of the Rosh Yeshivah is far more than didactic.

Rav Yisroel Kanarek was a strong believer in the ability of the Torah to reshape a person — especially when a yeshivah was located far away from the distractions of big city life. And so he found his dream location for Ohr Hameir in the “vald” of Peekskill. Fifty years after Rav Yisroel recruited his first students, his son Rav Elya Kanarek reclaims those early days of the “Peekskill Mandate”

The Rosh Yeshivah’s home is a humble structure, perched — as if symbolically — at the summit of the sloping hill that is the campus of Yeshivah Ohr Hameir. But it’s what’s inside that gives a real clue as to what makes this yeshivah special. The front door opens directly into the Rosh Yeshivah’s dining room, without a foyer or entrance hall preempting it, showing whoever enters that the role of the Rosh Yeshivah is far more than didactic.

Rav Elya Kanarek, the present rosh yeshivah, didn’t create this atmosphere, though. He is just following the path hewn by his revered father, Rav Yisroel Kanarek, a soul from the vanished Torah world that arrived in America and started again. It was Rav Yisroel who traveled to this picturesque corner of Westchester County and said, “Here! Here we can teach Torah.”

Richest Accomodations

Leipzig is a German city, yet it lives in the annals of Chassidus by virtue of a great chassidic rebbe who settled there, the Boyaner-Leipziger Rebbe. His shul in Leipzig drew many “Ostjuden,” Jewish immigrants from the Eastern European countries of Poland and Galicia who’d come to settle there. Reb Tzvi Mordechai Kanarek was among them.

Though the accepted practice in Leipzig was to send the boys to the local school, Reb Tzvi Mordechai was determined that his own son, Yisroel, would have an authentic Torah education. He consulted with the Tchortoker Rebbe of Vienna, a frequent visitor to Leipzig, who advised him to send the young boy away “to a litvishe yeshivah.”

The boy, barely bar mitzvah, boarded a train and traveled east. The train stopped in Bialastock, where young Yisroel got his first taste of a real yeshivah when he went to see Novardok. Talmidim were running through the beis medrash, engaged in their unique brand of mussar. One fellow alternated between dipping his arms in a jug of freezing water and one of boiling water.

Reb Elya laughs as he recalls the story. “My father, raised in Germany, would always say that the first neis of his journey was that he didn’t turn around and go back home when he saw that.”

The boy continued on to Radin, his destination, and experienced a culture shock, again. He expected that the home of the Chofetz Chaim — rabban shel kol bnei hagolah — would tower over the city, reflecting the prominence of its inhabitant. Of course, the opposite was true, and so the new talmid began to reshape his value system.

When he was introduced to the Chofetz Chaim, the elderly tzaddik gripped the hands of the young boy and began to cry, “A bochur fuhn Preissen [Prussia, as he referred to Germany] hut gekummen lernen Torah!”

During the month of Elul, the yeshivah in Radin would host Rav Elchonon Wasserman, the Baranovitch rosh yeshivah, who would spend the month with his revered rebbi. It was arranged that Reb Elchonon would stay with the young man from Leipzig, whose financial situation afforded him more spacious accommodations than was standard.

Reb Elchonon refused to accept the hachnassas orchim for free, but the bochur was equally determined not to accept money. A compromise was reached where Reb Elchonon “paid” for his room and board by learning Chumash with Yisroel Kanarek each morning. It was an experience that would help shape the hashkafah of the future rosh yeshivah.

After close to three years in Radin, young Yisroel moved to the yeshivah in Kamenitz, where he came under the tutelage of the rosh yeshivah he would come to consider his rebbi muvhak: Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz, the Birkas Shmuel. Yisroel Kanarek rose to the top of a chaburah that included many gedolei Torah, and after four years in Kamenitz he moved on to the Mir.

Reb Yisroel was with the Mir when it began its long exile during World War II, traveling across the continent on the Trans-Siberian railway. But he didn’t travel all the way to Shanghai. The Kanarek family had close friends from Leipzig who had immigrated to America and these friends worked tirelessly to send papers for those trapped in Europe. When the train carrying the yeshivah stopped in Moscow for a few days, Reb Yisroel inexplicably suggested to his brother that they go see if papers for them had come to the local American embassy.

A package had indeed arrived; Divine Providence had dropped it in Moscow just ahead of their arrival and led the bochurim to the embassy to pick it up. Papers in hand, they began a new journey, one toward freedom. In 1941, Reb Yisroel arrived in the United States, where he joined Torah Vodaath as a talmid. Not long afterward, one of the roshei yeshivah, Rav Uri Meir Kahanow, took the fresh arrival as a son-in-law.

Away from the Bustle

Just a few weeks after Reb Yisroel’s wedding, a new yeshivah called BMG, Beth Medrash Govoha, was established in Lakewood, New Jersey.

Rav Aharon Kotler had gathered a mixed group around him. Some were veteran talmidim from Kletzk, while others were from the streets of New York. Reb Yisroel was part of this group and he was cherished by Rav Aharon, who felt that the Kamenitzer talmid really understood the shiur. Once, Rav Aharon was particularly agitated about a communal issue, and Rebbetzin Kotler summoned Reb Yisroel. “Quick,” she begged, “speak to the Rosh Yeshivah in learning. It’s the only way he’ll relax.”

Reb Yisroel’s wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Elka Baba Kanarek, worked to support the new family as her husband toiled in learning. Their bechor, Rav Elya Kanarek, has vague memories of their apartment in Lakewood. “We lived in three small rooms,” he recalls, “and we shared the refrigerator, telephone, and washroom with the family across the hall.”

In Lakewood, in addition to becoming a talmid chacham of stature, Reb Yisroel also developed an appreciation for mussar.

Rav Elya shares some history: “My father was greatly influenced by Rav Simcha Zissel Levovitz, a son of the mashgiach Reb Yerucham. Together, they learned the notes of Reb Yerucham’s shmuessen, which are called Chever Ma’amarim. My father was very taken by it.”

Reb Yisroel also learned that a yeshivah bochur will thrive in an environment which is far from the bustle and commotion of city life, one that offers relative solitude and freedom from distractions — a lesson he would file away for the proper time.

After eight years in kollel, Reb Yisroel had amassed a wealth of knowledge, as well as considerable financial debt. He took his growing family back to Brooklyn, where they moved into the Williamsburg home of his in-laws, and he accepted a humble job in the Torah Vodaath office.

“He wanted to teach Torah, but he had an achrayus to pay off the debts he’d accrued and that couldn’t wait,” Rav Elya explains. “He didn’t see the work as beneath him if it was a fulfillment of ratzon Hashem.”

It took ten long years, but on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan of 1962, Reb Yisroel realized his dream. Yeshivah Ohr Hameir — named in tribute to his father-in-law Rav Uri Meir, who had passed away — opened in a Yonker’s home with just seven bochurim. Another four arrived a few weeks later.

Rav Elya left the Mir to join his father’s new yeshivah, and he still remembers the early difficulties. “My father remained in the yeshivah throughout the week, but my mother worked in Williamsburg and the other children were in school there. Every Erev Shabbos, my mother would come to Yonkers with the children, schlepping luggage and challos and other food for the talmidim. She had to take two trains and then switch to a bus for the final leg of the trip. Her role in creating this makom Torah, her mesirus nefesh, might well be the zchus for all the siyata d’Shmaya we’ve merited.”

Torah Remakes the Man Rav Yisroel’s opening schmooze dealt with the statement of Chazal (Megillah 6b), “If you are told that the nations of the world have wisdom, it is believable, but if you are told that they have Torah, it is false.”

He explained that it is entirely conceivable that the nations have intellect, but it remains just that — in the realm of intellect. Torah, however, is a wisdom that filters down and recreates the person, affecting his base actions. Torah macht ibber di mentch.

It would become a mission statement for the yeshivah.

While Ohr Hameir began as a small institution where each of the talmidim merited a close connection with the Rosh Yeshivah, it didn’t stay small for long. “When my younger brother Reb Hershel married Rav Avigdor Miller’s daughter, Rav Miller became a great admirer of his new mechutan, my father,” says Rav Elya. “He started to send us bochurim — his talmidim, families from his shul —  and the yeshivah’s reputation as a place where a boy could develop in learning and middos spread.”

By 1963 the yeshivah needed to find a more permanent home. The New Rochelle community was having trouble maintaining a daily minyan and they offered to help purchase a building for the yeshivah if the bochurim would help out with the minyan.

“When my father first addressed the balabatim of New Rochelle, he told them that hosting and helping a makom Torah is itself the greatest zchus kiyum, and the merit would help their kehillah as well.

“Today,” Rav Elya says with obvious satisfaction, “two of the largest Young Israel shuls have come out of that faltering minyan, the one in New Rochelle and the one in Scarsdale.”

Having to pitch in with a thrice-daily minyan wasn’t always convenient or easy, Rav Elya recalls, “but it taught us to have a sense of achrayus for others.”

After Ohr Hameir, Rav Elya went on to learn in Beis HaTalmud, in Bensonhurst. Like his father before him, Rav Elya also married the rosh yeshivah’s daughter when Rav Shaul Brus, a fusion of penetrating depth and relentless hasmadah, selected Rav Elya as a son-in-law.

Meanwhile, the yeshivah in New Rochelle thrived. In 1973, Rav Yisroel asked his eldest son to come join him. After that, Rav Elya drove from Brooklyn to New Rochelle every day.

Enrollment kept rising and one day a visiting alumnus commented to the Rosh Yeshivah, “Baruch Hashem, the yeshivah has grown.” Reb Yisroel replied, “Who says that more talmidim is considered growth? Being able to have a personal relationship with each talmid is the goal; and with more talmidim, it gets harder.”

Today I Am A Baal Simchah

After two decades in New Rochelle, Reb Yisroel felt ready for the next stage, which was moving his yeshivah far away from any sort of distraction. The piece of land he chose was in the distant northwest corner of Westchester County.

Everyone, down to his closest family members, advised against the move.

“My mother worried that he would lose his balabatim, the supporters he’d drawn close through the years in New Rochelle. But my father would never allow a gashmiyusdig cheshbon, like geographical inconvenience or the lack of communal support, to overrule a ruchniyusdig one that would benefit the talmidim.”

The informal chanukas habayis took place ahead of schedule. “My father told the bochurim that they wouldn’t be getting together for Simchas Torah since the new campus wasn’t ready, but that was unthinkable to them. On Chol HaMoed, the bochurim rented trucks and came up to New Rochelle, schlepping benches and tables and seforim — whatever it took to be able to get together and be mesamayach with the Torah and their rebbi.”

On Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 1985 — the very same date that the yeshivah had opened 23 years earlier — Ohr Hameir entered a new era. There was a sense that this — a beautiful yeshivah, a flourishing student body, and an idyllic campus — was the realization of Reb Yisroel’s dream.

Rabbi Yaakov Shlomo Rothberg, currently the yeshivah’s executive director, was one of those early talmidim. He recalls a defining moment: “The Rosh Yeshivah ztz”l was standing on the crest of a small hill, looking around the magnificent view of endless grass and a blue sky. His pleasure was evident. He turned to me and said, ‘You know why we have all this? Far dir, for you.’ Then he turned to the bochur next to me and said ‘uhn far dir’ and then to a third bochur ‘uhn far dir.’”

Talk of the magnificent view reminds Rabbi Rothberg of another incident from the yeshivah’s early days. He had walked into the office when the Rosh Yeshivah was on the phone with a prominent Torah personality, who had asked Rav Yisroel to sign a letter. When the Rosh Yeshivah agreed to do it, the fellow asked if he had a fax.

“The Rosh Yeshivah said, ‘Yes, I have the facts.’ The caller then said, ‘No, I mean what is the number for your fax machine?’ The Rosh Yeshivah, having never heard of what was then a new technology, was genuinely baffled.

“‘Reb Yisroel, Avu voint ihr [where do you live], in a vald [in the forest]?’ asked the caller.

“‘Yes! Baruch Hashem, ich voin in a vald!’ came the happy reply.”

But even though the Rosh Yeshivah and the talmidim loved the yeshivah’s new location, the rebbetzin had been right; the yeshivah lost the network of supporters from its old neighborhood. Once again the Rosh Yeshivah refused to be discouraged by gashmiyusdig concerns.

“There was a very generous Jew in New Rochelle who grew close to my father, and he became the single biggest supporter of the yeshivah,” recalls Rav Elya. “My father would always try to persuade him to come learn, but he preferred to support Torah. Right after we moved to Peekskill, this gentleman agreed to have a chavrusa, and my father sent talmidim to his office for a biweekly seder.”

Soon the donor began to have a thirst for real Torah learning, and he told his young chavrusa that he wanted to begin a daily learning seder in Gemara, but that he wanted to do it correctly — within the walls of the beis medrash itself.

The Rosh Yeshivah said that he would think about how to proceed. The next day, the Rosh Yeshivah sent his friend and supporter a message via the bochur: He should maintain a daily seder, but not at Ohr Hameir. The Rosh Yeshivah explained that while the desire of this Jew to study Torah was genuine, the yeshivah was a good distance from New Rochelle and the inconvenience of the daily commute might make it difficult for him to maintain the commitment.

“Better that he should get a chavrusa at a different yeshivah which is close to his home. This way, he will enjoy the learning without the lengthy trip.”

Rabbi Rothberg was that bochur; apparently, even then he was concerned about the yeshivah’s finances. “Rosh Yeshivah,” he exclaimed, “we will lose our biggest supporter if we do that!”

The Rosh Yeshivah was equally passionate. “Ich zohl zein der mentch voss halt oif Sammy fuhn lernen Toirah? I should be the one that prevents Sammy from learning Torah? Even if he transfers his support, the money will still go to a makom Torah.”

A chavrusa was arranged for the philanthropist at a yeshivah closer to his New Rochelle home. The day that seder began, Rav Yisroel Kanarek was in a particularly joyous state. “Heint bin ich a baal simchah,” he commented to his rebbetzin, “veil Sammy geit lernen Torah in a yeshivah, because my dear friend is starting to learn in a yeshivah.”

In time, this generous Jew became a major supporter of the yeshivah which welcomed him each day. As for his old friend, the Peekskill Rosh Yeshivah got tremendous nachas from the donor’s development in learning and in his Yiddishkeit.

The Rosh Yeshivah left this world four years after the move to Peekskill — on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, the day the yeshivah was established and the day that the new campus had been inaugurated. His eldest son, Rav Elya, was appointed rosh yeshivah in his place.

Defining Moment

The number of bochurim learning at the yeshivah continued to rise, and the staff expanded as well. Rav Elya was joined by his brothers and some of the most dynamic and gifted figures in the chinuch world, thereby ensuring that a real and vibrant connection between rebbi and talmid — the Peekskill mandate — was maintained.

Rav Elya and his rebbetzin decided to make the move to Peekskill in 1991. The rebbetzin recalls that at first it wasn’t easy to leave Brooklyn and move to the “wilderness.”

“There wasn’t really anyone to schmooze with,” she recalls. “The trees and deer aren’t great communicators. But there was no more nisayon to get angry and raise my voice, either. If someone shouts here, the whole yeshivah hears it.…”

The Rosh Yeshivah’s arrival on campus was a defining moment, because it underscored the philosophy of accessibility that governs the yeshivah. “It isn’t just me,” the Rosh Yeshivah is quick to point out. “My brother Reb Hershel and our ninth grade rebbi, Rav Avrohom Brog, live here as well and their homes are always open.”

“Always” is no exaggeration. Bochurim have been known to knock on the doors of the hanhalah in the middle of the night — when things are quieter, and when they can let their words, even tears, fall in private.

The Rosh Yeshivah deflects the credit. “Rabbi Brog is the first rebbi they have here and he becomes a father to them very quickly. After that, the bochur feels at home, and we all do our part.

“The setup here is that every older bochur has a younger chavrusa,” he adds. “This system does wonders for both the older bochurim, who develop a sense of acharayus, and the younger ones, who have a steady and ongoing relationship with a mentor.”

At the same time, there are differences in how the older and younger bochurim are treated, as is common at other yeshivos.

“If an older bochur isn’t treated differently, he will never mature. My father established a minhag here that when a beis medrash bochur receives an aliyah he’s called up as ‘Hachassan,’ whereas a mesivta bochur is just ‘Habochur.’ It’s just one word, but it’s significant. It tells them that as they grow older, their role changes.”

Peekskill enjoys another distinction in the contemporary yeshivah world. It’s a family-led yeshivah where peace and harmony reign, where brothers work side by side unhindered by politics or discord. Clearly, the attitude filters down from the top.

“A particular source of pride to us is that we don’t have ‘types.’ Sure, we have bochurim who are exceptional and some who are weaker, but when you watch bochurim schmoozing in the hall, or at the Shabbos table, you see the achdus, how they are bound by much more than that which separates them. They are talmidim of one yeshivah.”

An unmistakable twinkle appears in the Rosh Yeshivah’s eyes. “Maybe we have a happy yeshivah because we ‘shtam’ from chassidim.”

Each year, the line of applicants for the coveted ninth-grade spots is long, and according to Rav Elya the decision of whom to accept isn’t easy.

“But it’s important that parents realize that often, when they are pressuring and pushing for their son to be accepted, they are doing a disservice to one person — not me, not the rebbi, not the classmate … but the boy himself. Every bochur has a yeshivah that’s right for him, and if the hanhalah here feels that this isn’t it, the parents should have the courage to do what’s right for the boy.”

His many years of experience have given him another insight into chinuch: “Sometimes, the metzuyanim, the outstanding bochurim, are the ones who need the most work. There are so many issues that come up as a bochur develops, and even though a bochur might be bright or diligent, he might be the one who most needs a dedicated, astute rebbi.

“Besides, every bochur is a metzuyan. Even if he isn’t a metzuyan in learning, he still excels in other areas.”

No Horsing Around

It’s this philosophy that allows for another Peekskill achievement; because every bochur has his area of excellence, it’s much easier for the bochurim to rejoice in the successes of their friends.

A highlight of the year is the Chanukah siyum, when the accomplishments of those bochurim who completed that year’s masechta — using free time and bein hazmanim to do so — are celebrated. These bochurim take a bechinah on the entire masechta and are given awards at a festive meal.

Parents who have attended the event marvel at the cheering. Those bochurim who may not have risen to the challenge, celebrate the triumph of their friends who did with loud and enthusiastic applause. The ayin tovah is evident, a comment that makes the Rosh Yeshivah smile.

“My father was a baal mussar; he wanted more than intense learning. He firmly believed that Torah can reshape the person. It was the first shmuess he delivered and it’s still our guiding principle.

“My father would joke that this spot was a ranch before the yeshivah came, because Torah can take ‘ferden’ — the base, animal instinct within man — and refine it. He took a ranch and made a yeshivah. That’s what we’re still trying to do.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 457)