Even though six decades have passed, the brilliant shiurim and ma’amarim of Rav Aharon are speaking to a new generation

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab

In a building in Lakewood, encased in sheet protectors, lies a treasure: myriad yellowing papers lined with the tight handwriting of Rav Aharon Kotler.

Rabbi Tzvi Rotberg has spent the past few decades working through these invaluable manuscripts, decoding, deciphering, and ultimately disseminating Rav Aharon Kotler’s timeless chiddushei Torah, intent on keeping his promise to his rebbi, Rav Shneur Kotler. His dedication to this mission has resulted in an incalculable contribution to the Torah world.

Even though six decades have passed, the brilliant shiurim and ma’amarim of Rav Aharon are speaking to a new generation

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orest and Carey. It’s an all too familiar intersection, home to two of Beth Medrash Govoha’s batei medrash. It’s been some ten years since I last paid a visit to this campus, as one of the Yeshivah’s many talmidim. Now, as I tiptoe between the hundreds of cars jammed into unmarked parking spots, I’m hit with an unexpected jab of guilt-laced nostalgia.

As an outsider, you can’t miss it. The heartbeat, low and steady, providing sustenance while seeking no acclaim; from behind the plain, brown brick you can feel the heartbeat. I’d learned here as a bochur, but caught in the whirlwind of shidduchim, riding the roller-coaster of anxiety, excitement, disappointment, and then anxiety all over again, I’d been oblivious.

Now, as a visitor, I hear it — the majesty, the rhythm as true as the universe’s existence — and I feel a pang that I never noticed it before.

But I don’t have much time to dwell on the guilt; I’m here today with a mission. Somewhere, I’m told, positioned between the two batei medrash, is a stand-alone building that houses the Machon Mishnas Rav Aharon, an institute charged with the task of publishing the works of the previous roshei yeshivah of Beth Medrash Govoha.

I spot the small building, so humble you can easily gaze right past it, and head on over, anticipating my meeting with Rabbi Tzvi Rotberg, the director of the Machon. But as I climb the steps and approach the nondescript door, I realize that something is pulsing in my ears.

It’s that heartbeat. Again. And it has only grown louder.

“I Just Work Here”

I’ve never met Rabbi Rotberg before, but based on our phone conversations, it’s an easy guess. Right down the hallway stands an elderly man in a vest holding a broomstick. A much younger man is trying to convince him not to sweep whatever mess is on the floor, but he won’t hear of it. “When you run a machon,” he explains with a twinkle in his eye, “you have to be geshikt. You have to know how to do everything, even sweep the floors.”

It’s the perfect introduction. “Don’t mention me in the article,” he tells me multiple times. “I’m nothing, I just work here.” At one point, he explains that “I’m from a different generation. We don’t look for kavod.”

He continues sweeping until the floor is clean, and only then does he lead me into his office, which looks more like a miniature beis medrash. Newly printed seforim, all with the Machon Mishnas Rav Aharon - Mahaduras Friedman symbol on their binding, line the shelves. Rabbi Rotberg’s desk is lined with seforim as well, but a closer look reveals the most beautiful amalgamation of new and very, very old.

Peeking out from the seforim are bits of the yellowest paper, encased in sheet protectors, with tightly packed letters, identifiably Lashon Kodesh but hardly legible, scrawled from margin to margin. These papers are the core of the Machon’s existence, and the focus of Rabbi Rotberg’s mission for over 40 years.