Mists of Time

Through the lens of hindsight, the pre-war American Torah world looks like an age of giants. But a few fragments of his early life show how unlikely Isadore Scheiner was to end up among the “Founding Fathers” of America’s Torah revolution.

Born on May 11, 1922, Isadore was a regular American boy. An avowed baseball fan, he had an aptitude for math, and showed an early capacity for languages as champion of his public school’s spelling bee. His religious parents sent him by trolley car to an after-school Talmud Torah at the Hebrew Institute where, he’d later say, “the teachers were maskilim who mocked the Torah.”

By the time he was chosen to be one of the five speakers at his high school graduation, he was well on the way to vanishing into the great American melting pot, despite his religious upbringing. “There were five million Jews in America who were like the American-Indians, soon to be extinct,” he said years later at an Agudah event. “My mother had watched her friends from the block lose their children to intermarriage — undoubtedly it was her tears when lighting the Shabbos candles that saved me.”

So the giant wheels of Divine hashgachah that led to Rabbi Avraham Bender’s offer of a place in yeshivah for their son, led to a quick “yes” from the Scheiners. The University of Pittsburgh’s loss was to be the yeshivah world’s gain.

The 16-year-old who joined Rav Moshe Aharon Poleyeff’s shiur in RIETS took to his learning with gusto. A yeshivah it may have been, but it remained an American institution, different from the intense European-modeled institutions that were springing up. So Yitzchak, as he became known at some stage, was also the captain of the varsity chess team.

But by summer 1940, after two years at Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchanan, poor health led to a fateful move. Yitzchak suffered from asthma, and his doctor recommended that he spend some time in the clean Catskills air. Rav Poleyeff suggested Camp Mesivta, the first yeshivah camp, founded in 1931 by Reb Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz.

Over the course of the summer, Yitzchak Scheiner fell under the spell of Torah Vodaath talmidim. He later joked about being “kidnapped,” and said that he was the last RIETS student sent to Camp Mesivta. But by Elul he’d joined them as a talmid of the legendary American yeshivah.

If Rabbi Avraham Bender had begun the young boy’s journey — and the family’s relationship with the future gadol — it was left to his son Rabbi Dovid Bender, a rebbi at Torah Vodaath, to complete the transformation.

“Rav Moshe Aaron Stern was the mashgiach in Kaminetz for fifty years and he was one of the biggest tzaddikim to ever come out of an American yeshivah,” recalled Rav Scheiner a few years ago candidly, speaking to Rabbi Yaakov Bender’s own yeshivah in Far Rockaway. “I remember when he was an ardent Yankees fan — he knew the batting average of every Yankees player. I was a Pittsburgh Pirates fan.

“But in Rav Dovid Bender’s class something strange happened to all the American baseball fans. Our love of Torah eclipsed that of baseball. Rav Dovid taught his talmidim that the Torah is more important than anything else.”

A transformed person, Yitzchak Scheiner soon started to attend Rav Shlomo Heiman’s shiur. Rav Boruch Ber Lebovitz had written about his prime student Rav Shlomo that “all the birth pangs of my mother were worthwhile if I did nothing in this world but have a talmid like you.” It was a sentiment that Rav Shlomo Heiman might have said about his own talmid muvhak, Rav Yitzchak Scheiner, who absorbed the full radiance of the Kamenitz approach to learning.

And united as rebbi and talmid were by their learning, they shared something else in common: Rav Shlomo Heiman had himself been coaxed into yeshivah, when he was on a very different path.

“Rav Shlomo Heiman had himself been standing on a street corner with a small group of young men, none of them yeshivah bochurim,” explains Rabbi Yaakov Bender, “and Rav Boruch Ber — who made it a practice to stop and chat with these Jewish youth — engaged them in conversation. He noted that one of the boys was particularly bright and perceptive, and said, ‘come use your mind for Torah,’ offering to learn with him privately.”

That was how Rav Shlomo Heiman came to be one of the closest talmidim of Rav Boruch Ber.

“How amazing is it that this former ‘street-corner youth’ became the rebbi of the boy saved from a career in University of Pittsburgh?” marvels Rabbi Bender.

That’s How Close

Strangely enough, a German U-Boat may have sent the budding talmid chacham off to Cleveland, Ohio, as part of the initial cohort of 15 bochurim in the re-established Telshe yeshivah.

In the early 1940s, the American media reported that a German submarine had landed men in New York State. The Scheiners read reports that America faced an imminent attack on the eastern seaboard. Horrified, they begged their only son to leave New York, and so he headed to Cleveland in early 1942, where his draft deferment card was issued.

But after a year in Telz, he returned to Torah Vodaath where his connection to Rav Boruch Ber’s Torah deepened as he learned again under Rav Shlomo Heiman and then Rav Reuven Grozovsky, Rav Boruch Ber’s son-in-law.

“Rav Yitzchak Scheiner told me about his closeness to his rebbeim in Torah Vodaath,” says Mr. Avraham Biderman, who hosted Rav Scheiner many times over the last thirty years. “There’s a famous story about Rav Shlomo Heiman calling out, just before his petirah, ‘bring chairs for the Rambam and Rebbi Akiva Eiger.’ Rav Scheiner was there when that happened. He also said that he held Rav Shlomo Heiman’s hand just before Rav Shlomo was niftar. That’s how close they were.”

With his rebbi’s passing in 1945, Yitzchak Scheiner joined a group of bochurim who would occasionally travel to the newly-established Lakewood to hear Rav Aharon Kotler’s shiurim.

But unlike some of his peers, such as Rav Elya Svei, who stayed in Lakewood, Rav Yitzchak Scheiner was destined to cross the Atlantic to a very different world.

Mrs. Henchie Leibowitz, a daughter-in-law of Kamenitz and Ponevezh rosh yeshivah Rav Chaim Shlomo Leibowitz, a cousin of Rav Scheiner’s wife Esther Leah, remembers hearing about Rav Yitzchak Scheiner back when she was growing up.

“My father, Isaac Handler, was very close to Rav Yitzchak Scheiner back from their Camp Mesivta days, when they formed a trio with Rav Don Ungarischer. My father and Rav Don were instrumental in persuading him to join Torah Vodaath. My father remembers that of all the people in Rav Reuven Grozovsky’s shiur, which was very deep, the only one who was really able to keep up was Rav Scheiner.

“Later my father and Rav Scheiner came to Eretz Yisrael by boat, and when they went to visit the Brisker Rav, he — as was his way — didn’t pay attention to the people coming in and out. Then Rav Scheiner spoke: ‘Talmidim of Rav Shlomo Heiman have come,’ he said.

“‘Talmidim of Rav Shlomo Heiman?’ the Rav asked, and his attitude changed completely.”

When Rav Yitzchak made the long journey to Eretz Yisrael in 1949, he carried with him a letter from Rav Reuven Grozovsky to his brother-in-law, Rav Moshe Bernstein, another son-in-law of Rav Boruch Ber. Rav Bernstein had just founded Yeshivas Kamenitz in Jerusalem, and his daughter Esther Leah was of marriageable age. The letter contained a simple message, the highest accolade a rebbi could give: take this bochur as your son-in-law.

Less than ten years after entering the world of Kamenitz — becoming the leading talmid of Rav Boruch Ber’s own prime student and his son-in-law — the circle was closed. Just a few short years after saying goodbye to Pittsburgh, the young American married Rav Boruch Ber’s granddaughter.

The Heart of Chinuch

Behind every gadol, to borrow a phrase, stands someone special. Rav Moshe Bernstein’s daughter wanted someone who, in her family’s tradition, would only sit and learn. And when she said that, she meant it.

“I never met the rebbetzin,” says Avraham Biderman, “but Rav Scheiner told me a story about her dedication to his learning. Once she had a terrible toothache, and out of pain, she walked back and forward and banged her stick on the floor. The downstairs neighbor came up, and helped her apply a cold compress. But as she was taking care of her, the neighbor heard two people learning in the next room. ‘Why didn’t you ask your husband for help?’ she wondered. ‘How can I do that? He’s learning,’ came the reply.”

That awe-inspiring dedication was part of the reason that in 1956, when Rav Moshe Bernstein passed away, Rav Scheiner – who was just 34 years old – was able to take the reins of the yeshivah, together with his brother-in-law Rav Asher Lichtstein.

Running a yeshivah in a poor city, part of a cash-strapped country, was never going to be easy.

“We had serious trouble running the yeshivah initially, and Mirrer rosh yeshivah Rav Lazer Yudel Finkel heard and called us in to give us a large sum of money,” Rav Scheiner reminisced years later. “He told us to come back every Rosh Chodesh and when we came, there would be money for us. Rav Lazer Yudel would then sit with us and talk through all the other issues we had.”

Many years later, fundraising became easier, as Avraham Biderman notes. “The rosh yeshivah ran a large building campaign a few years ago, and donors gave him multi-million-dollar donations. They were just enamored of his personality.”

But in the early days, before Rav Yitzchak Scheiner was a household name, that mixture of gadlus and caring made him a unique rosh yeshivah.

Rav Pinchas Green, mashgiach in Kamenitz, defines what made Rav Scheiner special as a rebbi. “Rav Shimon Shkop writes that our task is to move from the natural, selfish view of looking after ourselves, to a greater ani, or sense of who we are. Rav Yitzchak Scheiner widened his personal ani to include all of his talmidim, and in fact anyone he met.”

Rav Green’s own father was a prime example of that giant heart. “My father came from St. Louis to Torah Vodaath when he was just 12 years old,” he says. “When he arrived it turned out that the one responsible had forgotten to assign him a bed, and he broke down in tears. Rav Scheiner, who was then a bochur, saw my father and asked him why he was crying. ‘Oh, I was supposed to arrange you a bed,’ the older bochur said to the young boy. ‘Come let me show you where you sleep,’ and he showed the boy his own bed.

“Before getting a bed, my father had made up his mind to go home the next day,” concludes Rav Pinchas Green, “so all of our family’s Torah is thanks to Rav Scheiner.”

Looking out for others was so pronounced a part of Rav Scheiner’s personality that when he showed a picture of his time in Telz, asking his colleague to identify which of the fifteen bochurim was Yitzchak Scheiner, Rav Pinchos Green didn’t hesitate. “It’s this one,” he said, “because you’re the only one with your arm around another boy’s shoulder.”

Many years later, that concern was no less evident. “A few years ago,” remembers Mrs. Henchie Leibowitz, “my brother went to visit Rav Scheiner late at night, and saw that he was looking through the Yellow Pages and making check marks against some listings. It turned out that someone who’d lost his printing business in America had come to Eretz Yisrael, and Rav Scheiner was looking for any possible business connections among the English-speaking businesses.”

Caring, Rav Yitzchak Scheiner felt, was at the heart of chinuch. And even though Kamenitz is a large institution, spanning from preschool to yeshivah gedolah, “every boy was a yachid.”

“His approach to chinuch was just pure love,” says Rabbi Yaakov Bender. “The simchas hachaim shone from him. Even after his rebbetzin was niftar, he was always smiling.”

That warmth was something that Rav Scheiner remarked on himself. “Middos tovos and yiras Shamayim cannot be taught,” he said, “they must be caught! If Torah is the basis of the home, the home will be infected and the children will ‘catch the bug’ and they will be infected.”

Dayan Yaakov Yisroel Lichtenstein, a second cousin of Rav Scheiner, also noted the Kamenitz rosh yeshivah’s pedagogic skill. “My mother z”l was a niece of Rav Boruch Ber, so I would eat with him when I was a bochur,” he says. “Rav Scheiner was a tremendous lamdan, but he also had the ability to simplify something difficult. At the Shabbos meals, there would be all types of people there, and he would explain a difficult Ketzos in a way that everyone could understand.”

But it wasn’t just pedagogic skill — Rav Scheiner could connect with people because he treated them well. “Once when he came to London, he came to us for a meal. My son, who was then a teenager, was in awe of him. But Rav Scheiner said, ‘Let’s sit down and learn.’ He was able to lower himself to a high-school level, and my son understood everything he taught him, because he had that humility.”

Well-trodden Path

Perhaps it was a result of his own journey, or his caring nature, but for multiple talmidim, a family connection with Rav Scheiner meant that someone took a personal stake in their success.

One long-term chavrusa later became a businessman, and occasionally used to drive the rosh yeshivah around when he came to the US collecting. The connection went back to this man’s father, who had learned in Torah Vodaath with Rav Scheiner. But even that multi-layered relationship wasn’t enough to explain what came next.

“I visited Eretz Yisrael with my wife, and went in to see him, when he said, ‘Why don’t you come and learn with me during your stay?’”

The surprised visitor had never dreamed of learning together with an eminent rosh yeshivah, but that’s exactly what happened. “I had a yeshivah background, but I was nowhere up to learning with Rav Scheiner. He was a very gentle person, but in Torah he insisted on 100 perent emes and clarity. That was the most important thing in the world for him.”

Yerachmiel Hershkowitz is another talmid who enjoyed a close connection that began a generation earlier. “The rosh yeshivah knew my grandfather in Torah Vodaath, and I got to know Rav Scheiner when my parents moved here back when I was a child. Although we are not the Brisk or Yerushalmi type of family like most of the talmidim, it was natural that I be sent to Kamenitz.”

On his first Shabbos in the yeshivah, the new bochur saw first-hand the genuine love that the rosh yeshivah had for his talmidim. “I realized that from the first person to wish him Good Shabbos until the last, Rav Scheiner had the same genuine, warm smile.”

Over the years, Yerachmiel was witness to many day-to-day acts of greatness. “Both he and the rebbetzin were such baalei chesed. In their small apartment, they looked after his mother who lived past 100. Then when his sister, who never married, needed somewhere to go, they divided the house in half.”

And then there was the Shabbos table, which was a popular haunt for bochurim learning in Brisk, many of whose grandparents he’d known. Although the rebbetzin steered the conversation back to Torah with well-timed interventions from the kitchen, there was a lightness and warmth around the table.

“Once when my plate was empty, the rebbetzin noticed and insisted on refilling it. She wouldn’t listen when I said that I was full. ‘You need koach,’ she insisted. Noticing my protests being ignored, the rosh yeshivah joked, ‘She’s taking revenge for how your grandmother fed me when I was a bochur.’”

In the ultimate expression of his sense of loss, this talmid says simply, “I miss him tons.”

Eternal Connection

It’s a feeling that resonates with thousands around the world, as they process the loss of a rosh yeshivah linked to a fabled era of greatness, to personalities from Reb Shraga Feivel to Rav Shlomo Heiman, and to the glories of Kamenitz.

But perhaps it was Rav Scheiner himself who encapsulated his own life’s journey. “I’m not a young man,” he told his audience in Yeshivah Darchei Torah a few year ago. “I won’t tell you how old I am — I’ll just say I was born on May 11th, 1922,” he continued in his humorous way, his American accent only slightly dulled by the years abroad. “Pretty soon I’ll have to give a din ve’cheshbon, a reckoning for my time. So why am I here? Because maybe I’m missing one important mitzvah that I can only do here,” said the aged rosh yeshivah. “Rav Dovid Bender turned all of us baseball fans into people who loved the Torah. His shiurim were like eating ice cream. And maybe by speaking here I’ll help one boy in a similar way.

“That’s why I feel so elated to be here,” said Rav Yitzchak Scheiner, his voice rising as he spoke of his journey from Pittsburgh to Kamenitz, thanks to one man who saw a teenage boy’s potential all those years before.

“Because that’s the reason we were created, to help others.”

Dovi Safier contributed to this report

No Worries, It’s Okay

By Akiva Fox

The last time I saw the Rosh Yeshivah was when I brought my little son for his upsherin. As always, he greeted us warmly — his smile, his patience, not giving away his weakness and frailty. “Come, yingeleh,” he said lovingly, softly caressing my son’s cheek while assuring him, “It doesn’t hurt, not even a drop, look, you’ll see, it doesn’t hurt.” So spoke a gadol hador to a three-year-old, allaying his fears and soothing him into the next stage of growth in Yiddishkeit.

That was Rav Yitzchak Scheiner. He raised the bar, elevated us and prodded us to reach higher, just as he had done himself, while assuring us, with his very essence, that it could be done, it should be done, and it wouldn’t hurt.

When I would bring over boys from different yeshivahs, he welcomed them and told his story. “I’m from the City of Steel, and I graduated Peabody high school. I thought I would be a math professor, but look at me now, I became a rosh yeshivah!”

One year, there was an awkward moment as one boy, defiant of anything related to religion, introduced himself with his “non-Jewish” name. “Scott Glassberg,” he said coolly, as he shook the Rosh Yeshivah’s hand, “from Atlanta.” Rav Sheiner warmly clasped his hand in his own. “So nice to meet you, Scott. I’m Yitzchak Scheiner, from Pittsburgh.” The ice was broken; he melted Scott’s heart with his disarming smile and warmth.

When my brother was learning in yeshivah, he slept in a dirah down the block from Rav Scheiner. I remember him remarking in awe, “I have never passed his house at night when the light in his room wasn’t on. He’s always learning.” Once, a new bochur moved in to a dirah next door to Rav Scheiner and one afternoon, he accidentally entered the wrong flat. As he opened the door, he realized his mistake, but it was too late. There was the Rosh Yeshivah, sitting over a sefer. “Ahh, shalom aleichem, come in, come in.” He invited the embarrassed young man in and made him feel at home. After exchanging pleasantries, the Rosh Yeshivah asked him for “help” in understanding a difficult Rashba. For the next half hour, they learned together, as if nothing had happened. The bochur felt totally at ease, completely forgetting his original discomfort. He, too, heard the Rosh Yeshivah’s mantra: It’s okay. It’s okay.

One year, I brought my young children over on Chol HaMoed Pesach to wish gut Yom Tov and get a brachah. My kids noticed some nuts on his table and, as I was speaking with the Rosh Yeshivah, one of them reached for the plate. “Of course, I forgot to offer you some nuts. Please take.” There were almonds and raisins, but my kids were intrigued by the big walnuts.

“Tatty, what are those ones?” I tried to shush them but the Rosh Yeshivah called them over.

“Come, let me show you how we eat these,” he said, taking the nut cracker in his hand. He sat there, cracking walnuts for them, one at a time. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

He was a calming voice of reassurance and hope to children and adults, singles and couples. If you’d call him, as soon as he’d answer the phone, the soothing effect would begin: “Let’s meet at around one thirty,” he would say. “Does that work for you?… Great…Can’t wait to see you.”

When people saw that he was a full-blown American who became a gadol in Torah, they understood that gadlus and success in Torah learning was a level that they too could reach. “You can do it. It’s okay.” I remember being offered my first job as a first-seder meishiv in a yeshivah. I asked him if I should accept it. “As long as you’ll be learning the other sedarim, then go ahead.” I assured him that I would. Yet he wasn’t satisfied. “If you’re not shvitzing in learning those other two sedarim, then it’s not learning.” It sounded like he was asking a lot. But if he was saying it, then I knew I could do it.

I just returned home from his levayah, where they read a penetrating missive that he wrote only a month ago, as a last will and testament to his children and talmidim. The exact words I cannot recall, but the message was clear: Horeve in learning with yegiah amitis, with authentic toil in Torah. This was his mission, his calling, his last wish. Let no one say it can’t be done. The Rosh Yeshivah’s own life attested to it. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Rabbi Akiva Fox teaches in Imrei Binah and other American yeshivahs in Eretz Yisrael, and lectures for Hidabroot.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 847)