In memory of Rav Doniel Lehrfield, Rosh Yeshivas Bais Yisroel

We learned from him that Torah comes before comfort, before excuses, before anything else. Yet he often said that when he built the yeshivah, his intention had never been to have “finished products” coming in. The Rosh Yeshivah wanted to take coal and polish it into diamonds. He shook the walls with his shiurim, but just as fiercely defended his talmidim.

My dear son,

IT was so sudden. So unexpected. This past Shabbos we lost my rebbi, the Rosh Yeshivah, Rabbi Doniel Lehrfield ztz”l. You are only nine years old now, and I had hoped we’d be able to experience together the lessons, guidance, and love from the Rosh Yeshivah for many more years. But Hashem had other plans.

As I sit here waiting for my flight to Eretz Yisrael, on my way to be menachem avel the Rosh Yeshivah’s family, I feel compelled to attempt the almost impossible task of capturing even a small piece of who he was. I owe my life to the Rosh Yeshivah — and in turn, you owe so much of who you are and who you will become, to the Rosh Yeshivah as well. This is not a letter just for you, my son, this is an open letter for Klal Yisrael, to get the smallest glimpse of the rosh yeshivah who sat quietly and learned in yeshivah but was larger than life in every way.

The Rosh Yeshivah’s hasmadah was insatiable. We saw it everywhere: the Rosh Yeshivah walking with a Gemara in hand in the mornings, at the dinner table, even through tefillah. After I was married, I once told an adam gadol in Eretz Yisrael that I was a talmid of the Rosh Yeshivah. He stopped and said, “Reb Doniel? He is the masmid hador!”

The Rosh Yeshivah once told me he had learned through the Ketzos over one hundred times. If you ever saw the Rosh Yeshivah’s blue Ketzos, bending like rubber from constant use, you would believe it. The Rosh Yeshivah shared this not to boast, but to show us what was possible when one truly attached themselves to Torah.

For decades he was in the beis medrash from literally dawn until late at night, his eyes fixed on a Gemara, lips moving softly as he reviewed. On his table sat a small sign: “Time is precious, please be brief.” He didn’t cloister himself in an office, he sat at the front of the beis medrash day in and day out, learning with the oilem. Even when fundraising trips took him abroad, he would return straight from the airport without resting or eating, to the yeshivah, unwilling to lose a moment of a single seder. He also did everything in his power to schedule his trips around bein hazmanim, even though that meant losing out on his opportunities to rest and recharge, because any minute of bittul Torah was too painful for him.