Photos Shulim Goldring, Mattis Goldberg

T

he first thing one notices upon entering the living room of Rabbi and Mrs. Yisroel Meir Zaks’s Flatbush home is the framed picture of “der Zeide” on the wall — a photo of Reb Yisroel Meir’s grandfather and namesake, known to all the rest of us as the Chofetz Chaim. But it’s not the picture’s originality that captures one’s attention — this is the classic portrait found on posters and book covers and shemiras halashon calendars, and no image is more ubiquitous in Jewish homes and schools and stores.

The very fact that the picture is virtually everywhere makes it so striking to find it here, too; couldn’t the Chofetz Chaim’s grandchildren come up with a rarely seen portrait of the towering tzaddik? Apparently not, because, according to Reb Yisroel Meir, verifiably authentic pictures — not to mention stories — of his grandfather are in shorter supply than people think.

Even this picture, he says, doesn’t capture the Chofetz Chaim’s natural facial expression. “My father told me that it’s uncharacteristically severe, unlike his usual smiling countenance. My grandfather was makpid, based on the Zohar, not to leave behind his image upon departing this world, and thus was deeply unhappy to have to take this picture. But he needed it to obtain a passport, perhaps for his planned, but never realized, move to Eretz Yisrael. So he told the photographer that after taking the photo, he should break the plate from which copies could be made. One of the Radiner bochurim who had accompanied him whispered to the fellow, ‘Don’t break the plate, give it to me instead.’ Within a month or so, the image was all over Europe.”

The Lengths of Gratitude

My visit with Reb Yisroel Meir is a follow-up to an earlier one, in this very home, with his brother, Rav Hillel shlita, who is 12 years his senior. One of Eretz Yisrael’s most venerable marbitzei Torah, Rav Hillel, like his zeide, adamantly shuns having his picture taken. “The fact that Rav Hillel let Mishpacha take pictures of him is a pele gamur [an absolute wonder],” Reb Yisroel Meir exclaims, “because you’ll never find any other pictures of him, that’s how makpid he is about this.”

Beyond being camera-shy, Rav Hillel is virtually invisible in the public eye, almost never to be seen on the dais or at the mizrach vant of gatherings of any sort. The whole notion of granting an interview is, as his brother puts it, “not the least bit Rav Hillel’s techunas hanefesh. He believes in flying beneath the radar. I heard from my father that the Chofetz Chaim used to say, ‘Ich hob faynt az es klingt mit mir, I hate it when it “rings with me,” when people are talking about me.’ So I asked my brother — we’re best of friends — ‘Rav Hillel, how can it be that you’re doing this interview?’ He replied simply, ‘I have tremendous hakaras hatov.’ ”

Rav Hillel’s gratitude stems from the support his kollelim have received from Adopt-a-Kollel , the dynamic new initiative that matches kehillos in America and elsewhere with kollelim in Eretz Yisrael, with the former providing both desperately needed financial aid and moral support to the latter.

Apart from his personal yichus, Rav Hillel is also married into a family of illustrious Torah lineage as the son-in-law of the rosh yeshivah of Chevron, Rav Moshe Chevroni. And for decades, Rav Hillel has served as one of the Chevron Yeshivah’s senior roshei yeshiva. But about 15 years ago, Rav Hillel struck out on his own, opening a yeshivah gedolah in Kiryat Sefer, named Knesses Hagedolah, which today numbers around 300 talmidim. In addition, two high-level kollelim for older and younger avreichim are associated with the yeshivah, and are now grateful beneficiaries of Adopt-a-Kollel’s efforts.

Food Wrapped in Gemara

Rav Hillel and Reb Yisroel Meir are two of the six children of Rav Mendel Zaks and Rebbetzin Faiga Chaya, the Chofetz Chaim’s youngest daughter. Having married a second wife 27 years his junior, the Chofetz Chaim was 64 at Faiga Chaya’s birth, and thus, at age 70 the tzaddik hador found himself raising a little girl of six. Rebbetzin Faiga Chaya remembered her father feeding her, and, in fact, since rumor had it that there was a former non-Jewish cemetery behind the Chofetz Chaim’s house, when the youngster didn’t want to eat what was being served, she would run out back. As a Kohein, her father could not venture there and would wait instead for a yeshivah bochur to happen by, whom he could ask to “go out and fetch my Faiga Chaya from the backyard.”

When she reached marriageable age, the Chofetz Chaim told his daughter, “Ich vehr shoyn alt und ich vil zehn az zol zein mesudar’dig [I’m getting older and want to see to it that things are in order],” and suggested the names of several boys in the Radin yeshivah as suitable matches. Faiga Chaya, a sharp, assertive girl with a good sense of who’s who among the bochurim, chose Mendel Zaks, who had learned previously under Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz in Slabodka and Rav Reuven Dessler in Kelm.

During World War I, the Chofetz Chaim’s yeshivah underwent tortuous exile from one Russian city to the next, until the Communist oppression became unbearable and he decided to return to Radin. Mendel, who himself had been in war-imposed exile in Homel, joined the yeshivah at that point. But not longer after, the Russian secret police raided the yeshivah, hauling several bochurim, including Mendel, off to prison. It was Mendel’s future bride, Faiga Chaya, who bravely dared, when no one else would, to bring the prisoners food, wrapped in pages of Gemara for them to learn from, until they were unexpectedly freed.

Rav Mendel’s father, Reb Yaakov Mordechai, was a respectable, G-d-fearing balabos from Shidlova, a Lithuanian town near Kelm. “My zeide’s humility,” Reb Yisroel Meir observes, “is evident from the fact that he did not come to his own son’s wedding in Radin. This, despite the fact that it was a ‘velt’s shidduch’; nowadays, you’d have entire articles in Mishpacha and the Yated about that chasunah. Why? Because he said it would be a dishonor for the Chofetz Chaim to have to sit next to his mechutan, a ‘simple Jew’ like himself. My father said to me, with much tzaar, that his father didn’t understand that the Chofetz Chaim loved Jews like that more than anyone else.”

The Quiet Genius

After their marriage in 1923, until the Chofetz Chaim’s passing ten years later, Rav Mendel and Faiga Chaya lived in the upper story of the Chofetz Chaim’s house. The Chofetz Chaim gave his new son-in-law permission to learn in the attic, save for two hours each day when the Chofetz Chaim would ascend there to daven and learn mussar. As was his way, the Chofetz Chaim drew up a written document granting him those daily two hours of usage, explaining to Rav Mendel that “it is because we are straight, trustworthy people that we commit things to writing.”

Rav Mendel spent many years learning Torah in the splendid isolation of that attic, growing to become a talmid chacham of extraordinary proportions, possessed of an immense depth of knowledge of the entirety of Torah. This included proficiency in its esoteric aspects, the result of having studied for many months in Homel with Rav Shlomo Elyashiv, the author of Leshem Shvo V’Achlama. Rav Mendel would express wonderment over Rav Elyashiv’s renowned greatness in Kabbalah, since he saw him learning only the revealed Torah all day long.

Although his towering Torah greatness was apparent to all, Rav Mendel was unassuming and reticent; he was known in Radin as der shtiller gaon (the quiet genius). The well-known marbitz Torah and longtime Radin talmid, Rav Yaakov Moshe Shurkin, often remarked that “in Radin, the Chofetz Chaim had slaughtered the yetzer hara of arrogance,” proving his point with Rav Mendel who, he said, was a gaon hagaonim who knew every Tosafos in Shas by heart yet was exceedingly self-effacing.

The Chofetz Chaim treasured Rav Mendel, often commenting that he loved him more than a father loves his only son. He would wait for Rav Mendel’s return from the yeshivah around midnight, so he could prepare for him a glass of tea. Although Rav Mendel felt uncomfortable having his father-in-law serve him, the Chofetz Chaim would say, “Do you think an elderly Jew has nothing better to do than to remarry? It was you I had in mind…” During the last decade of the Chofetz Chaim’s life the two were inseparable, father-in-law sharing with son-in-law his innermost thoughts and feelings and conveying guidance on how to address issues in Klal Yisrael.

Upon his marriage, Rav Mendel began saying shiurim in the illustrious Kollel Kodshim founded many years earlier by the Chofetz Chaim in preparation for the restoration of the avodas hakorbanos with Mashiach’s imminent arrival. The kollel’s members were fluent in the entire Shas.

In 1926, Rav Mendel was appointed as one of Radin’s roshei yeshivah, and following the passing of Rav Naftali Trop and his son-in-law Rav Boruch Feivelson, Rav Mendel stood alone at the yeshivah’s helm.

Rav Mendel’s three oldest sons, Tzvi Hirsch, Avrohom Gershon, and Hillel were born during the Chofetz Chaim’s lifetime. His only daughter, Rivka, who later married Rav Gershon Wiesenfeld, one of Yeshiva Bais Hatalmud’s greatest talmidim, was born on Simchas Torah in 1933, less than a month after the Chofetz Chaim’s passing. Eight years later, Yisroel Meir, today a beloved veteran mechanech in New York yeshivos, was born, followed by Yaakov Yehoshua, today a rosh kollel in Eretz Yisrael.

Escape Route

In September 1939, with the dark clouds of war gathering on the horizon, Rav Mendel and Rebbetzin Faiga each had an ominous dream revolving around the Chofetz Chaim. With war’s outbreak, which led to a Russian invasion of Radin, Rav Mendel knew he was a marked man and fled to Vilna, taking his two older boys with him. After some months, he was joined there by the rest of the family.

At that point, Vilna was the capital of a still-independent Lithuania, and thousands of Jewish refugees from Poland, including many bnei Torah, flooded the city. Many of them found refuge in the warmth of the Zaks home, including meals and a good night’s rest; every inch of the floor was used as sleeping space, with eight-year-old Hillel being small enough to sleep on the threshold between rooms.

In February 1941, Rav Mendel succeeded in securing temporary entry visas to Japan, with the United States as their ultimate destination. As Rebbetzin Zaks waited in the line for exit visas from Russia, Rav Elchonon Wasserman — who returned to Europe from the US despite pleas to remain — was right behind her. But as soon as she received her visas, the consulate’s doors closed; and although she attempted to give Rav Elchonon her visas, he refused to take them.

The Zaks family set out on a journey that, over many months, took them halfway across the world: First, by trans-Siberian railway from Vilna to Vladivostok, by way of Moscow; next, by freighter to Kobe, Japan, where they spent Pesach; and then on to Seattle, Washington, by boat. From there, they made their way across America by train, arriving in New York on June 14, 1941. Just four days later, Rebbetzin Zaks gave birth to Yisroel Meir, named for her father, in Manhattan’s Beth Israel Hospital.

The family took up residence at 43 West 93rd Street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where in 1944 Rav Mendel reestablished Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim and Kollel Kodshim. Their neighbor there was Rav Aharon Kotler, whose apartment was on the floor above theirs. When Rav Aharon and Rav Mendel argued in learning, the former would storm and shout, while the latter would state his opinion and then remain quiet, leading the Lomzher Rav, Rav Moshe Shatzkes, to wryly note that Rav Mendel has “moyra fun der Eibeshter” [fear of the One above].

At Rav Aharon’s Side

As a young talmid, Rav Hillel learned in New York’s Yeshivas Torah Vodaath under Rav Reuven Grozovsky. Rav Hillel remembers how Rav Reuven would prepare for his weekly shiur klali: He’d place his hands on a table, then rest his head on his hands, and in that position, spend the next eight hours in intense concentration on the topic of his upcoming shiur.

Rav Hillel once recounted, “The renowned illui, Rav Chaim Zimmerman, entered the Torah Vodaath beis medrash and asked the bochurim to turn their Gemaras to random pages. Then, after making his way among the benches to ascertain the spot to which each Gemara was open, he launched into a brilliant pilpul that drew upon and connected every one of those pages. I remember how Rav Shlomo Heiman, who was in the beis medrash at the time, couldn’t stop smiling at the feat.”

From Torah Vodaath, Rav Hillel proceeded to Lakewood, where he spent 11 years under the tutelage of Rav Aharon Kotler, including the first five years following his marriage to Esther Chevroni. (Rav Aharon actually served as their shadchan.) But, Reb Yisroel Meir adds, “he was also Rav Aharon’s hoyz bochur, his gabbai, his chauffeur. He sewed the buttons on Rav Aharon’s kapoteh, and made sure he ate. His job was to keep all the nudniks away from the Rosh Yeshivah, because if he were busy speaking with them, he’d never eat at all.”

Rav Hillel was one of the first in the early years in Lakewood to have a car, which he used to drive the Rosh Yeshivah all over, and the latter would insist on picking up hitchhikers of all sorts along the way. A Jewish young lady certainly had to be given a ride, because “s’iz nit kavod fahr ah bas Yisrael tzu shtayn azay [it’s not proper for a Jewish girl to stand there like that].” But more unsavory characters also found favor with him: Once, near Ellenville, New York, they passed three young tattoo-sporting toughs, with their thumbs out. Rav Aharon directed, “M’darf zei nemen [we need to take them].” “Ober Rosh Yeshivah,” Rav Hillel said, a note of desperation in his voice, “ich hob moyra” [I’m afraid].” Came the swift reply, “Shtayt, ‘V’rachamav al kol maasav.’ [the pasuk says ‘He has mercy on all His creatures’].”

Rav Ephraim Zuraivin, one of Rav Aharon’s greatest talmidim in Lakewood, credited much of his growth in Torah to the long walks he and Rav Hillel would take around the town’s Lake Carasaljo, during which the latter would inspire him with tales of the Torah giants of yesteryear.

No Discounts Here

Five years after his marriage, Rav Hillel moved from Lakewood to Eretz Yisrael, where he took his place at the helm of Yeshivas Chevron alongside Rav Simcha Zissel Broide and Rav Avraham Farbstein. A Chevron talmid describes his rebbi’s uniqueness as rooted in the fact that “he was much more like a father than a rosh yeshivah. You could enter the Zaks home at any hour of the day and find people all over the house, eating breakfast, lunch, or supper, or simply enjoying the relaxed and accommodating atmosphere.”

Rav Hillel often quotes his grandfather as saying that when Chazal said that one who is involved in chesed will be spared the chevlei Mashiach, they meant that one must throw himself into acts of kindness to others “bli hanachot,” without “discounts” — exercising chesed in its most basic form. And the home he established was true to that credo. All types of individuals who weren’t accepted socially found an open embrace at the Zaks table. Rav Hillel was involved in every aspect of a bochur’s life; when a talmid started shidduchim, Rav Hillel would say, “Come over and tell me about the date, how’d it go?” and support him every step of the way until the chuppah. When a boy had no wherewithal to pay for his wedding, Rav Hillel would mobilize his talmidim to approach numerous individuals of means to defray the expenses.

Reb Yisroel Meir isn’t reticent about describing his older brother’s stature in Torah: “He has a hekef in kol haTorah kulah, including Toras hanistar. The word illui is thrown around and thus becomes cheapened, but the man is a genius.” Several months ago, Rav Henoch Zaks, a grandson of Rav Mendel, published a volume of his zeide’s novellae on Gemara, the majority of which were excerpted from hundreds of letters that Rav Mendel sent to his son Rav Hillel over the years, in which he never failed to include profound divrei Torah.

A talmid from the Chevron days recalls that in addition to the standard shuirim that are expected of a rosh yeshivah, Rav Hillel also taught a wide range of subjects that reflect the hekef of which his brother speaks. These included a shiur for avreichim in the esoteric portions of Nefesh Hachaim and a lomdishe shiur in the sefer Chofetz Chaim, during which he would sometimes argue against his zeide’s conclusions.

Dikduk in Lashon Hakodesh, history of the Rishonim, Nach — of which, he says, one must learn two perakim daily in order to have solid hashkafos — all are part of the broad-ranging mosaic of Torah knowledge that Rav Hillel possesses.

Rav Hillel’s storytelling gifts are legend; on a Chol Hamoed afternoon, it’s not unusual to enter the Zaks home and find dozens of bochurim ringing their rebbi as he holds forth for hours with story upon story about great people, episodes he witnessed and those he heard about from his mentors and family. He has independent-minded, crystal-clear views on events of the day and an infectious personal chein, and the results of both can be seen in the talmidim he produces. “There is,” says his brother, “a discernible shtempel that a Knesses Hagedolah talmid bears.”

A Mother, Not a Father

Rav Hillel, like his brothers, is quite circumspect regarding the multiplicity of stories told about their legendary zeide. There surely is no gadol of the past century more renowned than he. “The world makes a mistake in thinking that the Zeide was the father of Klal Yisrael,” he says. “In fact, he was its mother. What’s a mother’s job? She sits by the cradle and when the child cries, she rocks the cradle, she sees to all its needs. Everything the Chofetz Chaim wrote was intended to address a need of Klal Yisrael and for the sake of Hashem’s great Name. If a person does that, kulo l’Sheim Shamayim, he’ll never be forgotten.”

Rebbetzin Faiga Chaya Zaks was once quoted as having said that 85 percent of the stories told about her father aren’t reliable. In response, Rav Hillel and his brother Rav Yaakov Yehoshua asked, “How could di Mamme have said that? It’s surely over 90 percent?!”

In the family, the biography written by Rav Moshe Meir Yoshor is considered the most reliable of all that’s been written about the Chofetz Chaim, in part because it was done during his lifetime. Reb Yisroel Meir once left a certain work on the Chofetz Chaim on the table just to see Rav Hillel’s reaction to it.

“You know, the writer of this book is afraid to face me,” Rav Hillel remarked.

“What’s wrong with it?” Reb Yisroel Meir’s wife asked.

“Let me show you,” said Rav Hillel. Opening to a random page, he read out loud a story about a Radin bochur who went to take leave of the Chofetz Chaim before going home. The Chofetz Chaim looked at him and said, “Is that the way a ben Torah looks when he goes home?” At that, he went into the back and came out with a jacket to replace the torn one the bochur was wearing.

“Now, what do you think,” Rav Hillel said. “The Chofetz Chaim had a rack of clothes in the back and said, ‘You know, you look like a 45 regular’? The only part of the story that could be true is that somebody came in to say goodbye to him.”

Twenty-two years ago, Rav Hillel, Rav Yaakov Yehoshua, and Rav Yisroel Meir sat shivah in Yerushalayim for their mother. A visitor sat down in the front and said, “I know for certain that the Chofetz Chaim had a ramp in his house, which he’d practice running up and down in anticipation of the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash.”

Just then, the brothers heard someone in the back of the room say with obvious dry humor, “Mir dacht zich az der salon fun der Chofetz Chaim iz nit gevehn azoy groys… [I don’t think the Chofetz Chaim’s living room was that big].”

It was the voice of Rav Avraham Yehoshua Soloveitchik.

Blessings Fulfilled

For all the questionable veracity of some of what is related about the Chofetz Chaim, there are certainly many stories told about him that are true, and truly wondrous. Almost as if to underscore that point, Reb Yisroel Meir relates: “During that shivah, Rav Shach told us the following story: During World War I, with the borders between Russia and Poland changing every day, utter confusion reigned about where to flee. The Chofetz Chaim’s son-in-law, Rav Hirsch Levinson, decided to cast the goral haGra. The pasuk that emerged was ‘Im yavo Eisav el hamachaneh ha’achas v’hikahu, v’hayah hamachaneh hanishar lifleitah,’ which Rav Hirsch took as a directive to divide the yeshivah between two different escape routes. At that moment, the Chofetz Chaim walked into the room and said, ‘Reb Hirsch, ich hob zich misyashiv gevehn tzu teilin di yeshivah, veil shtayt “Im yavo Eisav el hamachaneh ha’achas v’hikahu, v’hayah hamachaneh hanish’ar l’fleitah” [I’ve decided to divide the yeshivah up because of the verse, Im yavo Eisav….]’

“Those present could barely contain their excitement, telling the Chofetz Chaim that they’d just cast the goral Hagra and it pointed to that very pasuk. ‘Nu, s’iz avada gut [Nu, so it’s certainly good],’ was his nonchalant reply. There was a bochur there, Rav Shach referred to him as ‘a nudnik,’ who said, ‘Maybe we should cast the goral haGra once more just to be sure?’ The Chofetz Chaim’s quick response was striking: ‘Vos darf mehn matri’ach zein de Ribbono shel Olam [why should we trouble Hashem]?’ ”

Rav Shach also related that there was an older bochur in Radin named Hershel Kaminetzer, whose life had been a string of tzaros. On Yom Kippur night, just as the olam was finishing the recitation of the Shir Hakavod after Maariv, the Chofetz Chaim walked in to the beis medrash. This was uncharacteristic for him; he preferred to retire early because, as he was wont to tell Rav Mendel, “Morgen iz oich ah tog [tomorrow is also a day].” He sat down next to Hershel and spent the entire night telling him about the travails of his own life, from his orphaned youth and on, as a way of sharing Hershel’s emotional burden. Only toward morning, just before people began filtering in for Shacharis, did the Chofetz Chaim take leave of Hershel and absent himself from the building.

“Also during shivah for our mother,” the brothers recount, “Rav Aharon Leib Steinman related that he knew a Jew who passed away tragically at age 27, leaving behind three small children. A Radiner talmid, when he got married, he had received a mazel tov letter from the yeshivah signed by the Chofetz Chaim wishing him to ‘merit doros yeshorim.’ It bothered the family greatly that the tzaddik’s blessing had apparently not been fulfilled — until they took a closer look at the letter’s wording. Absent from the traditional wording of yizkeh liros doros yesharim was the word liros; he had been blessed to merit upright generations, but not to see them.”

Rav Yerucham Gorelick, a talmid of Radin, related that two of the daily mispallelim in his Bronx shul were a father and son, aged 103 and 80, respectively. When Rav Gorelick asked the father to share the secret of their longevity, he replied that he really doesn’t know, but that perhaps it had something to do with the fact that his son had been among Radin’s first group of students. During his time in Radin, he dreamed one night that his father had died. To return home was no simple matter; it would require hiring a wagon and traveling a journey of many days. When he went in to seek the Chofetz Chaim’s counsel, his first words were, “Narishe bochur, der tatte veht leben uhn leben [Foolish boy, your father will live and live].”

How Did He Know?

But not all blessings were dispensed that freely. Rebbetzin Faiga Chaya once told her sons about a Radin Jew who, to all appearances, was fully observant, but who harbored a terrible secret: On Shabbos, unable to break free of his addiction, he would go out to the surrounding forests to smoke. The townspeople were unaware, but some of the children who played nearby knew. This man decided to move to Eretz Yisrael, and it was unthinkable to leave town, likely forever, without going to the Chofetz Chaim for a parting brachah.

During the summer months, when Shabbos ended late, the entire yeshivah would pack into the Chofetz Chaim’s house to hear him speak at Seudah Shlishis. This man arrived before the crowds, sat down next to the Chofetz Chaim and said, “Rebbi, ich fohr kein Eretz Yisrael, geb mir a brachah [Rebbi, I’m traveling to Eretz Yisrael, give me a brachah].”

Little Faiga Chaya, then aged ten or eleven, was standing in the back of the room as this scene unfolded, and felt like shouting out, “Tatte, geb ehm nisht kein brachah, ehr iz a mechallel Shabbos! [Father, don’t give him a brachah, he’s a Shabbos desecrator!]” But she remained silent.

The Chofetz Chaim turned to the fellow and said, “Az a Yid iz gut uhn frum, uhn ehr hit Shabbos, hut ehr alleh brachos in der velt [If a Jew if good and religious, and keeps Shabbos, he has all the blessings in the world].” The man sat there for the next two hours, repeatedly beseeching the Chofetz Chaim, “Rebbi, git mir a brachah,” and the tzaddik replying calmly, “Az a Yid iz gut uhn frum, uhn ehr hit Shabbos, hut ehr alleh brachos in der velt.”

Ultimately, the man walked out without the brachah he so desperately desired.

“When my mother told us this story,” says Reb Yisroel Meir, “she’d shrug her shoulders and ask, ‘Fun vanet hut der tatte gevust? [How did Father know?]’ But he knew.”

What It’s All About

As our time together comes to a close, Adopt-a-Kollel and its implications are obviously still on Rav Hillel’s mind. He pauses to reflect and then shares a poignant reminiscence from the Lakewood years that captures what Torah study in a yeshivah is all about: “It was in the old beis medrash on Forest Avenue. One day, an elderly secular Jew walked in who looked like he was past his 80s. I welcomed him and asked him his name and whether he was looking for someone. He replied, ‘My name is Max, and I’m here on vacation. What’s here?’ I told him this is a yeshivah. With his Russian accent, he said, ‘What do you get from it?’

“I asked him, ‘Reb Yid, did you ever learn in a yeshivah?’ He replied, ‘Yes, I learned in Slabodka, about 70 years ago.’ ‘And who was the rosh yeshivah?’ ‘Someone Epstein,’ he replied, then continued, ‘I got a kiss from Reb Moshe Mordechai on my head here,’ pointing to the spot. So I asked him the same question, ‘And what did you get from it?’ The man replied, this time switching to Yiddish, ‘We believed in Hashem, and we sat and learned!’

“Spontaneously, I hugged him, half dancing with him as I turned him around, repeating his words back to him, ‘We believe in Hashem, let’s sit and learn!’ The man was stunned and said to me, ‘Are there still such things around?’

“It’s amazing that after so many years after leaving Slabodka, he still remembered what a yeshivah is all about: ‘We believed in Hashem, and we sat and learned.’ ” —

This Can Bring Mashiach

Adopt-a-Kollel is an organization galvanizing the frum communities of chutz l’Aretz to provide financial and moral support to beleaguered kollel scholars and their families.

Founded less than a year ago, AAK has made shidduchim between 118 American shuls and kollelim in Eretz Yisrael. Rank-and-file Yidden from Lakewood to London to Los Angeles are making monthly donations of anywhere from $1 to $1,000 to “their” kollel so that cheder children don’t have to go to bed hungry and mothers can buy their little girls a pair of shoes.

Adopt-a-Kollel’s operations are based out of the corporate offices of a major real estate concern in Lakewood, New Jersey, which has lent both space and employees to the Adopt-a-Kollel cause. The company CEO’s own office has been “commandeered,” too, resembling a “war room” for strategic planning.

The stories that Adopt-a-Kollel’s cross-country barnstorming have spawned are numerous, and fairly astounding: The successful young entrepreneur who decided he wanted a bigger share of the merit of hachzakas haTorah, and sponsored a kollel’s entire annual budget of $360,000; the young women who formed their own fundraising group because “if a shul can adopt a kollel, so can we”;  the philanthropist who generally didn’t direct his giving to mosdos haTorah, but joined the bandwagon after witnessing the round-the-clock work and energy that the Adopt-a-Kollel team invested in their efforts.

With Adopt-a-Kollel acting as the matchmaker, both of Rav Hillel’s kollelim have partnered with American shuls, one with Bnei Binyamin Torah Center in Brooklyn, led by Rav David Seruyah, and the other with Lakewood’s Khal Rayim Ahuvim, under the leadership of prominent dayan Rav Dov Kahan.

The story of Khal Rayim Ahuvim’ s involvement  is representative of many shuls whose members are of limited means but who nonetheless possess unlimited concern for fellow Jews in distress. After seven years of davening in a basement, last Shavuos the shul moved into a spacious new building whose $1.5 million cost was borne almost entirely by a membership stretching itself far beyond its financial capabilities, including taking out personal loans. The planned simchah hall in the shul basement remains unfinished for lack of funds.

When Rav Kahan proposed the Adopt-a-Kollel partnership, some were skeptical about how members would respond a mere seven months after having given their all for their own building campaign. But in fact, the response has been overwhelming: To date, there is a 90 percent monthly participation rate, ranging from $250 to $10. That’s on top of the tuition, tzedakah, and myriad other obligations of today’s young frum families.

As one mispallel put it: “My friends and I feel we simply cannot let the Israeli government succeed in its desire to destroy the world of bnei Torah. As much as we are struggling, the Yidden in Eretz Yisrael are under more pressure. And we’re grateful for the kesher we are developing with a gadol like Rav Hillel, who visits and speaks to us when he comes to the States.”

For his part, Rav Hillel says that much more than the financial help, the knowledge that there are over 100 yechidim in faraway Lakewood who care this much, is a source of untold strength to him and his avreichim.

But Rav Hillel’s appreciation for Adopt-a-Kollel’s work goes far beyond gratitude for its support of his own institution. “There’s something very big going on here. The Ramchal writes that when the Jewish People stood at Sinai, in Chazal’s words, ‘as one man, with one heart,’ with no jealousy or hatred between them, that was the only time in history that the entire universe actually achieved shleimus, a level of completion. I personally feel that Adopt-a-Kollel is bringing us to the same level of ‘as one man, with one heart’ that can bring Mashiach, when all Jews support the same all-important purpose of limud haTorah.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 512)