In Wickliffe at the top of a hill stands a yeshivah.

It’s 3:15 p.m. and afternoon seder is beginning.

In the middle of the spacious beis medrash is the bimah. There he stands silently ushering in hundreds of bochurim.

It’s the mid-1960s and the talmidim belong to a new world to casual easygoing America. Yet when they enter this room fill the space created by Rav Chaim Stein and others like him they are able to reach out across decades across continents and touch the majesty of Telshe. They know to walk with dignity to talk with respect to learn as if the world depends on it.

Because it does.

They file up to him over the course of the afternoon this one with a question on the yeshivah’s mesechta Bava Kama and another with a complicated halachic sh’eilah. A member of the Kodashim kollel waits his turn patiently and behind him another who wishes to request permission to travel to New York.

The would-be traveler needs permission from Reb Chaim but not just because of his administrative role: it’s because with his blessing the trip will be easy and smooth. If not he knows from experience — in fact they all know — that the trip will be interrupted by  inclement weather traffic car trouble ... so it is when Reb Chaim says not to go.

Because at the top of the hill in the yeshivah stood a man at the bimah with the mind of a gaon the heart of a baal mussar and the strength of woodchopper his presence a comforting constant — a rebbi rebbe and — ever-so-approachable — a sweet genuine friend.

As the years went by bochurim left and new ones came to take their place. The caliber of the American ben Torah developed the questions becoming more sophisticated but the challenges grew as well the need for chizuk ever greater.

The ninety-nine-year-old saintly figure in the middle of the beis medrash never really moved though. In time it was he alone who carried the legacy of old-world Telshe becoming rosh yeshivah and bringing talmidim eighty years his junior into the world he’d seen telling about the hamlet of Telshe of Rav Yosef Leib Bloch and his great sons as he shared the Torah of destroyed Lita.

Over time the masses from beyond the hill began to search him out: broken souls in need of a listening ear thirsty for the words of comfort and hope; sincere Jews in need of guidance; and always talmidei chachamim looking for pshat.

Reb Chaim was a leader of the bochurim in Telshe of old then a rebbi to talmidim in the rebuilt Telshe and finally a gadol and tzaddik who belonged to a nation until his petirah this week.

To read the rest of this story please buy this issue of Mishpacha or sign up for a weekly subscription.