“He learned Shas in depth before he heard any vort” one of Eretz Yisrael’s most popular maggidei shiurim told Mishpacha. “He mastered the Ketzos and Reb Akiva Eiger before being exposed to the more contemporary ‘yeshivish’ Torah. He first went to yeshivah at 18 when he was fully developed as a talmid chacham so there’s no ambiguity or vagueness in the way he sees the sugya — and that’s what he transmits to his talmidim.”

Those years in Ramat Hasharon also equipped the brothers with something else that would serve them well: genuine ahavas Yisrael. There was just one shul where they joined their father for tefillos sitting and listening to his daily Mishnayos shiur and interacting with the farmers and craftsmen and vendors.

When their father learned Maseches Kilayim in shul and discussed “arigah ” the weaving process a local who’d had a knitting factory back in Poland and was familiar with the method was asked to explain it. The face of this Polish Jew shone as he helped the Rav clarify the complicated concept for the others.

One day Rav Tzvi Yehuda noticed a thin volume in the shul — a new sefer that contained chiddushim on Zevachim — and he was astounded by the brilliance and depth of the anonymous author. The gabbai explained that he’d purchased the sefer out of compassion since he’d heard that the author lived in abject poverty in nearby Bnei Brak and the proceeds from the sale of the sefer would help him.

Rav Tzvi Yehuda determined to meet the mechaber traveled to Bnei Brak — where he first met the Chazon Ish.

Instantly taken by his host the rav of Ramat Hasharon told him about his two sons and wondered if he was doing them a disservice by learning with them at home. The Chazon Ish asked what they were learning among other questions and remarked that the arrangement seemed to be working.

On the following Chol Hamoed Pesach Rav Tzvi Yehuda went back to Bnei Brak this time taking his sons along. The Chazon Ish greeted the bochurim with a smile asking if they were still learning Yevamos.

The 18-year-old Reb Gershon asked a kushya. The Chazon Ish heard it and looked at Rav Tzvi Yehuda. “You’re doing a good job ” he said. “Keep on learning with them.”

A New World Because Rav Tzvi Yehuda also assumed responsibility as the local shochet, he ended up missing time during their sedorim, and his sons wondered if perhaps it was time to leave home. Rav Tzvi Yehuda accepted the argument, and, with  the haskamah of the Chazon Ish (he told them, “You’ve already learned a derech halimud from your father. Just make sure not to ruin it in yeshivah”), sent his bochurim to the Yeshivah Lomza in Petach Tikvah. In yeshivah, they were exposed to a new world, that of Rav Shimon Shkop and Rav Elchanan Wasserman and Rav Chaim Soloveitchik. Rav Yaakov Edelstein would relate that he and his brother had already learned Yevamos ten times — Gemara, Rashi, and Tosafos — before hearing their first lomdishe shiur.

After a year in Lomza, they returned home to spend another zeman with their father. Rav Tzvi Yehuda had remarried, and now that the new rebbetzin had taken over many of his tasks, he’d be able to devote time to a fuller learning schedule with them. But soon after, the Edelsteins received a visit from Rav Shmuel Rozovsky.

Reb Shmuel had been charged by the Ponevezher Rav, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, with forming a new yeshivah in Bnei Brak, and he wanted the Edelstein brothers to join.

“If the Ponevezher Rav is behind it, it will be matzliach,” Rav Tzvi Yehuda predicted.

The great Ponevezh yeshivah was thus created with just six bochurim, the Edelstein boys comprising a third of the student body.

It was a thrilling new world, the yeshivah. Along with the shiurim, each one a revelation, there was also the influence and proximity of the Chazon Ish. The bochurim in the nascent yeshivah would often go to speak in learning with him, and it was the Chazon Ish who encouraged the older talmidim of Ponevezh to find time to speak with the younger ones. In a sense, it was this directive that shaped Reb Gershon.

From the outset, Reb Gershon was giving as well as taking, learning with typical hasmadah, but still very much the son of a community rav, with time and patience and heart for others.

And the Ponevezher Rav noticed.

The elder son of the Ramat Hasharon rav joined the Ponevezh faculty in 1948 while still a bochur, delivering chaburos and shiurim. Months later, he married Rebbetzin Rochel — daughter of Rav Yehoshua Zelig Diskin, then the rav of Pardes Chana — but Reb Gershon was never really a yungerman. He started marriage as a maggid shiur in Ponevezh and it’s still that way — he’s never done anything else.

Every Bochur Counts 

Reb Gershon is still teaching Torah in Ponevezh — everything else is a commentary on that essential shiur. His emergence as the father of the yeshivah world in Eretz Yisrael — as keynote speaker at so many gatherings of mechanchim, mekavrim, and activists, and as the guide to a younger generation of roshei yeshivah — has its roots in the multi-volume collection called Shiurei Rav Gershon.

“To appreciate the role of his shiurim, you have to understand what goes into Reb Gershon’s shiur,” a veteran talmid tells me. “In virtually every chinuch address, he makes the identical point — that it’s not enough to present a clear, perfect path through the sugya and be a talented baal masbir. If there’s no personal connection with the talmid, the shiur won’t have the maximum effect.”

Reb Gershon himself has often reminded mechanchim that the onus is on them to create that bond, not on the talmid. “Ask them how they’re feeling, what’s doing at home, if they’re happy — find the way to connect with them.”

Every single talmid, Reb Gershon emphasizes.

“Too often,” the Rosh Yeshivah told a gathering of yeshivah heads a few years ago, “it’s the best talmidim and the worst talmidim who get the rebbi’s attention — the metzuyanim with their questions and the challenging ones with disciplinary issues — but in truth, the majority of talmidim are somewhere in the middle, and they are no less deserving.”

Those are the shiurim of Reb Gershon: the entirety of Shas with Rishonim and Acharonim, seven decades of experience in harbatzas Torah — and a heart for every single bochur.

“In recent years,” a talmid observes, “Reb Gershon has been thrust into the limelight, as mosdos and individual questioners have been urged by the gedolei hador to go speak with him, and religious politicians from the various parties come to discuss their issues in-depth. One might have thought he’d adapt his message, speak differently on the wider stage, focus more on hashkafah or ideology — but he hasn’t. It’s the same emphasis on middos, on being a mensch, as if he’s addressing his teenage talmidim at Ponevezh.”

Reb Gershon doesn’t only preach it. He was appointed to the position of rosh yeshivah by Rav Shach and Rav Berel Povarsky, who is younger than he. At the outset, Reb Gershon decided that there would be no first and second, no rankings or comparisons.

He made another immediate rule. He doesn’t attend weddings, not even to serve as mesader kiddushin, as is customary for a rosh yeshivah. This way, his colleague Reb Berel is the official mesader kiddushin of the yeshivah. (The only simchahs Rav Edelstein attends are those of his own children and grandchildren, and those in the family of his brother, Rav Yaakov.)

In a break with tradition, Reb Gershon continues to deliver shiur alef, feeling that his style is better suited to younger boys breaking into the world of yeshivah gedolah, while leaving others to deliver higher shiurim.

In many ways, he remains his father’s son. Along with the shiur and the shiur klali given before the entire yeshivah, he delivers a twice-weekly shiur to balebatim, to whom he relates with the gentle humor and patience he saw back in the shul of Ramat Hasharon.

He’s a Baal Mum

As I enter the apartment for a brachah, I notice that Reb Gershon sits not at the head of the dining room table where I would expect to find him, but at a tiny kitchen table. He’s just finished his meager lunch, and he sees no reason not to receive me exactly where he is.

The plate  sits nearby, together with a half-full glass, while the Rosh Yeshivah in his sweater leans slightly forward to listen. Let others teach of the majesty of man, he seems to be saying. Here you will learn about the humility of man.

A Bnei Brak old-timer shares a memory of how Reb Gershon, who at 94 still serves as the baal tokeia in yeshivah, blew shofar in the minyan of the Chazon Ish as a bochur. One year, a particularly cautious mispallel insisted that he blow a certain set again, even though it was obvious to everyone else that Reb Gershon had blown those kolos perfectly.

After davening, the Chazon Ish smiled. “Reb Gershon is a baal mum. He is missing that shminis sheb’shminis, the small measure of gaavah a person needs. He doesn’t have any conceit at all.”

When people repeat the story, Reb Gershon is quick to say, “Yes, but I’ve already been cured since, don’t worry. I’m all better.”

Rav Shlomo Shaul, the talmid charged with preparing Reb Gershon’s shiurim for print, recalls the instructions issued by the Rosh Yeshivah: If a sevara he suggests in shiur is later found in another sefer, the editor is told to quote that sefer alone. “Why should I be credited for reaching a conclusion already established by the Pnei Yehoshua or Ohr Sameach?” Reb Gershon asked.

Perhaps it’s this humility, or maybe it’s a general guardedness, but the Rosh Yeshivah — while certainly gracious and warm — doesn’t appear particularly excited about offering more than a brachah. He suggests that, since I come from America, I should ask Rav Shmuel Kamenetzky. He folds his arms across his chest as he says this, as if emphasizing his reluctance to dispense general advice.

Almost as if he’s resisting this new public responsibility.

Never Make it Personal 

The effort to propel Reb Gershon forward, beyond the eastern wall of the yeshivah, isn’t new. Years ago Rav Shach urged him to join the Moetzes Gedolei Torah, a request Reb Gershon politely declined.

Rav Shach found another way to make his point though. On the first night of Rosh Hashanah, with a line stretching through the great beis medrash of Ponevezh and into the street, Rav Shach announced that he wasn’t feeling well and he had to go home.

“But what about all the people who came to receive the Rosh Yeshivah’s wishes for a gut yahr?” asked his attendant.

Rav Shach paused. “Reb Gershon is here.”

Ponevezh insiders like to speculate that Rav Shach was feeling fine — but thought it important to “reveal” Reb Gershon to the world this way.

In the world of chinuch, the Rosh Yeshivah’s ideas — considered innovative and even radical at one point — are very 2017. Yet his educational philosophy is really just an extension of how he interacts with everyone around him — helping them rise to meet their best selves without judgments or rebuke.

Parents, he believes, should be avoiding tochachah, rebuke, using it only when they are completely genuine and concerned with the child and not with their own image. Often, he says, parents offer rebuke or advice that just leaves the child confused, because the parents aren’t consistent with their own words. Not only isn’t that a mitzvah of tochachah, but the opposite, because it teaches the child not to listen.

It’s not that parents aren’t allowed to reprimand, it’s just that in many cases, they are speaking out of anger or frustration, not genuine concern for the child’s growth.

“And tochachah given in anger will certainly not help, and it might well be counter-productive,” the Rosh Yeshivah feels.

Reb Gershon remembers when a maggid once came to Ramat Hasharon and reproached the people. “They felt very bad at all the mussar, and they were very upset after his drashah,” the Rosh Yeshivah recalls. “I remember thinking that my father said the very same things as this maggid, but my father spoke with such love and respect for them, so his message wasn’t seen as harsh. They accepted it.”

He frequently quotes Rav Chaim Volozhiner, who said that someone incapable of speaking softly is absolved from the mitzvah of tochachah.

Reb Gershon tells of a prominent rav who erred in Hilchos Eiruvin and paskened the halachah incorrectly. One day another scholar who realized this rav’s mistake approached him and asked if he wanted to learn, and together they sat down and immersed themselves in a sugya — in Maseches Eiruvin. They delved into the halachah, and in passing, the horrified rav exclaimed that he’d faced a similar question and paskened incorrectly!

“It’s possible that if the second talmid chacham had come over and pointed out his mistake, the rav would never have listened. But this way, the wise scholar corrected him without ever offering a negative word. That’s the right way to give tochachah.”

In general, Reb Gershon takes a dim view of overt pressure. He tells a story about a young man he knew who’d made the unfortunate decision to leave the path of Yiddishkeit. After several years, the person returned to the fold, started attending shiurim and zealously keeping mitzvos. “He became an ehrliche Yid again, but he couldn’t bring himself to learn Gemara — everything else yes, but not Gemara. It became clear that he was still traumatized from the way his father had forced him to learn Gemara as a child.”

When facing parenting questions, he’s known for identifying the child as the true subject of the question, not the parent. Reb Gershon’s heart is with the child — which is the reasoning behind another of his unique minhagim.

Many bar mitzvah bochurim have come through this apartment for brachos over the years: Always, they receive a sefer as a gift, and always, the inscription is the same. Whether it’s a child of a close talmid or even a family member, the Rosh Yeshiva pens the same words for everyone.

This is because once, about 80 years ago, one of the rabbanim had the practice of writing different inscriptions to each bar mitzvah boy, and the children in cheder would compare notes, with some feeling a natural jealousy and disappointment.

Young Bnei Brak children can compare the words in their own bar mitzvah sefer with those in the sefer given to their fathers, or even their grandfathers — the words of the flyleaf are always the same.

Who’s the Adam Gadol?

Reb Gershon considers himself a talmid of Rav Dovid Povarsky, himself a product of Kelm, with its focus on discipline and order.

Talmidim relate that Reb Gershon’s walk home from yeshivah is precise, as directed in Shulchan Aruch — always at the very same pace, whether on a routine day or Erev Pesach or Motzaei Yom Kippur. He is not one for extraneous displays of emotion or piety.

Once a yungerman came to Reb Gershon and bemoaned the fact that he wasn’t developing into a gadol as he’d expected to. Reb Gershon rose and returned with a pen and paper. “Here,” the Rosh Yeshivah said. “Write down what you consider to be your strong points, your maalos as a person and a Yid.”

A few minutes later, Reb Gershon took the paper and began to joyfully read each of the young man’s accomplishments and positive traits.

“You do everything you’re supposed to do,” he announced. “What else makes an adam gadol? It’s not being outstanding in any area, to be the biggest lamdan or tzaddik, but to not veer from the right path in any area, to fulfill all your obligations. You are the adam gadol, even though you’re a young man!”

The Rosh Yeshivah’s precision is evident in another area as well: his handwriting, which is precise and clear.

One of the few household jobs he had was to help out his rebbetzin, an accomplished teacher, by sitting down after each semester and writing the little notes on students’ report cards. She would dictate what she wanted to tell each parent, and her husband would write the message.

A talmid once asked him about the bittul Torah. “If it’s a mitzvah that only I can do, it’s not bittul Torah,” Reb Gershon said, “and this mitzvah of gladdening my wife’s heart is mine alone.”

“But isn’t there a limit?” the talmid persisted.

“She also knows about bittul Torah,” Reb Gershon smiled, “and she will stop when we reach that limit, don’t worry.”

When the Rebbetzin took ill, she asked him to please go daven at kivrei tzaddikim on her behalf. Reb Gershon has always preached that learning Torah is the most effective use of time and the most powerful way to combat a harsh decree — but his wife had asked him, so this became his mitzvah. He closed the Gemara and set out to pray.

Rebbetzin Rochel passed away in 2001, and since that time, there is a rotation of who grandchildren attend to the Rosh Yeshivah. Yet his children and grandchildren are also talmidim: Each week, he delivers a private shiur in Mishnayos Taharos for his family. (The Rosh Yeshivah’s son-in-law, Rav Issamar Garbuz, is rosh kollel of the Kollel Taharos network and acknowledged as one of the greatest authorities on the suygos of Taharos.)

Losing his brother Reb Yaakov — his closest companion for 93 years, from Szumiacz to Ramat Hasharon to Lomza to Ponevezh and ever since — affected him deeply, but even those closest to him say they don’t see the signs. Reb Gershon got up from shivah and on that very day, he delivered shiur, the final voice carrying forth the Torah of the chicken coop in Ramat Hasharon.

Forward March

The small apartment is filling up. The laughter of the cheder children in the stairwell has given way to hushed awe as their rebbi prepares them to meet the Rosh Yeshivah.

He smiles as a snatch of childish conversation reaches the kitchen, and offers a parting blessing.

As I leave, I overhear one of his talmidim lean over and apprise him of the medical situation of Rav Aharon Leib Steinman (Aharon Yehuda Leib ben Gittel Faiga).

Reb Gershon himself has signed a letter urging yeshivah bochurim to strengthen themselves in learning as a zechus, and to learn “retzufos,” creating a rotation of round-the-clock Torah.

He looks around the kitchen and explains why he feels this is appropriate. “It’s advice that Reb Aharon Leib gave people during other difficult periods — it’s a segulah from the Ramchal to learn retzufos for three days straight. Why do we have to come up with new ideas if we have this one?”

The question hangs there, not meant to be answered. It’s classic Reb Gershon. He’s not here to innovate or transform, but to do the job the Ponevezher Rav charged him with more than seven decades ago.

Walking his unique walk, disciplined and precise, delivering shiurim that ring out with the clarity of his tekios, listening and encouraging talmidim on the same worn benches as always — a soldier marching on with an unchanging focus, selflesss and dependable as always, even though, somewhere along the way, he’s become a general. —

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 655)