Within just a few years of Rav Elchonon’s assurance, people who would teach and spread Torah arrived on America’s shores

Living Higher

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ighty-seven years ago this Shabbos, the “Old Shul” of Lakewood, New Jersey, as it became colloquially known, hosted one of the preeminent gedolim of prewar Europe, Rav Elchonon Wasserman of Baranovich, Hashem yikom damo. Rav Elchonon spent eight months in America that year, in a valiant attempt to raise desperately needed funds for his poverty-stricken yeshivah.

While Rav Elchonon was repulsed by the tumah he felt in certain parts of the United States, even describing the “odor of Gehinnom” emanating from Times Square, he was still largely upbeat about the prospects of America’s Yiddishkeit. All that was lacking, he insisted, was proper education. “Everyone told me that America is not fit for Torah,” he said. “But that is not true. On my travels I have seen many pure Yiddishe kinder, temimusdig kinder. In some respects, they are purer than the children in Europe. All that is needed is someone to teach them Torah. If people undertake to spread Torah, they will accept it.”

Within just a few years of Rav Elchonon’s assurance, people who would teach and spread Torah would arrive on America’s shores, chiefly among them Rav Aharon Kotler in 1941. In due time, Rav Elchonon’s prediction was fulfilled. The Yiddishe kinder accepted what they were taught and the Torah scene flourished.

Today, the Old Shul itself pays rich testimony to that optimistic outlook. It is Lakewood’s original beis knesses, bearing a dated facade and an interior that hints at the shul’s century-long presence. On a wall in the antechamber hangs a framed Jewish Journal newspaper clipping from 87 years ago this Shabbos, announcing that on Shabbos Chanukah of 1938, “der groise gast... der bavuste gaon v’tzaddik” would spend Shabbos in that very shul.

Yet step inside the beis medrash, and one will witness a robust schedule of minyanim and shiurim, often with an overflow crowd composed of American Yiddishe kinder and their own kinder, living testimony to a tzaddik’s assurance so many decades ago.

In Memory

Last week, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Widroff z”l, a talmid chacham of note and a popular Lakewood Daf Yomi maggid shiur, was niftar at the age of 84. The timing of his petirah was uncanny. Nearly 30 years ago, Rabbi Widroff had worked on ArtScroll’s monumental Schottenstein Edition of the Talmud Bavli as a translator, opening up the words of the Gemara for tens of thousands of English learners around the globe.

Rabbi Widroff specifically worked on the tenth perek of Maseches Zevachim — the very blatt Daf Yomi participants are in middle of learning. “Kol talmid chacham she’omrim devar shmuah mipiv b’Olam Hazeh — sifsosav dovevos bakever,” Chazal tell us. A person’s Torah does not fall silent; each time it is learned and repeated, it is as if he himself is speaking again, the words he illuminated continuing to echo.

Happening... in Orlando

Last week, the Jewish community in Orlando’s Sand Lake Hills neighborhood celebrated a milestone marked by a blend of purity and unity. A brand new mikveh had been built — a desperately needed development as the closest mikveh was an hour and a half away.

While the mikveh was built with private funds, the chavrei hakollel of the Orlando Community Kollel wanted to do something that would allow the entire community to feel part of the special mitzvah. The idea they adopted was to encourage the communal study of Maseches Mikvaos. This sparked the MEM Initiative (mem as in the Hebrew letter, whose numerical value is 40) where men and boys would learn sections of Maseches Mikvaos over the course of 40 days.

Over 90 people signed on, and over the course of 40 days, the masechta was learned 23 times. Participants included children as well as Jews with little background in learning.

At the completion of the program, the community hosted a grand siyum, as they banded together to celebrate Hashem’s Torah and the purity He bequeaths His People.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1091)