When he was just 17, the young prodigy married the daughter of Rav Shmuel Alexander Unsdorfer, the Rav of Montreal’s Reishis Chochmah community, and later rav of the Divrei Chaim community of Petach Tikva. The chassan came to the wedding crowned with the title “Moreinu” — granted to him after he was tested on one thousand dapim of Gemara by heart.

Soon after the wedding, the Shefa Chaim began to express the desire that his son be appointed rav of Kiryat Sanz in Netanya. In 1974, when he was just 22 years old, the future Rebbe became the rav of Kiryat Sanz, and was known as the “Rav Hatza’ir” — the young rav — of Sanzer chassidim.

“I work for my son,” the Shefa Chaim would say. “Everything I do, I do for him.”

The Rebbe trusted him to such an extent that a short time after Rav Tzvi Elimelech’s appointment as rav, the Shefa Chaim returned to live in America. This time, he settled in Union City, New Jersey, saying, “I have left Kiryat Sanz in good hands.”

Despite his son’s young age, the Rebbe fully designated the leadership to the Rav Hatza’ir. He didn’t even allow his son to be with him in the US for the Yamim Noraim, explaining: “You are the rav of the kiryah, and your community needs you.” Even family members were expected to call him “Der Yunger Ruv” and not his first name.

Clearly, the Rebbe felt the gravity of his father’s trust. Even today, he considers himself the guardian of his father’s legacy. As part of the Rebbe’s obligation to preserve his father’s enterprises, he carries responsibility for the Torah and chesed institutions that his father established in Sanz and beyond, including his position as president of Laniado Hospital. Two of the crown jewels of these mosdos are Mifal HaShas and Kollel Shas, which the Shefa Chaim established so that avreichim from all communities would become proficient in all of Shas. “It’s all through my father’s strength,” the Rebbe always repeats, whenever he hears about a new expansion of any of his father’s initiatives.

No Replacement for Learning

Sanz is a fitting court for an encompassing discussion about Torah learning. It was the first chassidus that made structured testing programs a hallmark of its spiritual and educational framework. Years later, the Dirshu network is operating along the same principles.

“I can still envision the scene here in this room,” the Rebbe will tell us, “during that first meeting of the Mifal HaShas. There were a few rabbanim and roshei yeshivah here, and the idea of a countrywide Gemara campaign came up. Rav Yitzchak Zilberstein recorded the protocol. The rabbanim assumed that it would be very difficult to find yungeleit who’d enroll, and they hoped that they’d somehow manage to find 100 young men who’d be willing to commit to learn 30 dapim every month. No one back then dreamed that the program would eventually count thousands of participants.”

The imprint of that long-ago meeting still hovers over the room, and in fact over the entire chassidus. Sanzer chassidim like to quote Rav Chaim Yaakov Ehrenfeld, famed in Sanz for his gematrios, who says that the word “kemach” in Chazal’s statement “Im ein kemach ein Torah” is numerically equivalent to “Sanz.” Indeed, the Sanzer Rebbe’s diligence is renowned and his proficiency spans every part of Torah. He spends hours on end ensconced with his seforim; these are the most cherished hours of his day.

In fact, at an event last month in which 1,600 donors from the chassidus signed direct debit forms to benefit the yeshivah, everyone was sure that the Rebbe’s speech would focus on thanking and praising the donors. Instead, the Rebbe took the audience by surprise, saying “Because the people sitting here are balabatim who work hard for a living, I want to speak to you about an important subject. Although I know that everyone sets aside time to learn Torah, I tell you: Without reviewing the material that is learned, the learning loses its value. I want each one of you to know this: Beyond the regular shiurim, if you don’t review what you learn, you’ll remember almost nothing. Don’t think that a donation to the Torah mosdos is a replacement for learning Torah.”

Climbing Higher

The room in which the Rebbe spends most of his day contains little besides seforim. On the shtender sits a Gemara Pesachim, part of a set sent as a gift to the Rebbe. Next to the Pesachim is a smaller, older-format Gemara, which the Rebbe inherited from his father. Also on the Rebbe’s desk is a Tur and Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim, an Ateres Moshe on Choshen Mishpat, and the Haggadas Hachida.

Here in the Rebbe’s inner sanctum, every inch of wall space is maximized, literally up to the ceiling, and a ladder ensures that all those sefarim are within reach. When there is no meshamesh to assist him, the Rebbe will climb the ladder himself looking for a sefer that he needs. In fact, two years ago, the Rebbe fell off the ladder while looking for a sefer and broke his leg. Lo baShamayim hi, it says of the Torah, but apparently there are times one needs to climb a bit to reach it.

The bochurim who help the Rebbe clean the seforim before Pesach are instructed to return every sefer on each of the three floors of the house to its exact location, so as not to waste the Rebbe’s time when he looks for it — as he knows where each and every volume is.

From this kingdom of sefarim, the Rebbe greets us warmly. The delegation, which in addition to Rav Hofstedter includes Rav Avigdor Burstein, Rav Binyamin Bernzweig, and Rav Shlomo Rosenstein, asks the Rebbe’s permission to present the questions prepared for this audience.

The Rebbe welcomes the questions. “I find,” he says, “that the day-to-day questions that people raise are almost like a mussar sefer. They give me real insight into the realities of people’s lives. So by all means, ask your questions.”

We see young men who’ve gone out to work after several years of kollel, and as they become absorbed in the business world, eventually show little sign that they were once full-time avreichim. Why does that fusion of a Torah-centered balebos seem so much more elusive now than in the past?

It is evident that the question has piqued the Rebbe’s senses. The subject of Torah’s centrality to one’s character and personality lies at the crux of his ideological approach to life.

“Those whose initial experience of full-time learning is a sweet and positive one will always associate Torah with joy and pleasure,” the Rebbe says. “For these people, the sweet taste of Torah remains with them even when they leave full-time learning and go to work for a living, and so they still consider themselves bnei Torah. During the workday, they will wait with anticipation for the evening, when they can dedicate two or three hours to learning Torah. And when these people reach retirement age, we see them returning to the beis medrash. The Torah is the source of their life, regardless of where and how they spend their workday.”

The Rebbe speaks so naturally, so instinctively, about achieving joy through learning. I dare to ask: How does one acquire enjoyment in learning?

The Rebbe’s face lights up. He seems to have been waiting for the question. And he launches into a remarkable answer. “Chazal say in the Mechilta, parshas Yisro, that ‘one cannot compare hearing from a rebbi to hearing from a student, and hearing from a rebbi cannot be compared to hearing from a rebbi who heard it from his rebbi — all the way to Moshe Rabbeinu.’ The reason for this distinction is because the rebbi has a desire to instill wisdom in his student’s heart, while a student does not share the same lofty motivation. HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted to preserve the intensity of divrei Torah throughout time, and therefore He established this rebbi-talmid dynamic, which transmits Torah without diluting it, and which extends all the way back to Moshe Rabbeinu.

“I’ll tell you something else,” the Rebbe adds. “Sometimes we wonder why Torah requires so much effort and hard work. Why didn’t Hashem make the words of Torah clear and explicit instead of having us toil day and night to understand them? The answer is that precisely because it requires so much effort, no one can really acquire Torah without Heavenly illumination. The difficulty is built in expressly so that Hashem will play a role in our Torah learning! Thus it happens that every Jew who learns Torah is learning it from the first rebbi, Moshe Rabbeinu — who received it directly from Hashem. In other words, when a Jew toils in Torah, it’s as if he is learning from HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself!”

The Rebbe asks one of his meshamshim to bring him a sefer Mishlei¸ which he opens to the second perek. Passionately, he begins to read the pasuk, “Im tevakshenah kakesef uchematmonim techapsenah  —az tavin Yiras Hashem vedaas Elokim timtza, If you seek it like silver, and hunt it like treasures — then you will understand the fear of Hashem, and you will find knowledge of Hashem.”

“That’s the answer to your question,” the Rebbe says, “of how to achieve joy and pleasure in Torah learning. To really learn Torah, you need to seek it out like a person searching for treasure. One who recognizes that through toiling in Torah he receives the Torah from HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself — such a person merits joy in his learning. He understands that his achievements come not from his own mind, but rather as a gift from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And that kind of knowledge remains in his bones forever.”

The Rebbe speaks of the value of toiling in Torah. Today, however, there are elucidated Gemaros that make it much easier to understand the sugya. What is the Rebbe’s opinion of these editions?

“These Gemaras are very beneficial for people who do not learn Torah full-time,” the Rebbe says. “Thanks to these Gemaras, many more people have joined the circle of lomdei Torah and attend shiurei Torah — including people who would otherwise not be capable of learning at all.

“But for bnei Torah – both yeshivah bochurim and kollel yungeleit — they pose a major drawback. When people start relying on a Gemara where everything is clearly explained, it becomes a crutch. They lose the ability to struggle until they understand the Gemara on their own. Such a person will never be able to toil over a Tosafos. If he finds himself without his elucidated Gemara, he simply won’t be able to learn. So that’s a big drawback.

“I always tell the bochurim that it’s better for them to cover a bit less ground but learn it properly, instead of covering a lot more ground without any effort. For bochurim at this stage of life, putting the output first and effort second will backfire in the long-term.”

The Rebbe reflects back on his years as a bochur and shares: “In our time, we had three-hour long shiurim, four times a week. We learned two dapim a week b’iyun. Today, in this generation, the talmidim have no more patience and they lose their concentration after an hour and a half. It says that Chazal’s halachic shiurim have become smaller — and similarly I can say that in our generation, the brains have also grown smaller. But we must not capitulate to this shrinkage. We have to exert ourselves. When someone exerts himself to gain knowledge, he really owns it, and he holds on to it much longer. By contrast, when something comes easily, it gets forgotten easily as well.”

Should a layman with limited time struggle to learn from classic seforim, knowing he will cover less ground, or should he cover more ground with the help of modern-day likkut-style seforim, complete with sources and explanations?

“The answer here really depends on the individual,” the Rebbe replies. “But as a rule, anyone who has the ability to learn in depth should do so, rather than learn in a superficial way. At the same time, clearly there is a great virtue in learning at least one daf of Gemara a day. A commitment like that becomes a davar hamechayev — it forces you to sit down every day and learn, without skipping a single day. With a steady daily commitment, there’s also the motivation to make up the material and get back on track if someone skips a day and falls behind.”

For those who learn full-time, what’s the proper balance between iyun — in-depth learning, and bekiyus — covering ground and gaining breadth?

“Echoz bezeh vegam mizeh al tanach es yadecha, Grasp this one, and don’t let go of that one,” the Rebbe quotes the pasuk from Koheles. Both types of knowledge are crucial.

“There’s an interesting thing,” the Rebbe says. “When you go over the Gilyon HaShas of Rabi Akiva Eiger, you see that some of the questions that he left off with ‘tzarich iyun’ (this needs to be explained), can in fact be easily answered. The reason is that Rabi Akiva Eiger wrote these comments when he was reviewing his learning, and he did not want to stop and dwell too deeply on these questions. When you learn bekiyus laced with an understanding of Rashi and Tosafos, then you can also taste the sweetness of Torah.

“Bnei Torah need to learn both iyun and bekiyus. My ancestor the Divrei Chaim zy”a, had a regular practice of learning Maseches Bava Metzia from beginning to end with his grandchildren. It took him 22 years to finish the masechta, and that’s because he focused on each and every word with tremendous iyun. Some of the chiddushim he said to his grandchildren during this long period of learning were printed in Divrei Chaim on Bava Metzia. At the same time, he had concurrent shiurim in which he finished a masechta once every few days.”

Does the study of mussar still carry the same benefit as in the past? We don’t always see results from these mussar shmuessen; perhaps the entire genre is not suited to today’s generation?

The Rebbe does not agree with this assumption. “We see great demand for such darshanim today. Words that emerge from the heart will enter the heart. Every time you hear about a darshan or a mashpia who’s scheduled to give a derashah, the beis medrash fills up. When you see tens of thousands of people coming to listen to words of mussar and chassidus, that is a tremendous lesson and proof that people are receptive to these words.”

If a yungerman is immersed in learning Torah most of the day, does he still have an obligation to perform gemilus chasadim?

“Yes, he does,” says the Rebbe. “I always instruct yungeleit to devote a tenth of their time to gemilus chasadim. I tell bochurim and yungeleit to learn with others for an hour or two a day.

“It states in the Bnei Yissaschar, in the maamarim of the month of Adar, that the greatest tzedakah is spiritual charity. Certainly it’s a mitzvah to sustain another Jew physically, but at the end of the day, This World is a transient one and those material gifts won’t last. However, when you teach Torah to a fellow Jew and prevail upon him to learn and follow the path of kedushah, that is an eternal tzedakah. It provides the recipient of the chesed not only with life in this temporal world, but with eternal life.

“Watching my father,” the Rebbe continues, “we saw explicitly how a rigorous commitment to Torah learning doesn’t preclude one from doing chesed. Despite his great love for Torah study, whenever he saw a Jew who needed something, he never hesitated for a moment. Nevertheless, he’d always tell us, ‘The tachlis is the Torah.’ Even in his tzava’ah, the Rebbe asked his sons to occupy themselves solely with Torah study. Other pursuits may have value, but they aren’t the tachlis. Nothing remains of them. The only thing that lasts is Torah.”

In our times, we see a tremendous growth in the Torah world, but by the same token, we sadly see many going off the derech.

The Rebbe sighs. “It’s a very painful topic, and unfortunately it also affects parents who try their best. While every case is individual, many of these youngsters showed some warning signs when they were small, but the issues were never properly resolved. So they continued to fester, from cheder, to yeshivah ketanah, and from there, to yeshivah gedolah.

“By nature, a bochur who’s been struggling for years won’t find satisfaction and joy in his learning or in his yeshivah experience. And because the temptations of the street are very compelling, it’s no wonder that these children leave the fold and seek the street.

“It’s true that not every bochur is destined to be the Vilna Gaon, but if he would feel his needs are being met inside the fold, he would at the very least be able to grow and develop. But when he feels no spiritual satisfaction, not in Torah or tefillah, and he doesn’t have the safety net of good friends, how can you blame such a child for going off?”

In the past, more was expected from talmidim. Is that a realistic standard today?

“Certainly, we can’t demand from them what was expected in the past. Consider my father — he made constant demands of every talmid, and didn’t allow any bochur to be satisfied with what he knew today, because he wanted them to strive to know more tomorrow. At times he’d censure bochurim who’d been tested on hundreds of pages of Gemara with Rashi and Tosafos, since he felt they hadn’t exerted sufficient effort commensurate to their abilities. But that method doesn’t apply to our generation.”

So what, then, is the proper balance for our generation? How much should a bochur or yungerman demand of himself, and at what point can he say that he deserves a break?

“My father used to advise his talmidim never to remain stagnant,” the Rebbe says. “They should always be moving forward. He demanded the same of himself. Nowadays, a bochur doesn’t have to worry about food or a bed — the yeshivos take care of everything, unlike in the past. It used to be that bochurim would go to sleep hungry. But these days, the bochurim have tremendous struggles against the yetzer hara. Still, even today,” he clarifies, “we can and must demand more of ourselves. More depth, more of an internal focus — in yeshivah and at home as well.”

The recent housing crisis has prompted many young chareidi couples to move to secular or mixed cities, such as Afula, Har Yona, Teveria, Tzefas, and other places. Even in America, young families are forced to make similar decisions, establishing homes outside the dominantly religious neighborhoods. These locales force the parents to create virtual walls so that the children won’t be influenced by the secular environment, while simultaneously maintaining a cordial, non-threatening presence. What is the formula employed in Kiryat Sanz, a community located in the overwhelmingly non-religious city of Netanya?

“The formula is very simple,” replies the Rebbe. “When the home is a beis medrash, and the beis medrash itself is a teivas Noach — a bulwark against the storm — then you can live in a non-religious environment and still maintain a full spiritual, chassidic lifestyle. It all depends on the home. When the walls of the home are like a fortress and chinuch is administered wisely, without harshness, and when there is love between the parents and children, then it doesn’t matter where you live.”

And how do you build that spiritual wall?

“By not having a common language with those who’ve abandoned the Torah. Although in our hearts we pity those tinokos she’nishbu, and daven at all times that they repent, we lead Jewish, spiritual lives on a different plane from them.”

How does that formula play out in real life?

“We’ve seen it play our successfully here in Netanya,” the Rebbe says. “We see yungeleit who grew up in the heart of Netanya, and are tremendous yerei Shamayim. My father established a chassidic enclave in Union City, New Jersey, a completely non-Jewish environment. Today, there are more than 100 chareidi families living there, but back when he started there were only 30 or 40 at the most. They lived among a very low element, but nevertheless, they all raised beautiful families of yerei Shamayim.”

The Rebbe — son of an indomitable survivor, heir to his trailblazing initiatives, leader of a pulsing Torah enterprise — shares his final words framed by the shelves upon shelves of seforim, his only true currency.

“You can live in Bnei Brak or Jerusalem and still endure challenges raising the children properly,” he tells us. “And you can live among non-Jews in Toronto, London, or New York, and raise children who are yerei Shamayim. The physical location is a minor part of parenting. The emphasis must be on the inside: the constant effort to create a solid Yiddishe home, built on the foundations of Torah and kedushah. That’s the source of it all.”

Every Week a Pshetel

Visit a tish in Kiryat Sanz, and you’ll witness an unusual scene. Immediately following the fish course, the Rebbe will deliver a brilliant pilpul more reminiscent of a yeshivah beis medrash than a tish. The Rebbe’s food is moved to the side as more and more seforim are brought before him, and the chassidim lean forward in intense focus. This scene is known as the “Sanzer Pshetel.”

The concept goes back to the postwar leadership of the Rebbe’s father, the Shefa Chaim. In order to impart the message that chassidus without Torah is an empty shell, the Shefa Chaim decided to devote part of his Friday night tish to intricate derashos. He’d seat the greatest lamdanim — some no older than 18— right beside him, even closer than the wealthy chassidim and askanim, and bring the spirit of the yeshivah to the Shabbos tish.

Decades have passed, the chassidus is now strong and robust, yet the Rebbe continues his father’s practice. Every week, he prepares the pshetel during the hours before candle lighting, in keeping with the Sanzer custom to observe Shabbos for 31 hours. He will usually open with a quote from the Midrash or the weekly parshah, and then delve into sources from the length and breadth of Torah. Bochurim and yungeleit crowd around the better to hear the Rebbe’s pshetel. They’ll do their utmost to commit it to memory, so that they can transcribe it on Motzaei Shabbos.

In the 25 years that the Rebbe has led his flock, he’s never skipped the pshetel. During the first ten years, elder chassidim relate, the Rebbe would deliver it with closed eyes, quoting all his sources by heart. The reason, they say, is a tradition received from the first Rebbe of Sanz, the Divrei Chaim zy”a, not to derive benefit from the Torah. “If the Rebbe would open his eyes and see the hundreds of chassidim listening in awe,” they explain, “he might derive pleasure from the scene, and the Torah was not given for Jews to derive benefit from it.”

After talmidim complained that the lack of eye contact made it harder for them to understand the pshetel, the Rebbe changed his habit. To further ensure that the chassidim are following the thread of his shiur, he even allows the crowd to complete his sentences.

The Rebbe won’t skip the pshetel, however, even when he’s not at home. As one of his gabbaim relates: “I once accompanied the Rebbe during a Shabbos he spent in Caesarea for health reasons. The tish was closed to the public and reserved mainly for family. After the seudah, the Rebbe went out for a stroll with two teenaged grandsons, and asked them to repeat the pshetel. When they completed it, the Rebbe, said, ‘Well done. Now let’s try to reverse the argument I gave, so that we arrive at the very opposite conclusion.’ For the next hour, the Rebbe and his grandsons built an edifice of Talmudic logic in a way that led to the reverse conclusion, but he wasn’t satisfied until they succeeded in analyzing the material in yet a third way. When they’d finished, it was almost dawn.”

(Originally features in Mishpacha, Issue 757)