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IN-DEPTH FEATURES
One word comes to mind whenever one thinks of Rabbi Yaacov
Rosenberg, zt'l, who passed away Shabbos Parshas
Zochor: unique. Every Jew, of course, is unique -- born
with certain kochos hanefesh that are his or hers
alone and with a particular mission in life. Yet there are
those who can be contemplated only in terms of themselves.
They are incapable of being compared to anyone else, and
remind one of no one else. Rabbi Rosenberg was such an
individual.
As one of the founders of Ohr Somayach in the early '70s,
Rabbi Rosenberg was present at the first flourishing of the
modern ba'al teshuvah movement in Israel. Later he
founded two more institutions: the summer Torah Institute in
Moodus, Connecticut, soon to enter its twentieth summer, and
Machon Shlomo in Jerusalem, now in its sixteenth year. Both
reflect his unique approach to kiruv.
Beginning with Emunah
Rabbi Rosenberg believed that the greatest gift that one Jew
can give another is to bring him to a connection with the
Ribono Shel Olom. From his very first conversation
with any prospective ba'al teshuvah, emunah was his
subject - - not the joys of a Torah lifestyle, not even the
intellectual excitement of Torah learning, but pure
unadulterated emunah, the knowledge that there is a
Ribono Shel Olom, Who determines everything that
happens. Where others approach emunah only obliquely,
Rabbi Rosenberg confronted it head on.
When he was asked by those involved in the kiruv field
which seforim he recommended teaching, he replied that
it did not matter as long as the teacher transmitted his own
emunah. The essence of all kiruv was, in his
view, conveying one's own emunah and the ahavas
Yisroel that motivates one to want to share that
emunah with other Jews.
He succeeded in instilling emunah in others because he
was himself a very great ma'amin. Rabbi Aharon
Feldman, who knew him for nearly half a century, remarked
that his emunah was like that of earlier generations.
It was not based on intellectual exercises but on a living
relationship with Hashem.
Even in his last years, after one leg had been amputated and
he suffered from a seemingly endless series of medical
problems, he projected an awesome strength and confidence.
His strength, one immediately realized, derived from his
complete trust in Hashem.
Rabbi Rosenberg conveyed the sense of a man with no doubts.
He was found of noting that Amolek is the gematria of
sofek, doubt, and that doubt is always the entry point
of the yetzer hora. It was his task to uproot those
doubts. One of his constant injunctions to the teachers in
Machon Shlomo and the Torah Institute was: Never be defensive
or apologetic about any aspect of Yiddishkeit.
The source of his strength was his rootedness in a tradition
that placed ultimate emphasis on the attainment of emunah
peshuta. He was descended from generations of leading
Hungarian rabbis going back to the closest talmidim of
the Chasam Sofer. His father Rabbi Shlomo (Alexander)
Rosenberg built the OU Kashrus Division and ran it for over
thirty years.
The elder Rabbi Rosenberg had one simple answer for all those
who came to him with one kind of proposal or another. After
they had finished their pitch and explained how the proposal
in question would redound to the greater glory of the O.U.
and its head, he would invariably ask one question, "Und
vos zugt G-tt -- And what does G-d say?"
His son followed in that tradition. He insisted on not just a
purity of ends, but a purity of means, in kiruv work.
He never let the quest for numbers tempt him into the use of
means that were a falsification of G-d and His Torah.
Complete Focus on the Goal
Rabbi Rosenberg's possessed a remarkable clarity of vision.
He was a completely focused person. Rabbi Reuven Drucker of
Edison, New Jersey, applied the metaphor of a laser beam in
describing him. Lasers contain no more energy than any other
form of light; their unique power comes from the fact that
all the light waves are moving synchronously. That was Rabbi
Rosenberg. Prior to every conversation, every action, he
said, one must know precisely what the tachlis (goal)
is. Without that, one is just wasting one's time.
He succeeded in transmitting his own focus to others. He
showed talmidim how to translate thought into action.
Without the culmination in action and a real change in one's
person, all the elevated ideas in the world were worthless in
his eyes. Every visit to his office culminated with one
question: How is the Torah acting in the world, how is it
refining and changing you?
His passing on Shabbos Zochor was appropriate because
his life was an ongoing battle against Amolek. (He was
particularly found of martial metaphors in describing the war
we must wage as individuals and as a community against every
trace of Amolek.) Amolek is related to the language of
melika, the complete severance of head from heart. It
was precisely that lack of connection that he sought to
restore.
A letter recently received from a student last summer in
Moodus conveys something of the strength and determination he
was able to pass on to talmidim. This particular
student came to Moodus in the midst of his medical residency.
He begins, "After Moodus, I knew I could become the type of
person I always wanted and needed to be." The student then
goes on to describe everything that he has done in the past
six months on the checklist he worked out with Rabbi
Rosenberg: (1) severing all personal relationships standing
in the way of progress as a Jew; (2) moving to a religious
community; and (3) maintaining a daily learning schedule,
even during his residency, and regular davening so
that almost every free moment is directed towards spiritual
development.
Kiruv: All or Nothing
In kiruv work, Rabbi Rosenberg set himself the highest
standard of success. Helping a person feel more positive
about his Judaism or getting him to take on a few more
mitzvos was, in his eyes, at best a chesed for another
Jew, but it could not be described as successful
kiruv. That meant nothing less that a total commitment
to mitzvah observance. Without that commitment, there was no
discovery of emes and the Ribono Shel Olom.
Rabbi Rosenberg could set himself such high goals in large
part because of his own firm emunah. People fail in
kiruv work, he said, because they do not believe
sufficiently in the power of Torah. If they would just let
the Torah speak and get out of the way, they would do much
better. Talmidim, he said, must have the feeling that
what they are hearing is not personal opinion, not even a
personal understanding of the Torah, but the Torah itself.
Many in kiruv, he felt, also lacked belief in the
power of bechira, in the capacity of every Jew to
"acquire the world in a moment." He truly believed, said his
son-in- law Rabbi Berl Gershenfeld, that every word, every
conversation, carried within it the potential for a person to
change his life completely. And he approached every meeting
with a non-religious Jew in that vein.
That first conversation with Rabbi Rosenberg proved for many
to be the most uncomfortable of their lives. He had, said
Rabbi Tzvi Teitelbaum of Silver Spring, Maryland, an uncanny
ability to make the comfortable feel uncomfortable (as well
as the ability to make the uncomfortable feel comfortable).
Those on their way to the pinnacle of success in the secular
world would come to him and find themselves on trial.
Rabbi Rosenberg didn't talk much -- he didn't have to. He
would ask a few questions, occasionally raise an eyebrow in
response to something said but, in general, he let the
interlocutee keep on speaking. And the more one spoke, the
more felt oneself sinking into a hole of one's own words. As
one described degrees, awards, successes, Rabbi Rosenberg let
you know as economically as possible how little impression
any of this made on him. (Perhaps it helped that he too had
been a successful businessman before devoting himself to
kiruv work.) When it was all over, one felt an
overwhelming sense of having made a fool of oneself.
That opening conversation functioned on two levels. On one
level, it was a test. Rabbi Rosenberg was conscious of
himself as one person with limited resources, and he wanted
to use those resources as efficiently as possible. "The whole
world is drowning," he said, "and I'm just one man in a
dinghy. If I try to pull everyone into the dinghy, it too
will sink." He wanted to know whom to try to save first.
Rabbi Rosenberg was looking for those who were capable of
stepping outside of themselves and reexamining the bases of
their lives from the ground floor. He rejected the idea that
anyone can "make" another Jew frum. At most one can
determine whether someone is honest and open to change. He
sought those with enough honesty to look at themselves
through G-d's eyes not the world's. Someone capable of
turning the searchlight on himself, he knew, was one who
would ultimately be capable of living in accord with Truth
and making a commitment.
Rabbi Shimon Schwab, zt"l, Rabbi Rosenberg's father-in-
law who spent thirteen summers together with him in Moodus,
used to say that the term ba'alei teshuvah is
inappropriate to describe those who have never known a Torah
life. Rather they should be described as mevakshei emes,
seekers of truth. And that is what Rabbi Rosenberg was
testing for: the desire for emes.
In that opening conversation, Rabbi Rosenberg also made clear
that it was you, not he, and certainly not the Torah, that
would have to change. The message was: You are on trial
because I'm offering you something of infinite value, and I
must first know that you are worthy of receiving it. Nothing
made the Torah seem more dear than the emphasis at the
beginning on the trials that it would require.
Working with Individuals
The Summer Torah Institute and Machon Shlomo were Rabbi
Rosenberg's crowning achievements -- total reflections of his
personality and approach to kiruv. Both were small
institutions. Rabbi Rosenberg believed in working with
individuals. He had no interest in heading an institution if
he could not maintain an intimate relationship with every
single man or woman in it.
His students were bnei beiso (members of his
household). In Moodus, he created a dining room big enough
for everyone to sit together with him. And there he showed
those who had never experienced a Shabbos table what a Jewish
home is like. In Jerusalem, he frequently taught in his home,
and the entire yeshiva gathered in his home on Chanukah and
other occasions.
One summer in Moodus, he called over Rabbi Reuven Drucker and
told him, "Es kumt mir a mazel tov!" When Rabbi
Drucker asked why, Rabbi Rosenberg told him that he had just
been informed of the birth of his hundredth grandchild.
Noticing the look of confusion on Rabbi Drucker's face, he
hastened to add that he was referring to the hundredth
grandchild via his talmidim. He counted each one as
his own.
Rabbi Rosenberg was not a public speaker. The message he
wanted to convey had to be tailored to each individual. His
natural milieu was one-to-one conversation, whether under the
tree by his office in Moodus or in his home in Jerusalem.
There he would advise each student privately, helping him
analyze each situation and challenge in light of Hashem's
demands and those of the yetzer.
There was no one better at uncovering the wiles of the
yetzer and helping others to recognize them as well.
One student commented after his passing that even though
Rabbi Rosenberg is no longer here his voice still rings in
his ear. Confronted with any decision, he still hears Rabbi
Rosenberg asking, "What does the yetzer hora want
here?"
Even those who initially resisted his advice often found that
his words had a way of niggling under the skin. Suddenly six
months later, they would find themselves acknowledging,
"Rabbi Rosenberg was right!"
He taught his talmidim that most questions beginning
with "Why?" (unless they are in the form "Why does Rashi or
Tosafos say this?") are more likely than not to be products
of the yetzer designed to deflect from a full Torah
commitment. In question and answer sessions, he refused to
answer as many questions as he was asked. First the
questioner had to acknowledge what was really bothering him
and how the information sought was relevant to his life.
He was a master psychologist, who, on occasion, completely
turned around lives in a single conversation. A young man
came to Rabbi Rosenberg with hair half way done his back.
Rabbi Rosenberg asked him why he wore such long hair, and the
young man replied that he thought it was beautiful. "No it's
not; it's ugly," Rabbi Rosenberg told him.
After a little more sparring, the young man confessed that
his hair was a form of rebellion. "I'm also rebelling," Rabbi
Rosenberg said. "I'm rebelling against a world of sheker
and falsehood. Come with me, and I'll teach you how to
rebel without long hair."
The young man did.
Rabbi Rosenberg was an ish emes. As Rabbi Nachman
Bulman said in his hesped, "He never swerved from his
emes, whether it was popular or not."
He once told a student undergoing a particular trying time in
his own life, "Never take external opposition as a sign that
Hashem does not want you to pursue a particular path. That
may only be the nature of your test."
Only if one felt the opposition from within, should one
desist.
He made his talmidim acutely sensitive to the nuances
of falsehood all around him. A student once told him
excitedly of a group of Jews so eager to make Kiddush
Levana on a cloudy night that they had rented a
helicopter to take them above the clouds. Rabbi Rosenberg did
not share his enthusiasm. "Too bad they ruined such a
beautiful mitzvah by telling someone," was his only
comment.
He had a deep suspicion of words and their power of
deception. His own speech was exceedingly simple and direct.
In the words of his son-in-law Rabbi Pinchos Auerbach, "He
never spoke higher than himself."
Unless he was sure he understood something clearly, he would
never mention it, and he often spoke derisively of those who
became entranced with the "higher" aspects of Torah, of which
they had little real grasp. He preferred to concentrate on a
few messages, repeated frequently, that he knew were true.
Machon Shlomo
Machon Shlomo was deliberately structured as a two-year
program, not a yeshiva devoted to producing talmidei
chachomim. Many of the students are in their late
twenties or early thirties and have taken off time from
successful careers as brokers, businessmen, lawyers,
screenwriters, or doctors. Rabbi Rosenberg did not consider
it realistic for most of them to give up their careers for
full-time learning. Rather than striving to be something they
could never be, he showed each student how he could use his
individual strengths and personal history for the service of
Klal Yisroel. If you do not use your individual
strengths and find the derech of avoda that is
suited to you, he warned them, you will end up destroying
yourself and all those around you.
His primary goal was that every student leave Machon Shlomo
with the skills to make Torah learning a regular part of his
future life and with the confidence in himself to raise a
normal frum family. For Rabbi Rosenberg, the
injunction of Pirkei Ovos "to raise up many
talmidim," meant not only producing talmidim
but literally standing them on their feet as self-
sufficient frum baalebatim.
And he succeeded. Not only in producing solid baalebatim
but in producing true bnei Torah. His talmidim
did not simply return to the jobs and careers that they
had left after a two-year hiatus. They came back transformed.
Rabbi Rosenberg showed them how to continually develop their
emunah even in the most high-pressured situations,
where it is so easy to lose sight of anything besides the
immediate task at hand.
Before taking any job, he counselled one student, figure out
the nature of that job and what is required for success and
then make sure to do just a little bit less. Leave some room
for HaKodosh Boruch Hu so you do not forget that He is
the source of your success, not you.
For all the financial success that many Machon Shlomo
graduates have obtained, what marks them most is their
modesty and how little importance they attach to these
accomplishments. They continue to learn: at 5:00 a.m. every
morning, for instance, several car-pools of Machon Shlomo
graduates leave Passaic for New York City to learn and
daven before heading to work. Machon Shlomo graduates
honor talmidei chachomim to a degree sometimes missing
even in graduates of leading yeshivos, ask shailos and
seek rabbinic guidance in every aspect of their lives.
Of course, many Machon Shlomo graduates have continued on in
full-time learning. And they too were a source of great pride
to Rabbi Rosenberg. But those who did not, never felt that
they had somehow failed.
Rabbi Rosenberg told his talmidim repeatedly that they
were complete ignoramuses from a Torah perspective. He wanted
them to understand clearly what a total shift of perspective
was required to become a Torah Jew. But at the same time, he
fervently insisted that each one of them had a crucial role
to play within the Orthodox world, and that though they might
not ever be talmidei chachomim, they were fully
capable of greatness as Jews.
He often told the tutors in Moodus that they should view
their students with awe. "Do you know what this person had to
overcome to become frum?" he would marvel. In their
mesiras nefesh, their quest for the truth, their
sensitivity to the kiddush Hashem, he deeply believed
that his talmidim, and others like them, had much to
teach Klal Yisroel and would play crucial roles in the
future of the Am HaTorah.
Twenty-one years ago, Rabbi Rosenberg underwent serious heart
surgery from which he was given little chance of surviving.
And in recent years, his doctors marveled as he fought back
time and time again from the brink of death.
Yet he lived not only to see the granddaughter born shortly
after the surgery, but also to serve as sandek at the
bris of her first child (and his first great-grandchild) four
days before his petirah. More, his greatest
accomplishments -- Torah Institute and Machon Shlomo -- were
the work of those last 21 years.
Those 21 years were not only a great gift of the Ribono
Shel Olom to Rabbi Rosenberg personally, but to all of
Klal Yisroel.
The author would like to thank Rabbi Yitzchok Feldman of
the Palo Alto Orthodox Minyan for his help in the preparation
of this article.
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