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19 Iyar 5760 - May 24, 2000 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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News
Yeshivas Masmidim Growing by Leaps and Bounds

by Yated Ne'eman Staff

Chazal tell us,"Al tikri bonayich, elo bonoyich," teaching us that the word "bonayich," meaning, "your sons," should be read and understood as "bonoyich," "your builders." Those who study Torah are the builders of the world.

From the Kehal Adas Yerushalayim community, better known by its original name Yeshivas Hamasmidim, we learn that one can simultaneously fulfill both the pshat and drash of this maxim. The yeshiva has been a bastion of Torah and yir'oh in Jerusalem for decades.

Thousands attended a recent gathering in honor of the community's 51st anniversary, where plans for expansion were announced. Several buildings are currently under construction to accommodate the myriads streaming to its venerable beis medrash in Mea Shearim.

Construction on the new building on Minchas Yitzchok street in Jerusalem's Kiryat Belz is proceeding at a steady pace. When completed, this magnificent structure will ease the congested conditions under which hundreds of the community's members currently study in the shul on Avodas Yisroel Street. In addition, work on a new building in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo has recently begun.

The city of Beitar will soon have its own Yeshivas Masmidim. The up-and-coming building of Kehal Adas Yerushalayim will serve the many members of the community who have made Beitar their home. A second Yeshivas Masmidim in another section of Beitar is currently in the planning stages.

From Beitar, we proceed to Ramat Beit Shemesh. Here too, budding Torah scholars pore over their studies in Yeshivas Hamasmidim. A large beis medrash is nearing completion and plans for an additional one have been finalized.

The story of Yeshivas Hamasmidim is well-known. It was masterminded 51 years ago by that remarkable man of chesed, Reb Yosef Eichler, who was deeply perturbed by the belief of "my might" that was so prevalent in the younger generation of those days. Together with his mentor Rav Avrohom Leib Klein, one of the great chinuch figures of the time, he established a Torah and mussar framework which is unaffiliated with any other specific stream of the chareidi community, and constituting a blend of the finest of the Lithuanian yeshivos with an intense Chassidic experience. The unique result captured many hearts and served as a lifeboat for an entire generation of Yerushalmis.

The small beis medrash grew and became a large community. Anyone who peeked inside was smitten. The life force of the community is, of course, the man who has led it for the past 15 years: HaRav Leib Mintzberg. Whoever hears him speak, especially on Shabbos nights when he delivers his highly acclaimed discourses for avreichim, cannot help but return again and again. "He is unique in our times," marvels HaRav Shmuel Auerbach.

The community's institutions in Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh and Beitar are many and varied. They include a yeshiva ketana, a yeshiva gedola, evening kollelim and 18 kollelei avreichim.

The rosh yeshiva of its yeshiva gedola, Toras Yerushalayim, is HaRav Chaim Minhahar. Many outstanding avreichim attribute their progress in Torah to him. The yeshiva ketana, Or HaTalmud, is headed by HaRav Naftali Eisenstein, and has produced many outstanding alumni throughout the years. Many of them belong to an organization of over one thousand avreichim who meet every week. This, of course, is in addition to the general educational framework of the Yeshivas Hamasmidim.

HaRav Leib Mintzberg best described this amazing progress at the gathering, saying: "The outstanding development of these institutions amazes me, too. It attests to the great lesheim Shomayim of its founders."


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