In what year was Avrohom Ovinu circumcised? (2047) In what
year was Yeshivas Stutchin, a branch of Knesses Yisroel,
established? (5669) From whom did Chavakuk, the prophet who
was the transmitter of the Torah in his generation, receive
Torah and to whom did he pass it on? (He received it from
Nochum and transmitted it to Zefania.) Who authored the work
Imrei Shefer? (The Netziv) In which year did R'
Yitzchok Isaac of Kalov begin studying Torah in Yeshivas
Kalov? (5541) In which year did Chavah pass away? (Unknown)
Who was appointed as the Rishon LeZion Chief Rabbi in 5450?
(R' Avrohom Rivogo) What is the connection between Ludmir,
Burstein and Yaakovstadt? (These are three of the seventy
towns which boasted a branch of Yeshiva Novardok) When was
the Talmud Yerushalmi completed? (4155) How many Polish Jews
survived the Holocaust? (400,000) What/Where is Skitopolis?
(This is the name for Beis Shean in the period of the
Chashmonaim Kingdom) Who founded Yeshivas Ohel Torah in
Baranowitz? (The Alter of Novardok)
Answers to all these and similar questions appear in the
Daas Doros, compiled by HaRav Dov Roseman. In an
interview with the author, we receive answers to additional
questions: In which yeshiva were the present day schedules
and regimens first instituted? Which yeshiva was the first to
institute the position of mashgiach kotton?
*
Rabbi Roseman found himself involved in the subject all of a
sudden. This happened in the course of his research in the
Beer Avrohom Institute on a new publication of the
Nesivos, complete with a compilation of
Acharonim, works on Halochoh and others. In the
course of his research of various halachic responsa, he noted
that there existed a controversy between two poskim,
but it was not stated who they were and which works they
authored.
Rav Roseman: There sometimes arises a disagreement
between one sage who lived fifty years ago, who contends
against another from 600 years back. I reached the conclusion
that some order must be established in the entire subject of
halachic literature and the various periods of activity of
the different Torah sages. I am not referring to the rampant
ignorance regarding the respective periods during which the
Mogen Avrohom, the Shach and the Nesivos lived and which they
made their impact.
Q. Does knowledge of the sequence of the generations have
any influence upon actual halochoh?
Certainly! For example: if a certain posek in the past
embraced a particular approach which conflicts with another
one, it is important to know whether he may have had access
to the works of that other sage (implying that he took that
opinion into account when giving his own ruling), or if he
lived in a different period, or lived far removed from the
latter (in which case he might have changed his mind had he
seen the alternate approach).
An additional significant difference arises with regard to
the general rule that we give preference in determining
halochoh according to the latter day authority. But
which of a given two are later in time?
For this it is vital to know the order of generations.
But I can provide an even simpler example: Can we challenge
from one Tosafos to another? One should be aware that
the period of the Tosafists spanned some two centuries, so
that in order to consider two passages to be in
contradiction, one must know who wrote the former and who,
the latter.
*
What began as a part-time program, developed into a major
project of organizing some fifteen hundred names which appear
in Tanach, according to the order of their generations
and lineage, and went on to a comprehensive, all inclusive
categorization of the sequence of the generations and the
transmission of the mesorah tradition from Odom
Horishon through to our present generation. Involved was a
difficult, rigorous work of research that spanned many years.
This work includes the names of all the sages in dated lists,
alongside their written works and the historical events of
their periods of activity.
Q. Can you estimate how many Torah sages enriched Jewish
history over the generations?
Tens of thousands of sages contributed to the Jewish people
throughout the generations. In his introduction to
Maseches Ovos, the Meiri writes that of the names
enumerated in the generations following Yehoshua bin Nun,
less than one out of a thousand (0.1 percent) are known to
us! The same holds true for the period of the prophets. Even
though there were double the number of prophets in history as
compared to the number of Jews that left Egypt, only a
handful of their names are known to us and were recorded . .
.
*
There are some things that never even enter a person's mind.
Questions like: During which period in history do each of the
Chumashim take place? One rarely realizes that the
entire book of Bereishis spans 2,309 years, while the
Book of Vayikra is confined to a single month! When
one pays no attention to the various periods in history, it
is difficult to formulate a picture of the proper
sequence.
"I have met many people, especially young men, who haven't
the slightest inkling of chronology," says Rabbi Roseman, and
he continues with a smile, "I once heard a ram ask his
students: `Tell me, what was first, Chanukah or Purim?' We
know that Purim occurred before Bayis Sheini and
Chanukah, in the middle of the period of Bayis Sheini.
But most of the boys claimed that Chanukah happened first
because it precedes Purim on the calendar!"
"How many years was the Mishkan extant?" asks Rabbi
Roseman. I heaved an inward sigh of relief when he provided
the answer, but not before he related, "I once attended a
sheva brochos where the speaker posed this question.
Answers ricocheted around the room, ranging from 700, 900,
one year and so on. The correct answer is: 480 years. We are
not talking about something that requires historic research,
but of dates that appear in Tanach. But since the
chronology of generations and events is not consecutive, it
is difficult to reach this conclusion on one's own. Actually,
one cannot even study and understand Tanach without a
knowledge of the sequence of generations."
Q. In the case where a date does not appear clearly in the
textual sources, how were you able to verify it?
That is a general problem which does not have a complete
solution. There is insufficient documentation of entire eras
of the sages, even of the tanoim and amoroim.
We do not know exactly when they lived. There are periods in
history where we are only given clues and hints about the
figures that peopled them. And even this information is
subject to various versions and approaches.
In places where there are differing opinions regarding a
certain leading sage, the majority opinion is usually
accepted. Detailed lists present the various approaches
regarding the names of the forty-eight prophets, the names of
the kohanim gedolim and so on.
The basis for the listing of the Jewish historical chronology
is the very first work on the subject, Seder Olom. A
commentary was written on this, based on the approach of the
Gra, which is also a primary source. From here we continued
to the Raavad's Seder Hadoros. We tried to present all
of the central approaches regarding the names of the
kohanim gedolim and concentrated them to four basic
approaches.
When we discussed this with HaRav Chaim Kanievsky, he
referred us to several more sources and midroshim
where other names appear. In the period of Bayis
Sheini, the names in the sources are not at all organized
chronologically. For example: On Chanukah we mention
"Mattisyohu ben Yochonon Kohen Godol," a case of a
grammatical ambiguous antecedent. Who was the Kohen
godol here, the father or the son?
*
One of the main purposes of the work is to delineate to the
reader a detailed and factually accurate picture of the
transmission of Torah throughout the generations of history
and throughout the lands of Jewish exile. The graphic artist
who worked on it declared that he simply must distribute this
among his secular friends and colleagues to prove to them in
a most concrete manner how structured and organized is this
transmission, and how there is a definite source for
everything.
This, too, is the reason why the names of the rabbonim in the
tables of the acharonim were printed in different
colors according to the lands of their origins. This is
designed to give a general comprehensive overview on the
approach to Torah study in this country or that. The
arrangement of the names together in the table offers a broad
lateral look of all the countries of that same period.
Three charts accompany this work; they visually present, in
the form of a tree, the sequence of generations in the
transmission of Torah. The first one depicts the period
covered in Tanach; the second encompasses the
Chassidic courts and third — the Lithuanian
yeshivos.
Q. Volozhin is featured at the head of the latter chart,
branching out to the other famous yeshivos. Can you say that
the approach to Torah study in yeshivos today is identical to
that former period?
Volozhin bequeathed to us the form of yeshivos as they exist
today. The map of yeshivos begins with the Vilna Gaon. One of
the outstanding facts here is that even the school of Mussar
originates and emanates from the Gaon and his disciples. In
the writings of the Alter of Kelm we find that R' Yisroel
Salanter received the basic approach to Mussar from R' Zundel
of Salant, who received it from R' Chaim Volozhiner who, in
turn, learned it from the Gaon.
As stated, Volozhin created the mold of yeshivos as we know
them today. To be sure, changes have been introduced over the
years. In Volozhin, for example, the students studied the
entire Shas, beginning with Brochos and ending
with Niddah, at the pace of a page a day.
The concept of a seder iyun, a daily session of in-
depth study, as opposed to bekiyus for covering
ground, did not exist in Volozhin.
Maran HaRav Isser Zalman Meltzer told that three types of
students existed in Volozhin: those who studied only in
depth, those who studied mainly to cover ground, and those
who combined the two. He noted, incidentally, that no great
scholastic figures emerged from the group that studied
bekiyus. The group which studied in depth produced a
smattering of Torah disseminators, while those who combined
the two approaches went on to become significant gedolei
Torah.
Two roshei yeshiva gave shiurim in Volozhin;
one on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, and the other, on
Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. One time, the maggid
shiur of the first half of the week was ill and did not
have time to prepare. He did not want his students to miss
out and fall behind in their pace of a page a day, and so he
came to the yeshiva anyway. But all he did, to everyone's
amazement, was read the new text to the students — and
leave. His purpose was to prod them to continue on, without
becoming fixed upon the same page as before.
The students in Volozhin were not divided into different
levels of Shiur Alef, Shiur Beis as today.
Q. When was the schedule adhered to today first
instituted?
It appears that Yeshivas Telz bequeathed this to the yeshiva
world. In Volozhin, it was possible for a student to enter
even in the middle of the year. In Telz, they introduced the
rule that new students were only accepted at the beginning of
the new zman. They also established the office of a
mashgiach who supervised the conduct of the
students.
The mashgiach was responsible to see that the students
came on time. If someone came late for shiur, he was
marked late in a roll book with a circle by his name. At one
point, there was an attempt to fine the late students and
deduct from their monthly stipend according to their late
demerits. This idea of a mashgiach was an innovation
that had not been known even in the Mussar yeshivos.
It was instituted in Yeshivas Telz that a student had to
register for a new zman in advance. It was
inconceivable that one should just knock on the door and ask
to be tested and accepted. The students who wished to be
admitted had to register and present recommendations, just
like today. Similarly, the division of students into
different shiurim, or levels, according to their age,
was first introduced in Yeshivas Telz.
Q. What were your criteria or guidelines in determining
someone as the `disciple' of this Torah sage or that
one?
This was determined according to where he had studied, even
though this definition does not necessarily apply to all,
since some students did not even study in their master's
yeshiva but were still considered their ideological
followers.
For example?
There is an interesting story that tells how HaRav Aharon
Kotler zt'l brought his son, HaRav Shneur zt'l,
before Maran R' Boruch Ber, to study under him. R' Aharon
requested that the latter accept his son among the others by
virtue of his being `the son of a talmid.' But why was
this designation valid if R' Aharon never studied in Yeshivas
Kamenitz?
The explanation is that Yeshivas Kamenitz was first located
in Slobodka. During this period, R' Aharon studied in
Yeshivas Knesses Yisroel in Slobodka, but whenever R' Boruch
Ber gave a shiur in Yeshivas Knesses Beis Yitzchok
— that is, Kamenitz — R' Aharon would attend.
They tell that R' Aharon arrived in the company of several of
the `lions' of Slobodka. In the course of the lecture, they
would fire a barrage of brilliant questions which the top
students of Kamenitz were hard put to refute.
It was by virtue of those shiurim which he attended
that R' Aharon considered himself a disciple of R' Boruch
Ber.
But as far as we were concerned, it was impossible to list a
student as a disciple of every sage whose shiurim he
attended, or who taught him Torah. Therefore, we only listed
someone as a student of the very yeshiva which he actually
attended.
Q. To what extent did the influence of the Litvishe
yeshivos extend beyond Lithuania, itself?
Let us give the example of the yeshivos of the Yishuv
Hayoshon of Yerushalayim. Most of these are modeled after the
Lithuanian yeshivos.
Eitz Chaim was founded by R' Yosef Zundel Salanter, who was
the disciple of R' Chaim Volozhiner, and R' Shmuel Salant,
who was also a disciple of Yeshivas Volozhin and even served
there as a ram for one year.
Yeshivas Meah Shearim was founded by R' Zerach Braverman, who
was a disciple of R' Nochumke of Horodna, who was a product
of Volozhin, and R' Shaul Chaim Horowitz. Yeshivas Toras
Chaim was founded by R' Yitzchok Winograd, another product of
Yeshivas Volozhin.
Another example: When Maran HaRav Meir Shapira zt'l
planned to establish his yeshiva in Lublin, he first toured
the Lithuanian yeshivos to see how they were functioning.
Incidentally, I heard from an elderly student of Yeshivas Mir
that wherever he came, he delivered a shiur. When he
came to Mir, the lions of the elite level challenged him but
with his Polish sharpness, R' Meir said, "If I were your age,
I would also be able to demolish my lecture . . . "
Q. Are there not works similar to yours already on the
market?
I have yet to see a listing of works and essays as
comprehensible and comprehensive as ours. As for lists of
people, there exist, of course, various inventories relating
to certain periods in Jewish history. But we have
concentrated lists of all the outstanding figures in all the
periods, together with a record of their works, all under one
cover, in organized fashion.
In addition, we present maps and charts which provide an all-
inclusive visual tableau. Regarding the Tanachic period, for
example, every name is located in its respective place on a
chronological tree, so that no one need be lost or fuzzy
regarding when a historic figure lived or what he
accomplished and was famous for.
