In recent months, HaRav Gavriel Yosef Levi, Rosh Yeshiva of Be'er HaTorah, begins his message to the public, we are being subjected to budget cuts and various financial decrees where it is very clear to all that we are in the midst of an open war which does not stand up to the dictates of logic, even according to their reasoning and laws. These are in addition to the sword of the army mobilization being flaunted above the heads of our holy yeshiva students. The question facing us is how to handle this dangerous war which has faced our Torah public in recent generations.

Let us reflect: Yaakov Ovinu went off to study Torah before he set out for Choron, but before he actually came to Lavan's house, which was so totally different from his father's home, the home of a wicked man amidst the residents of a wicked city, he realized that he must prepare himself so as not to be influenced by them. The dozens of years which he had already devoted to Torah study were not sufficient but required greater preparation under stringent circumstances, and he therefore ensconced himself in the yeshivos of Shem and Ever.

There is good news within the Israeli society. Forget about the anti-dati racket generated by the media and let's deal with the happy facts that indicate a blessed and amazing trend of religious renaissance taking place within the Israeli public. Soldiers going to pray before being sent to the front lines; tefillin being donned in secular high schools with long waiting lines; returned hostages telling how it was pure emunah that kept them going during those very difficult times of brutal captivity and actually saved them many times from the hands of murderers.

Agam Brenner told how she made every effort to keep Shabbos and fast days and refrained from eating non-kosher meat; Ohad Ben Ami davened every day, made Havdalah during his captivity, did not eat chometz on Pesach and began putting on tefillin after his release; Sasha Trifanov put on tefillin for the first time in his life and another {woman} captive recited "Mizmor leDovd! Hashem is my light and salvation..." daily. Emily Damaris hurried to the Kosel to thank Hashem for her miraculous release from captivity while captive Eli Sharaabi recited the Shema and made Kiddush.

These are the open facts, together with the stories from outreach organizations about the tremendous search for spirituality far beyond their capacity to satisfy...

29 Adar marks the thirty-ninth anniversary of the passing of one of the gedolim of America: HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky. In this important article, Rav Yosef Elias brings together several major themes that HaRav Yaakov developed, to teach some very important lessons about Chumash and education. The ideas and issues that are clarified here are matters of daily contact for anyone who has an ongoing relationship to Torah, and the lessons of Reb Yaakov will certainly have a profound effect on this relationship.

This interesting important essay was originally published in 1996, 29 years ago. It emphasized and summarizes some of the central ideas of HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt"l.

Part I

There are many facets that we can observe in gedolim: encyclopedic knowledge of Torah in all its parts, ability to dispense halachic direction for all eventualities, clarity in teaching complex Torah subjects, perfection in avodas Hashem and dealings with others, and extraordinary ability and readiness to provide guidance to individuals and the klal. Anybody who had the privilege of knowing the Rosh Yeshiva could note these features. But when Moron the Steipler zt'l called him chakima diYehudo'i — "the wise man of the Jews" — he appears to have meant more: in the Rosh Yeshiva all the features mentioned were welded together into an overarching vision and understanding of the world and our task in it (Machaneh Hachareidi, 14 Adar II 5746). Thus, in his teaching and his guidance, he gave expression to fundamental ideas that we should take to heart.