The driver of the taxi that brought me here told me that Chevron is the best yeshivah in Eretz Yisrael, on a level that is even higher than Brisk or Ponevezh. Israeli taxi drivers usually have their finger on the societal pulse.
I’ve also heard from taxi drivers that the Chevron boys behave differently. Twenty-six years ago, after serving as rosh yeshivah for six years, I started my career as a fundraiser, and the ol of supporting the yeshivah fell on me. A short time later, I was sitting at the bar mitzvah of the son of a friend and someone asked me, “All of the yeshivos are good. What makes your yeshivah unique?” I replied, “All yeshivos are good, but some put their mark on the person not just in learning but on his character. A bachur who learns in our yeshivah becomes a ‘Chevroner.’ There are very few yeshivos that can really change someone. Chevron is for life.”
Because it’s a bit of a maze here and there’s no sign that says “Rosh Yeshivah’s Office,” I asked the bachurim I encountered in the hallway to show me the way. I must say that they were exceptionally kind and eidel. How many bachurim are in the yeshivah?
We started in Elul with 1,800, but as they get married over the course of the year, the numbers go down until they bounce back up again the following Elul. Baruch Hashem, the yeshivah is growing, and we have a yeshivah ketanah in another location, as well as a few kollelim. All in all, we have about 2,200 talmidim. It’s a big financial ol.
Many gedolim attended the chanukas habayis for this building in 5736 (1976), including Rav Elyashiv and Rav Ovadia Yosef. Rav Shach delivered an address.
I was only a boy at the time, but I know what he said: “I am a talmid of this yeshivah. This yeshivah is not a regular yeshivah; it is the sneh she’einenu ukal—the burning bush that cannot be consumed.”
All the shiurim here are in Hebrew, so the yeshivah attracts mostly Israeli bachurim. An American bachur would have difficulty.
That’s correct. There are very few Americans and chutznikim. However, we do have one group of Americans because Rav Yosef Harari-Raful of Brooklyn sends his top bachurim here. He himself came here from Ponovezh, and he once told me that Chevron is the place where he flourished. He said, “In America, people don’t understand that you can’t benefit anywhere else the way you can in Chevron.” But his bachurim already know Hebrew, so it’s easier for them.
Is the yeshivah a hemshech of the old Chevron/Slabodka-style that Rav Hutner experienced?
For sure. We keep the mesorah here very strongly. This yeshivah is 147 years old. It began in 5637 (1877) as the Slabodka yeshivah Knesses Yisrael, and in 5684 (1924), exactly 100 years ago, it relocated to Chevron with most of its talmidim. The Alter of Slabodka appointed his son-in-law, Rav Yitzchak Isaac Sher, to continue as the rosh yeshivah in Lita when he immigrated to Eretz Yisrael together with the rosh yeshivah, Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein. A historian named Dr. Shlomo Tikochinski told me that only ten bachurim remained behind in Slabodka at the time. Eventually, though, the Lita branch was built up again, and they became two branches of the same yeshivah, one in Chevron and the other in Lita, which kept the original name of Slabodka and is now in Bnei Brak.
I know that the yeshivah had an interesting history in Yerushalayim. It was initially met with some resistance because of the way the bachurim dressed and other practices that the Yerushalmis found foreign.
That was in the ruach of Slabodka and gadlus haadam—a deep shitah in mussar. But that’s also why it was initially established in Chevron. Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld was the one who strongly backed the yeshivah and gave it a kiyum in Eretz Yisrael. Tragically, the massacre took place only five years after they arrived, and the following night the British soldiers took all the remaining Yidden from Chevron to Yerushalayim.
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