BY YISROEL BESSER

holdon to THE

For years, he’s been shteiging in his learning, his purpose in life clear. But whatDREAM happens when circumstances, either internal or external, determine it’s time to leave the bench? Rav Aaron Lopiansky, author of the widely acclaimed book, Orchos Chaim: Ben Torah for Life, says the challenge facing today’s breadwinner is to create realistic goals and craft a new message

ELCHANAN KOTLER, JEFF COHEN HOLD ON TO THE DREAM •

It isn’t about him, he points out, and while he’s right that the thin blue volume with The man who the unexceptional cover and rather generic name isn’t about his life, it is the story of everyone else’s life. wrote what It’s the narrative familiar to a generation of 20-somethings who sit at Shalosh Seudos picking at slices of gefilte fish and might be the wondering who they are, if bein hazmanim is still in effect, and why they are so, so tired. It’s that awkward moment between best storybook “Who are your chavrusas this zeman” and “Actually, I’m working now… yes, commercial mortgages… thank you, I’m still of the year learning the ropes.” And a blow to the ego is the easiest part of it. I ask him if it takes him back to that yeshivah to the workplace: With such doesn’t want to The path that starts with the snip of scissors and a large tallis and world — the alleys of Meah Shearim where a rich, broad inner world of Torah, why honey on holy letters is cushioned, a system of yeshivos feeding his in-laws, Rav Beinish and Rebbetzin make this your magnum opus? other yeshivos, questions that lead to answers. Esther Yenta Finkel, lived; the island of But he’s answered it. A man who can be interviewed. Until there’s no easy answer. the Mirrer Yeshivah; the rooms of the look at a picture and be back in Meah Suddenly, the comfortably trodden path splits into a crisscross Meah Shearim shtiblach where gravelly Shearim perceives how opening a of interlaced roads and passages: a thousand young couples in a voiced men never finish davening, Mishnayos during lunch in a law firm hurtling subway train, reaching for a strap that isn’t there. arguing, smoking — and if that’s what’s can put you back in kollel. The familiar system that offered answers about fleishig onions and drawing him so. And I realize that so many milchig knives isn’t there, and the gaping empty space allows gray As with every other question I conversations of the last decade — light to filter in, the world appearing like a pencil drawing which has will ask, he thinks for a while before discussions about marriage, about been rained on — lines still visible, but smudged. answering. “It has a magic. But so does parnassah, about growth — were, like Silver Spring, or every place, really. My Caesar Nero’s arrows all falling in the Rav Aaron Lopiansky has just finished deliver- rebbi, Rav Moshe Shapira, would meet same place, really all pointing to this ing a shiur in the Passaic kollel, and we’ve a person, or visit a new place, and get one. made up to meet in the rosh kollel’s basement. completely engaged. I’m a naturally At a question-and-answer session But there’s a picture on the wall, and it has curious person, but he was the one who at this year’s Agudah convention, pulled Rav Aaron in, so I wait. It’s a charm- could really tap the essence of a person Rav Elya Brudny took the mic to ing depiction of a Meah Shearim bookseller or place as soon as he saw it.” uncharacteristically push a particular hunched over the long counter of a high- Perhaps without realizing it, the Rosh book, encouraging “every family that R shelved store, a wall of colorful seforim rising Yeshivah has answered my primary has made that transition [from kollel to behind him. question. I had been wondering why the workplace] to own the book.” The rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva of Greater Washington is standing he chose to write a book about the Rav Yosef Elefant spoke next. “In the and studying the image. challenges and process of shifting from modern era, there hasn’t been a sefer

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that touched on the topics critical to in the street one day and saying hello, our existence, with honesty and clarity but he didn’t answer — it was strange. As and respect, like this one has.” THAT’S WHY I got closer, I realized he didn’t see me Such acclaim, even as the book itself — at all, his eyes were somewhere else. He Orchos Chaim: A Ben Torah for Life — Many years ago, I was sitting late one was walking on Rechov Meah Shearim, arrived on the scene with little drama, night with a former yungerman who but he saw nothing. That impacted me, no rollout or book launch, reflecting the was struggling with emunah. He was showed me how a person can rise above unpretentiousness of its author, who very smart, working for a large bio-tech his surroundings.” shrugs when I mention the feedback. firm engaged in cutting-edge research. But the talmidim of the past quarter “Look, it’s the topic,” says Rav “You know,” he told me, “I’m in a century aren’t seforim vendors with Lopiansky. “Within that wider challenge huge building with six hundred of the raised eyes in the streets of Jerusalem. is the essential challenge of being a smartest and nicest people I’ve ever Still, they work on reflecting that same human being in Olam Hazeh. A few years met, and not one person believes in ability — to engage without being ago, we dealt with it in an online journal anything. What does that say?” overtaken. called Klal Perspectives and I saw the “Do any of those people have a confusion. So I started to formulate the grasp of what’s good and evil, other Spoiler alert: Ev- book.” After Mir, Rav Lopiansky's new than generic phrases like ‘making the eryone needs In the shadows of the pages, there is “I will never forget the way my father frontier in Silver Spring world a better place’?” I asked him. “Do something to live a figure — it has no name, and no details said goodbye — it was a prayer and a they ask themselves what the meaning for. There, I gave are offered, but in every paragraph, you message, the words pulsating with pure of life is? Do they see the sanctity of away the book’s can see that the author has a particular ahavas Torah and dreams of my success human life? Its purpose? How many ending. balabos in mind, a role model upon whom in the beis medrash. He knew, deep down, are married and feel that they have a “Look, a person he’s basing himself. that I wasn’t coming back so fast.” legacy to pass on?” S whose goal is to When Rav Aaron spoke before Ne’ilah In the Mir of the early 1970s, there He looked up at me. “That,” he said shteig in learning, in his yeshivah a few years ago, he said, weren’t many American bochurim. softly, “is why I am still frum and raising or avodah, has a purpose in life, but usually, “Perhaps I know how to learn better than The young RJJ talmid was drawn to the my children as bnei Torah…” when people leave yeshivah or kollel, my father did, but the way he held his Torah of Rav Nochum Partzovitz and (Excerpted from Ben Torah for Life) they’re focused on making a living,” the tallis and tefillin under his arm? That I the mussar of Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz. Rosh Yeshivah says. “That occupies their can never match.” In time, he would attract the attention mind, and becomes their central goal in Reb Benzion Lopiansky learned in of the rosh yeshivah, Rav Beinish Finkel, the absence of any other objective — Slabodka, and after leaving the renowned who selected him as a son-in-law. doubt and uncertainty, clarity and because they stopped having dreams yeshivah, he went to work. After 25 years in the Mirrer kollel and resolution, hover over the white space about growth in learning.” “Now”— “My father came to America at a time as a maggid shiur in Jerusalem, Rav Aaron between paragraphs. his voice takes on a bit of shiur klali when rabbanus was at an all-time low, was asked by Rabbi Gedaliah Anemer a”h There is the humility of a rebbi facing melody—“if histapkus b’muat, for in terms of prestige and influence. He and Rabbi Yitzchok Merkin to serve as the dilemma of another, the shared example, would be a goal, they can live would quip, ‘Rabbanus is no job for a ben rosh yeshivah of the beis medrash they’d deliberation, the seriousness (and with that purpose, working to make Torah,’ and he was hopeful, even as I grew established in Silver Spring, Maryland. this is a serious book, with no thought money and live simply — but that’s not in learning, that I would find a way to With the clarity of hindsight, the match given to being amusing), but also a deep how it works. So the challenge is to find a make a living.” between the Rosh Yeshivah and the respect for the potential and spiritual realistic goal for the person whose mind The teenage talmid at Yeshivas Yeshiva Gedolah of Greater Washington expectations of the balabos. is occupied for eight hours a day or more Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef on the Lower was one of the great shidduchim in recent “I remember,” the Rosh Yeshivah says with how to sell mortgages or lay electric East Side discovered the glorious world American yeshivah life. A quarter century as he looks back at the painting of the old wires. We need to craft that message.” of Rav in Brooklyn. And after he assumed the position, the Rosh mocher seforim, “a Yid in Yerushalayim, If he was given a megaphone and rather than contradictions, he began to Yeshivah’s mark — thoughtfulness, a Gerrer chassid named Reb Zelig planted in the middle of a sprawling see the harmony within Creation and in breadth, intellectual agility, sincerity — Shtitzberg — he had a seforim store, development of young families, what the various streams of avodah. has been left on a generation of talmidim. so we all knew him. He was sharp and would his message be? Still a teenager, he went off to learn in The book has that appeal, the feel of Men of influence: Rav Aaron's father, personable, and we enjoyed schmoozing The Rosh Yeshivah considers my Eretz Yisrael. a rebbi-student conversation, as both Reb Benzion Lopiansky (top), and his with him in the store. I recall passing him question for a moment, and then looks father-in-law, Mir Rosh Yeshivah Rav Beinish Finkel

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apologetic, as if I might be offended that on the children’s chinuch, find homes in it was a bit too cutesy for his taste. WHO WE ARE vibrant Torah communities, etc. “I wouldn’t say anything in a Sometimes, a person might feel that if But we really need to ask ourselves: megaphone. I would go to each house he’d spent fewer years in yeshivah and What would our lives look like if we separately, because each one has its gotten on the career track sooner, he hadn’t spent those years in yeshivah? own story. Some of them will make a lot would be far ahead… The truth is that Do you really want to be someone of money, and some will struggle and financial wellbeing for us has very who has no idea what a sugya looks some will dance in the middle — and the little to do with when one starts his like, or how halachah is derived? What nisayon is very different for each one.” career, the amount of schooling or the the giants of Klal Yisrael look like? The Then he adds a thought. “Maybe I particular professions — with a handful feeling of having a surge of kedushah would apologize, because we haven’t of exceptions — but with how much we and deveikus? The intoxication and done enough to let them see what they demand of ourselves. There are very few exhilarating memories of super-strong have: We’ve defined spiritual life too salaries that can comfortably support learning and eye-opening shiurim? Isn’t narrowly. A hard-working Hatzolah the lifestyle we choose for ourselves. We that who we are, at the deepest level? member who sleeps with a radio under about several of his own talmidim have large families, spare no expense (Excerpted from Ben Torah for Life) his pillow every night, ready to forfeit his who’d assumed mashgiach positions in precious hours of sleep to help another yeshivos — yet they’d been let go. “Rav Jew, has a real ruchniyus’dige goal. Wolbe sighed and concluded that it was Do you think Klal Yisrael would have a new world, one in which each bochur sending out alumni unequipped for the who gets his reality. Even if a rav can’t produced a Moshe Sherer and so many needs his own personal mashgiach… and inevitable confrontation. visit every office, he has to understand others like him with only one avenue we see that. So a system that pushes one I got a phone call not long after the realities of his people — the men, opened to them? Torah is everything, universal path for every single talmid the article appeared from an “A-list” their wives, their children, all of it.” and a Jew has to have a serious can’t possibly be serving every one of rosh yeshivah, whose yeshivah has relationship with Torah — but we also them.” consistently produced elite talmidei This isn’t the first have to create realistic aspirations for And in the world of the working man, chachamim, mechanchim, and avreichim. or second genera- those who’ve left yeshivah, aspirations that mashgiach is the shul rav. He mentioned having seen the article tion of men who that get them excited and passionate.” “It would be very sad if a person and I prepared myself for a rebuke went out to work, Who will help them navigate that “Torah is selected a shul based on convenience, about the magazine wading into chinuch but the challenge path? “People send their children that it’s close to his house or that the rav matters. has never been to a yeshivah based on who the rosh everything, is meikil on Hilchos Shabbos,” Rav Aaron “I was humbled,” this rosh yeshivah greater. yeshivah is, and that’s certainly an but we also says. “This might be the most important said. “I have hundreds of talmidim T And not only important feature, but in most cases, it decision a family makes.” who are balabatim, and until I read it, I because there is will take years until the bochur might have to create In the book, Rav Lopiansky shares never really stopped to think about the such a gaping chasm between the beis develop a real, active connection to the the suggestion of a Chicago rabbi who nisyonos they face, how strong they have medrash and the actual workplace, the rosh yeshivah,” Rav Aaron says. “There realistic advocates rabbanim visiting their to be, and what I’m doing to help them.” Rosh Yeshivah explains. “Thirty years are rebbeim and mashgichim, and so congregants’ workplaces in order to The rosh yeshivah followed up by ago, a bochur learned in a yeshivah, many other factors that will influence aspirations for understand the challenges they face establishing fixedvaadim for those Telshe or Chaim Berlin or wherever. He him. The first step toward creating each day. talmidim who’ve ventured beyond the learned there for seven, eight years, up a generation ready for this nisayon those who’ve The concept reminds me of a beis medrash. When I tell the story to until his chasunah, maybe he went to is to provide our sons with rebbeim conversation I had with a respected rosh Rav Lopiansky, his face lights up. Eretz Yisrael for a bit, but that was his ready and able to guide them from the left yeshivah, yeshivah last year: In our Succos issue, “Then he’s really a rosh yeshivah, yeshivah. In its system, there was room moment they enter yeshivah — to serve aspirations Binyamin Rose had conducted a panel worthy of the title. Every bochur in the for whatever choices he would make, so as personal guides.” with a group of askanim and educators yeshivah needs a rebbi for life. he’d soaked up enough that even once he As a young son-in-law, he was present that get them (“Harnessing Our Moral Courage,” Issue “Sometimes it will be his rebbi from left yeshivah, he remained a Telsher or a when Rav Shlomo Wolbe paid a Yom 680). The topic of being frum in a secular yeshivah, often it will be a rav, but Chaim Berliner.” Tov visit to Rav Beinish Finkel. The excited and workplace was addressed, and one of the a person has no hope of remaining Today, the Rosh Yeshivah continues, Mashgiach told the Rosh Yeshivah panelists remarked that yeshivos are spiritually connected without someone no yeshivah really has a chance to passionate”

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leave that sort of imprint. “Every two years he’s switching, and by the time kollel person, but the relationship becomes much more difficult he’s developing a certain approach, he CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN when you have moved on. What you preach to your child doesn’t changes again. So often, our young men It is obviously impossible to set a dress code for everyone, in every situation, but create the foundations of life: rather, it depends on who you are to are going to work and they don’t even we can define what should be the guiding question: What is really necessary for me him. have an identity.” to change in order to be able to function effectively at my workplace, and what would I be You must… spend time with him that is exclusively his, and is But the identity being denied them is changing only in order to fit in and be one of the guys? An honest answer will lead you enjoyable and conveys something that the child senses is really within reach, the Rosh Yeshivah writes to make the right choices. you… a quiet walk during which you share some event of the week in his book. The choice of clothing is important for other reasons as well. First of all, clothing is that moved you... While your conversation has to be appropriate There are vaadim, groups of working a statement of dignity. The more nichbad a person is, the more formally he presents for his age, it has to be your feelings and inspiration that are the men who gather for shared discussion himself and the more he is expected by those around him to act with restraint… a heart and soul of the interaction. and encouragement. There is the Gemara casual look sends a message of lightheartedness and no restraint. Hashem created us so that the message that we internalize the that sometimes feels like an old friend Second, the change of clothing sends an internal message to the wearer. The most is that of our parents. While most of our teachings come from with whom one has shared confidences message may be “I have done what it necessary to accommodate my workplace,” professional rebbeim, and at times in life it may seem that children and secrets, and then parted ways, that or alternatively, “Thank goodness I have finally gotten rid of my yeshivishe are disengaged from their parents, it is the parents’ deep-seated every time you see him, there is a stab encumbrances…” beliefs that form the bedrock of everything children internalize. As of longing, familiarity, and unease all at (Excerpted from Ben Torah for Life) the years move on, this influence surfaces more and more… (Ben once. There is Shabbos, which comes Torah for Life, pp. 118-120) again each week, an invitation to reach There is an echo here. In the Rosh Yeshivah’s book of English- inside and find the depth, the serenity, more important question, perhaps the language maamarim on the Yamim Tovim (Time Pieces, Eshel the dreams of another time. most important question for a speaker. Publications) there is a tribute to his father. It’s called “The “It doesn’t matter how many years People who aren’t in the beis medrash Story of Iyov: Insight from the Life of My Father.” you learned in yeshivah, or how well all week and feel disenfranchised aren’t The most pleasant times together were during the long walks… you learned,” the Rosh Yeshivah says. worse than anyone else, but it’s like having he would hold our hands and talk about life in Europe and gedolim “When you leave kollel, you’re pressing a brand new heater — it might be a great “The challenge and common folk he had known. He would offer insights into reset, it’s a new chapter, and you have to machine, but if it has a square-pronged people. Those walks offered an education about the full gamut of develop an identity all over again.” plug and your outlet has round holes, it is to find a human experiences. A wife gives identity. Friends give won’t get hot. The job of a committed rav I cherished those times together. None of the children’s toys on identity. A chavrusa or learning program is to find the plug for each congregant and realistic goal the market today can possibly compare to the pleasure of a cold gives identity. And a rav gives identity. make sure it fits with what he’s selling.” winter night’s walk with my father… With a look I’m beginning to recognize for the person as pure reverence, Rav Aaron flashes Rav Aaron Lopi- A survivor from Kovno, a talmid of the back to the world of his father. ansky is right. The whose mind is great yeshivah in Slabodka, Reb Benzion Reb Benzion was ill, being cared for by book isn’t about occupied for lost a wife and children: He didn’t know if his wife. Rav Aaron, already a respected him and the con- he had the strength to go on. maggid shiur, flew home from Eretz versation isn’t eight hours a Could he live again? Yisrael to help out. One day, he had a about him — but it He pushed forward. He would come speaking engagement, and as he left the is about his father. day or more to embody the glory of Lita, the love house, he said goodbye to his father, who R The relationship A of learning and refinedmiddos , the asked a question. (between a father with how to heightened sensitivity and gentle humor. Reb Benzion was weak and speaking and his children) is the most critical piece From his unobtrusive perch as shul shamash, he brought was hard, so it sounded like, “What are of a child’s chinuch. Their relationship is sell mortgages a little bit of Slabodka to Manhattan. With his choices and you going to say?” built on the quantity of time spent together, decisions, he shone light into a new world. Faith. Dignity. Rav Aaron told his father the basic the enjoyment of the time spent together, or lay electric Compassion. Integrity. The message that, far from the life you theme of the speech. the ruchniyus quality of the time spent to- wires” once knew, a Gemara and shtender are enough to create a new “No,” the older man said, “I asked, gether and the sense of how meaningful home. ‘Who are you speaking to?’ ” ruchniyus is to the father… Reb Benzion Lopiansky lived, and in this book, he lives “And that,” Rav Aharon says, “is a much These points are no less important for a once more. —

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