Ponevezh Yeshiva

And, uh, just last week, I spoke to someone who was a ben bayis by the Chazon Ish.

He's 98 years old now, and, uh, he was learning in Ponevezh at the time.

He would always hang out by the Chazon Ish.

And I asked him, I said, "You know, were, were, were, were people in Bnei Brak talking about the Chazon Ish esrog at, you know, when you were around? You know, you were in the Chazon Ish's house." He says, "I don't know.

But it's in other yeshivas.

In Panovich, I think they did this also.

After they finished, you know, they don't have their own sukkahs to build their Talmud.

They sit down, after they eat, there's a night, there's a night, there's a S'man, and a Seder.

He was much better.

So what should I do? Should I take the job or not?" So he went to the great Mashgiach of Ponevezh, the great Rav Chatzkel Levinstein, and he responded like this.

Listen to this.

"We have a tradition that if there's an opportunity to build the Third Temple, the hope and the yearning of our nation for millennia, but there is potentially a risk and a concern of causing someone else pain, we don't build a temple.

He was originally a Talmud of Rav Yerucham and Mir, but in Eretz Yisrael he made Reb Hatzkel his Rebbe.

And he went to Panovich to speak to Reb Hatzkel over different things he's working on with the Bachram.

Vaidim and Shmuzim.

And it didn't go so well.

We would spend time, and he was the beginning Then I left America, I went to learn in Israel.

So then the Rosh Yeshiva, uh, Rabbi Ruderman sent me to Rav Shach, to one of the greatest Torah personalities in Israel, and I sat next to him in Ponevezh for a w- uh, at, for a time.

And-

I don't realize you sat right next to him.

No.

"...

in 1981, I tell you in 1981, I was in Ponevezh, and I sat next to Rav Shach.

And was a, the Shavuot eve, Shavuot eve.

It was a great, great Talmud Chacham.

And he was a Talmud of both Rav Hutner and a Talmud in Panovich yeshiva.

So he said over that everyone knows that the famous acronym is Ani L'doidi V'doidi Li.

If we will beat HaKadosh Baruch, HaKadosh Baruch will beat us.

Not to get confused and only to be worried about those things, ben olam ha-chaveri, ben olam ha-chaveri, which we have to take a tikkun, as best as we can.

But especially to recognize ben olam ha-chaveri, whatever we do, to mitake ben olam ha-chaveri, That is Gevaldka Tikkun.

And he said, over Gevaldka's story, that when he was learning in Panovich, Rav Shmuel Rozovsky was the big Rish Yeshiva in those days.

He was the big Magad Shir.

Dessler is here in this graveyard over here.

He was a Panovich in Bnei Brak.

So I started to search for him.

It's not an easy one to go and look for.

And, and he is, um...

After the war, I mean, besides for the fact that he becomes the mashgiach and the most mainstream, um, symbol of the rebuilding of the Torah world in Israel, maybe the world, the Ponovezh Yeshiva.

But aside from that, in his writings, in his schmoozing, in what forms the basis of Michdav MeEliyahu, which is based on his writings and schmoozing, is this Torah ideology for Klal Yisrael, for the Torah world, for the Torah community, for much more outward-looking, much more rebuilding in a more general sense.

And it's the same with many of the surviving Novardokers who join forces with the Chazon Ish to rebuild the Torah world.