Indeed, the rebbeim who keep the yeshiva running like a Swiss watch, who field the rosh yeshiva’s anxious, late night phone calls, and who have helped him perfect Kol Ya’akov’s trademark system of personalized Torah pedagogy seem to have been selected as much for their forbearance as for their Torah knowledge.
Be that as it may, anyone compiling a list of America’s Most Influential Leaders had better take a good look at this real life Pied Piper. The rosh yeshiva’s administrative foibles only underscore the immensity of his talent, the current class of Kol Ya’akov students may be the greatest he has educated to date, and his powerful message is coming at a moment in history when European culture is in retreat and millions of Americans – not just Jews – are returning to their biblical moorings.
When orienting new students to the yeshiva environment, the rosh yeshiva often recalls the day that he asked Rav Kamenetsky about the advisability of establishing a “baal teshuva yeshiva” – a completely new kind of yeshiva specially designed for young men returning to normative Jewish life. The gadol replied that while he wouldn’t advise going forward with that project, the idea of creating a traditional Orthodox yeshiva that happened to cater to returnees was certainly a sound one.
Today, Kol Ya’akov’s graduates occupy positions of Torah and business leadership around the world. Its alumni include the founder and chairman of IDT Corporation, Howard Jonas, and such rabbis, communal leaders and authors as James Lavin, Matthew Gensler, Michael Kellmar, Dr. Mordechai Stempler, Dr. Tuvia Meister and Rabbi Yaakov Borros.
This morning, prayers were extended as they are each time a new month begins. This time, however, the surge of kedusha or holiness that is supposed to saturate each Rosh Chodesh is clearly detectable. I am at my regular seat at the end of one of the long, narrow, dull-brown folding tables that fill Kol Ya’akov’s beis medrash or study hall. I employ the technique that Adam showed me for annotating my Gemarawith the minimal number of vowel markings needed to recognize the proper pronunciation for each Aramaic word. The rabbi’s standards are as high as any Ivy League professor and I am hoping that my elucidation will pass muster.
Around me, the din of scholarly discussion that is unique to a yeshiva environment is steadily increasing as pairs of chavrusas or study partners begin to pore over the fine points of the divinely-revealed laws that regulate our community.