ALL for The Sake of torah - ami

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116 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / J U N E 8 , 2 0 1 6 / / 2 S I V A N 5 7 7 6

’ve never been conventional, even as a young kid. Even today I’m not your typical person. I always say it’s a good thing there wasn’t any Ritalin around when I was growing up, or else there would never be a makom Torah like Ateres Shlomo. Someone who has ADHD or is hyperactive can accomplish a lot more than the aver-age person because he never gets tired. Baruch Hashem, I’ve been blessed with a lot of kochos.”

Sitting in my office this Sunday morning, Rav Shalom Ber Sorotzkin tells me this with a wide grin. He has come here directly from JFK Airport, having landed only a few hours ago.

“I’m also a frequent flier,” I tell him. “But I’m glad you’re a more frequent flier than I am.”

“I’m on a transatlantic flight 40 to 50 times a year,” he says without a trace of self-pity.

“That’s almost once a week!” I respond in amazement.“Sometimes twice,” he says with a smile. “Every so

often I go back and forth just to be somewhere for a few hours.”

“I’m honored to be speaking to someone who does so much for harbatzas haTorah,” I tell him. And I mean it.

“I’m mishtadel. I try to do what I can. But the Ribbono Shel Olam does it all.

“The Rosh Yeshivah—and when I say the Rosh Yeshi-vah I mean Rav Shteinman—once told me that there has never been a Torah network that grew as fast as Ateres Shlomo in the entire history of klal Yisrael.

“Our mosad was established only 20 years ago and we’re already up to 6,000 yungeleit. This zman alone we took in another 300. The Rosh Yeshivah told me that I have a lot of siyata dishmaya. I told him it’s not siyata dishmaya, it’s kulo dishmaya. Everything is from Hashem.

“The pasuk says, ‘Yeshuas Hashem k’heref ayin,’ sal-vation can come in the blink of an eye. But there’s an additional pshat. When does the yeshuah come? When we know that we need it now, this very second. Until you’re actually down to the wire, you think you can always do something to save the situation—this shtick, that shtick. But when you need it k’heref ayin, you have no alternative but to turn to Hashem. If you look at

the last 20 years you’ll see that our yeshuos have always came exactly when we thought we were on the verge of collapse.

“I once told someone that I have proof that I’m much more chashuv than Rav Shach,” he says good-humoredly. “Why? Because they were maspid me a lot more times than they were maspid Rav Shach. Every couple of weeks someone says, ‘Sorotzkin’s finished.’ I’ve been written off so many times already that it’s hard to count.”

“Your mosad was established through the assistance of Rav Shach?” I inquire.

“No. Rav Shteinman. Rav Chaim Kanievsky helped me as well.”

“What about Rav Shach?”“When I was a bachur I used to go to Rav Shach a lot

to talk to him in learning. It was part of my hyperactiv-ity. He once told me, ‘Shalom Ber, don’t look right and don’t look left. Just look up and keep on going.’”

“Your yeshivah is named Ateres Shlomo, after whom?”“Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. There’s a whole story

behind that, but I’d rather not discuss that at this time.”

SOMETHING UNIQUE“You said that everything is being orchestrated from

Above. Are you referring to the yeshivah’s phenomenal growth, or your ability to raise funds and support it financially?”

“Everything, from top to bottom. We have four Talmud Torahs: one in Beit Shemesh, two in Bnei Brak, and one in Kiryat Sefer, and they’re all of the highest caliber. We have six mesivtas with a total of 900 bachurim: Yerusha-layim, Kiryat Sefer, Bnei Brak, Beitar, Netivot and Beit Shemesh. Each one has been phenomenally successful.

“Chronologically, our first kollel was in Beit Shem-esh and then we established one in Beitar. Then we branched out to chadarim, mesivtas and yeshivos gedolos. Our first mesivta was in Beit Shemesh as well. Every-thing, in fact, started in Beit Shemesh, where I live. Our mesivta in Yerushalayim followed; then we went to Bnei Brak. Next was Netivot. Some people told me we weren’t going to be matzliach in Netivot because its

ALL FOR THE SAKE OF TORAH

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residents weren’t looking for that kind of learning, but we proved them wrong.”

“You said that your mosdos are of the highest caliber. In what way are they supe-rior?”

“Every makom Torah is choshuv. I don’t mean to disparage any mosad. But I think our yeshivos are the only places Hashem has in the entire world where there isn’t even a single cell phone. Not one mp3 player, not one newspaper, even chare-idi ones. It’s kulo kodesh. There was never something like that in klal Yisrael. Not long ago there was a terrorist on the loose in Tel Aviv. It happened on Erev Shabbos and they didn’t find him until Monday. The mother of one of our talmidim called the yeshivah to discuss her apprehension with her son and he didn’t know what she was talking about. He had no idea that the whole country was up in arms. When Rav Meir Soloveitchik was niftar, we got a phone call from the father of a talmid asking why his son hadn’t attended the levayah. We told him that no one in the yeshivah knew he was niftar.

“It’s mamash a makom naki. All of our students are without parallel. But the main thing is the simchas hachaim. Ateres Shlomo is a very happy place. A lot of it, I think, has to do with the respectful way we treat our yungeleit. Rav Elyashiv once told me, ‘Lincoln freed the slaves; you freed the bnei Torah.’”

“Meaning?”“I’ll tell you what I think he meant.

Before we opened our kollel, a ‘big’ kollel in Eretz Yisrael was one that had 20 yunge-leit. Every rosh kollel worked very hard to raise money, so he didn’t have time to make every yungerman feel as if the world

revolved around him. We were the first to make yungeleit feel like royalty, like sarim of Hashem.

“Don’t forget that if one person is absent in a kollel of only a dozen or two yungeleit, it affects the overall atmosphere. Our kollel in Kiryat Sefer has 1,000 yungeleit in its beis midrash, some of whom are tremen-dous talmidei chachamim. Their hasmadah is unparalleled. It’s the biggest beis midrash in Eretz Yisrael. That’s what Rav Elyashiv meant about ‘freeing the yungeleit.’ We’ve instilled in them vigor and purpose.

“Every year I buy 4,000 hats, jackets, eyeglasses and pairs of shoes to distrib-ute before Pesach. Everyone gets them, both bachurim and yungeleit. What’s the reason? If someone isn’t dressed properly, he doesn’t feel good about himself and his learning suffers. By giving a bachur a suit and a hat worth 3,000 shekel, it makes him realize he’s not an inanimate shtender and that someone actually cares about him. I can’t tell you how many problems you can solve in a yeshivah by doing that.

“In general, the gashmiyus in our yeshi-vos is on a very high level. We don’t want a bachur to look to the outside world to satisfy his material needs. This also strengthens the connection to each talmid and increases his simchas hachaim. In chas-sidishe yeshivos you feel like a member of a miflagah, a party. In our yeshivah, you’re in the miflagah of Torah. The milchamah is to become a bigger masmid, a bigger amal baTorah. We care about every talmid as an individual, and baruch Hashem, we see the results. Every bachur in mesivta finishes 300 blatt by heart. In the yeshivah gedo-lah, 200 bachurim finished Kesuvos. These guys have incredible hasmadah. The aver-

Rav Sorotzkin addressing the gathering at a chanukas habayis

age bachur learns from 12 to 14 hours a day.”

“You said that your talmidim don’t have cell phones. With all the terror attacks taking place in Eretz Yisrael, maybe they should have cell phones. There have been instances where it saved lives.”

“We believe b’emunah shleimah in the pasuk, ‘Im Hashem lo yishmor ir…’ These terrible tragedies happen because of bitul Torah. So the less bitul Torah there is, the safer we are. When the kosher cell phones first came out, Rav Shteinman told me he wasn’t sure he approved of them. Why? Because if there weren’t any kosher phones, no one would have them. Today, every

yungerman has a kosher phone, and in the middle of being immersed in the words of Rav Akiva Eiger, the phone beeps in his pocket and he runs out of the beis midrash. When someone has a cell phone, even if it’s kosher, he just doesn’t have the same level of sheki-dah. The Rosh Yeshivah told me that the Rambam says somewhere, I think at the beginning of Iggeres Teiman, that one talmid chacham is more valuable than lots of regular people. So we have to make sure that they excel. If a bachur has a cell phone, he is automatically faced with nisyonos he wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s not the same as having a public phone in a yeshivah, where your conversations can be overheard

by other people. One of the first things we daven for in the morning is not to be brought ‘into the hands of nisayon.’ Having a cell phone is simply a nisayon.

“On the importance of each and every ben Torah, the pasuk says, ‘Lo tov heyos haadam levado—It is not good for man to be alone.’ Rashi comments, ‘This is so that people shouldn’t say there are two authorities: the Holy One, Blessed be He, is unique in the upper worlds and has no mate, and man is alone among earthly beings.’ So Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro asked the Brisker Rav, ‘Isn’t there a simpler reason why man shouldn’t be alone, for the purpose of hemshech hadoros?’ The Rav replied, ‘This teaches us a moiradike zach. If not



Rav Sorotzkin With gedolim: 1. Rav Elyashiv; 2. Rav Wosner; 3. Rav Nissim Karelitz; 4. Rav Chaim Kanievsky

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for the theological problem of people con-cluding that there are two authorities, it would have been enough for there to be one human being, one mensch, in all of Creation. Hashem doesn’t need more than one righteous person in the whole world.’”

MEETING THE BUDGET“If supporting a kollel of 20 yungeleit is

stressful,” I tell him, “I can hardly imagine what you must be going through to meet your budget.”

“Years ago, people didn’t used to give as much money to support Torah as they do today, and those who did, wanted a lot of kavod in return. Nowadays, not only do they want to give, but they’re giving astro-nomical amounts—not just one or two thousand dollars—and they’re doing it anonymously. They don’t want their names on any buildings or plaques. They’re doing it purely to be machzik Torah. True, maybe they’ll want some brachos from Rav Shteinman or Rav Kanievsky, but that’s also ruchniyus.

“We’ve also made the entire system more financially viable. It used to be that there was no such thing as a network of mosdos among the Litvishe yeshivos. What we did was make all the kollelim intercon-nected. Not only does this save money, but it has other benefits as well. Some-one told me that he has seven sons in

our mosdos. They were recently home for Shabbos, and they were all able to discuss the same sugya and marei mekomos at the table. We put out something called ‘Umka D’shmaitsa,’ which is a compilation of mefarshim on every sugya. All of the yeshi-vos use it, including Ponevezh and Mir.”

“What’s your annual budget?”“It’s somewhere around $44 million,

$30 million of which has to be raised after tuition and the funding we receive from the government. That’s $2.5 million a month. It’s not easy.”

“Do you have sleepless nights?”“In America I sleep four hours a day. In

Eretz Yisrael, I sleep an hour and a half.”“I read somewhere that you sleep with

an oxygen tank.”“It’s not an oxygen tank. It’s a CPAP

machine for sleep apnea. I even take it along on the plane when I fly. But I sleep very well, thank you. People say that if you owe the bank $50,000, it’s your prob-lem. If you owe the bank $50 million, it’s

the bank’s problem. If you owe $5 billion, it’s the government’s problem. Sometimes we don’t have enough money and we can’t pay the yungeleit. But it’s Hashem’s prob-lem, not ours.”

“That’s when the hespedim start.”“Yes, but we’ve experienced techiyas

hameisim many times.”

INSPIRATION“Tell me about your background,” I

solicit.“As a youngster I learned in my father’s

yeshivah in Telz-Stone and then in the Brisker yeshivah of Rav Dovid Soloveit-chik.”

“What inspired you to build up this Torah empire?”

“You can’t do something like this with-out being a meshuginer,” he says with self-deprecating humor. “I guess I fit that bill. But it’s also zechus avos,” he adds swiftly.

“My father’s yeshivah was not so

‘RAV SHACH ONCE TOLD ME, ‘SHALOM BER, DON’T LOOK RIGHT

AND DON’T LOOK LEFT. JUST LOOK UP AND KEEP ON GOING.’”

120 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / J U N E 8 , 2 0 1 6 / / 2 S I V A N 5 7 7 6Rav Shteinman addressing Rav Sorotzkin’s yeshivah


matzliach. He once asked me, ‘What’s your zechus that you were able to do this?’ I told him it was all zechus avos. ‘And I don’t have the same zechus avos?’ he wanted to know. ‘Of course you do,’ I replied, ‘but I have your zechus in addition to the zechusim of all the Telzer doros.’ Our whole mosad is predicated on minhagei Telz. Even the doors of the aron kodesh in the yeshivah in Kiryat Sefer come from the original Telz in Lita.”

“So it’s a combination of the min-hagim of Telz and those of Brisk and Rav Shteinman?”

“No. The minhagim and nusach hate-fillah are entirely Telz. But the derech halimmud is Brisk, which you and I heard from Rav Dovid.”

“Do you still find time to say shi-urim?”

“Yes. I’m rosh kollel in the yeshivah gedolah. I often go straight from the air-port to give a shiur. I have 11 hours on the plane to prepare.”

“What do you consider your biggest accomplishment?”

“Being able to facilitate pure Torah study done with tranquility and joy. People should appreciate that there are 58 million hours of limmud haTo-rah every year because of this mosad. You really have to see it to believe it. Baruch Hashem, we’ve raised things to an entirely new level.”

SOUND ADVICE“If someone asked you for advice on

how to open a yeshivah even if he didn’t have the proper funding in place, what would you tell him?”

“To make it even bigger than his original plans. I cannot tell you how many times I went to Rav Shteinman because I was down to my last penny and I was on the verge of losing my sanity. One time he wanted to know how many yungeleit we had; I think it was something like 1,900. His sugges-tion? ‘Take in another 200.’ ‘How can I take in more?’ I asked. ‘I can’t even afford the ones I have.’ He explained that the way it works is that there’s a certain amount of money destined to

be given for harbatzas haTorah. If I take in more yungeleit, Hashem will just give it to our kollel instead of another one. ‘In that case,’ I responded, ‘why don’t I take in another 10,000?’ He told me, ‘Megalgelim zechus al yedei zakai. You’re not such a big zakai!’ I told him it was comforting to know that at least I was zakai for 200!

“No one should be nervous or appre-hensive about opening a yeshivah. You just have to have bitachon in Hashem and go vaiter with the gantzeh shtarkeit, above and beyond all limitations. If money won’t come from this gevir it will come from another gevir. Noth-ing is too big for the Ribbono Shel Olam. One must never give in to despair. Just do what it says in Koheles, and cast your bread upon the waters.”

“I remember when Rav Shneur Kotler, zt”l, was collecting money for Lakewood. I recently remarked to Rabbi Aharon Kotler that his father never got the kind of money he gets today.”

“I’ll tell you the difference between the two situations. Rav Shneuer was trying to establish a new yeshivah. There’s a difference between starting something and building upon some-thing that’s already established. It’s much harder to start something from scratch.

“On average, we’re opening a new yeshivah every year. In the beginning, I’m there every day to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Then, once it’s up and running, everything falls into place because all our mosdos have a common curriculum. Rav Shteinman gave us an 11-year cycle of subject matter to follow.”

“What does Rav Dovid say about your mosad?”

“Whenever I speak to him he


“I THINK OUR YESHIVOS ARE THE ONLY ONES IN THE ENTIRE WORLD WHERE THERE ISN’T EVEN A SINGLE CELL PHONE.”

expresses his amazement. He once told my father that he’s jealous of my Olam Haba. I told him I would be more than willing to exchange it for his.”

“But you seek the guidance of Rav Shteinman.”

“As far as running the mosdos, yes. For the past few decades he has literally changed the face of Torah study around the world. One word from him has built up my mosdos as well as countless others, along with many chesed organi-zations.”

“Tell me about your student body. Are

there any Americans?”“Not bachurim, but probably half of

our yungeleit are American.” “What about Sefardim?”“I was once talking to a Sefardi phi-

lanthropist who didn’t want to give us money because he said we were an Ash-kenazi mosad. ‘Excuse me,’ I corrected him, ‘there are 800 Sefardi yungeleit learning in our kollelim and we also have a lot of Sefardi bachurim. Show me one Sefardi kollel with 800 yungeleit!’ I chal-lenged him. ‘We have the biggest Sefardi mosad in the world.’”

COLLECTING MONEY“You came to New York to speak at the

Bonei Olam dinner. What’s your rela-tionship with them?”

“It’s a wonderful organization. I’ll tell you a nice story. The founder of Bonei Olam, Rabbi Shlomo Bochner, once went to Rav Shteinman and told him about a certain fertility treatment that’s successful only ten percent of the time. He wanted to know if it’s worthwhile to pursue. Rav Shteinman replied, ‘If it can produce one Rav Akiva Eiger, wouldn’t it be worth it?’”


“Where did you learn English?”“From my work. But I don’t read or

write it.”“Are most of your donors in Amer-

ica?”“I’d say over half, but we have donors

in Eretz Yisrael as well.” “Are all of your donors frum?”“Yes. It is said that no one who is

unlearned in Torah gives money for Torah. Rav Shach and the Chofetz Chaim both wrote that people with-out zechusim have the ability to give money for chesed, but you need spe-cial zechusim in order to support Torah learning. Rav Shteinman asks: Why is Torah the only mitzvah you can buy with money and make a Yissas-char-Zevulun arrangement? Because Hashem makes whatever is necessary to sustain life plentiful and cheap. For example, air is free. Next comes water, which is relatively inexpensive, and then bread, which costs a little more.

You can have life without certain mitz-vos, but without Torah you can’t have life. So Hashem enables a person who is unable to learn Torah himself to buy it with money.”

“What can people learn from your success?”

“That if someone wants to build Torah he shouldn’t hesitate. He should jump right in without making any cal-culations. He should realize that he’s not doing it, Hashem is doing it.”

“And in practical terms?” “In practical terms you have to be

ready to go around asking people for donations.”

“And be subjected to bizyonos.”“You won’t believe this, but the first

time that happened to me was only recently, right here in New York. In 21 years of doing this, last week was the first time I was ever thrown out of someone’s office. What happened was, I walked into someone’s office

unannounced. When I went past his secretary she didn’t stop me so I kept on going. The guy was furious that I didn’t have an appointment. He accused me of ‘breaking into his office’ and literally threw me out, saying that he never wanted to see me again. It was the first time I was ever zocheh to receive bizyonos for the sake of Torah. It made me happy! When I left I was dancing as if I’d gotten a check for a million dollars.”

“This is all so time consuming,” I say. “How can someone be a rosh yeshivah and say shiurim at the same time he’s traveling around the world collecting money?”

“There’s no stirah; they’re not mutu-ally exclusive. When I see the siyata dishmaya it gives me such joy. Some-times I’ll run after someone for three days; then he’ll turn around and give me an incredible amount of money. People give meshunedige amounts, in


Rav Sorotzkin with Rabbi Frankfurter

2 S I V A N 5 7 7 6 / / J U N E 8 , 2 0 1 6 / / A M I M A G A Z I N E 125

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the millions of dollars.“The truth is that anyone can do this. It’s

not a big kuntz; just decide you’re going to do it and don’t stop. There’s a yungerman named Reb Elchonon Weisbord; he’s sort of my competition. I have 6,000 yungeleit, he has 1,800. He is an eidel, ziseh yunger-man, not an ADHD guy like me. Baruch Hashem, he is also successful. Hashem showed that even a low-key, calm person like him can do it. Everything he does is l’sheim shamayim.”

IN CONCLUSION“Let’s conclude with a thought lekavod

Shavuos,” I say.“People always ask me how bnei Torah

can make ends meet. My grandfather, Rav Baruch Sorotzkin, zt”l, was niftar in 1979. In 1960, someone wrote to him asking the same question. He wrote back, ‘If you ask me the same question 40 years from now, the answer will still be the same. The Torah is never going to change. The world of Torah study will always survive and get bigger and bigger.’

“The Gemara in Shabbos says that if someone is engaged in Torah study, he is permitted to pause in his learning in order to say Shema, but not for davening. Rav Yochanan says this applies only to chacha-mim like Rabbi Shimon, who engage in Torah and nothing else, but people like us are permitted to pause even for davening. Why? Because Torah is not our umanus—our primary occupation. Rashi explains it differently. He says that because we inter-rupt our study for other things, we have to interrupt for davening as well.

“The Rambam says at the end of Hilchos Shemittah Veyovel that Hashem will sup-port whoever makes learning Torah his sole occupation. Basically, Hashem gives a person two options how to live: by engag-ing in commerce or through the ‘business’ of Torah. That is the meaning of ‘Toraso umanuso’—Torah is his source of income. As my grandfather explained, that is why the Torah will survive in every dor.”

“And you’re a shaliach for that?”“If I didn’t do it, someone else would.

Hashem has many emissaries.” •

Education

ALL for The Sake of torah - ami