The Transformer

A new student arrived in the fledgling high school. As the menahel welcomed her, he noticed that her skirt didn’t meet the school’s tzniyus standards. Smiling warmly, he said to her, “When the Yidden were in the Midbar, Hashem made a special neis that their clothing grew as they grew. Unfortunately, we’re not zocheh to those nissim nowadays.” The girl returned his smile, appreciated the sensitive way he conveyed the message, and it was never an issue again.

Rabbi Akiva Stefansky was that new menahel, hired to lead this novice high school in Toronto of 1965. Over the short history of Toronto’s Yiddishkeit, outstanding talmidei chachamim had served in the city’s rabbanus — Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky was one of them — bit still, something was missing. Many people were lax in their observance, and limud haTorah among the masses was practically nonexistent. Rabbi Stefansky was determined to up the level of Torah in the city, and his first step was to set a new standard of frumkeit for high school girls.

He encouraged his students to seek spouses who were bnei Torah and who would start their married lives in kollel, and five years later, he was the man behind convincing well-known Toronto philanthropist Reb Moshe Reichmann to open a branch of the Lakewood yeshivah in the city. This was an unheard-of concept in 1970, but since that very first out-of-town Lakewood kollel, tens of additional such kollelim have opened, all modeled on the Toronto Kollel. He developed a close relationship with the roshei kollel, ybdlch”t Rav Shlomo Miller and Rav Yaakov Hirschman, and when yungeleit visited to see about joining the kollel, Rabbi Stefansky insisted on hosting them in his home and encouraged them to move to Toronto. To his credit, many of that first wave of yungeleit ended up staying in Toronto until today, assuming positions of leadership in the city.

The passing of Rabbi Stefansky on 11 Iyar/May 16, at age 93, marks the end of an era for the Toronto kehillah. Practically every aspect of Yiddishkeit in Toronto today, beginning with the many mosdos hachinuch that Toronto can be proud of, as well as the city’s countless Torahdig families, are a result of the tremendous influence he had on the city. That was the message of his longtime colleague Rav Shlomo Miller at the levayah, and that is his enduring legacy.