Venerable individuals still among us share their recollections of personal encounters with yesteryear's giants
Jerusalem, Israel
Rabbi, teacher, and historian are just a few of the many hats Rabbi Berel Wein has worn over his illustrious career. Growing up in Chicago in the 1940s brought him in contact with many prewar giants — including his own grandfather Rav Chaim Tzvi Rubinstein, who had studied in the Volozhin yeshivah in his youth and was a close student of the Netziv.
At Hebrew Theological College — Beis Medrash LeTorah, Rabbi Wein’s rebbeim included Rav Chaim Kreiswirth, Rav Mendel and Rav Herzl Kaplan, Rav Mordechai Rogow, and others. These great rabbanim brought the Torah majesty of Baranovich, Slabodka, and Mir to the American kids of Chicago’s West Side.
Yet some of young Berel’s most memorable encounters took place when Torah leaders came to Chicago to fundraise, and utilized the opportunity to reach out to the younger generation.
Rabbi Wein remembers when Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Ponevezher Rav, delivered an electrifying speech at the yeshivah. “He related to us that there were Jews who’d been imprisoned by the British authorities in Palestine, because they had acted on their determination to drive out the British and create a Jewish state. He then stated with great conviction that if those activists could be matched by a cadre of Jews who were equally determined to build a Torah state in Eretz Yisrael, they would undoubtedly succeed!”
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