A Century of Torah Draws to a Close

If Brisk is a kingdom, then it has several royal palaces—the yeshivos dotting the heart of Yerushalayim—and a royal family that presides over those bastions of Torah. The members of the Soloveitchik family hail from a long line of gedolim who pioneered and perennially honed its famed approach to Talmudic analysis. There was Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, the rav of Brisk, and his son Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, the author of the groundbreaking Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim Halevi on the Rambam—a slim black volume of analytical essays that is one of the most fundamental texts studied in every yeshiva. Rav Chaim passed away in 1918 and was succeeded as the rav of Brisk by his son Rav Yitzchak Zev, otherwise known as the Brisker Rav. This weekend, a glorious era in the dynasty’s history came to a close with the passing of Rav Meshullam Dovid Soloveitchik, the last living son of the Brisker Rav, at the age of 99.

Rav Meshullam Dovid Soloveitchik was the fifth of the twelve children of Rav Yitzchak Zev and Rebbetzin Alte Hindel Soloveitchik. Born in Brisk in the early 1920s, Rav Dovid grew up under the vigilant eye of his father, who took a firm and meticulous approach to his children’s chinuch.

Rav Dovid was still a young bachur when the onset of the Second World War turned his own world upside-down. Years later, he remembered an Erev Shabbos in the summer when the sky suddenly filled with German planes. Rav Dovid hurried to a small local shul, where he recited the entire sefer Tehillim with great emotion. He attested years later that it was the most fervent recitation of Tehillim that he experienced in his life. Two weeks later, the Germans occupied Brisk and the Soloveitchik family fled.

In the aftermath of the German invasion, the family was torn asunder. The Brisker Rav managed to escape to Vilna along with four of his sons: Rav Yosef Dov, Rav Chaim, Rav Raphael, and Rav Meshullam Dovid. Several months later, three more children managed to evade the Nazis’ clutches and join them: Rav Meir Soloveitchik and his two sisters, the future Rebbetzins Lifsha Feinstein and Rivka Schiff. Tragically, the rebbetzin and her three remaining children (two other children had passed away years earlier) were not destined to reunite with their family; they remained trapped in Brisk and were murdered by the Nazis. The Brisker Rav and his surviving children ultimately made their way to Eretz Yisrael, where he became one of the foremost spiritual leaders of the generation and established his own yeshiva.