For Him, the World of Torah Was One 

The grandson of the Yerushalmi tzaddikim Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlop and Reb Velvel Shachor, and the son of the gaon Rav Yechiel Michel Charlop, Rav Zevulun Charlop was born in 1929 and grew up in the Bronx. He attended Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan (Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, RIETS), where he learned under Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik and received semichah in 1954. He eventually became the menahel of RIETS, serving in that position from 1971 to 2008, and he was also the rav of Young Israel of Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx for over 50 years. (See also Yisroel Besser’s profile of Rabbi Charlop in Mishpacha, “A Lifetime Contract in the Bronx,” Issue 299.)

I’m writing about Rabbi Charlop from my perspective as a former talmid in RIETS, but more specifically as a member of a very unique chaburah. I had the privilege and pleasure to be a part of a group that learned Mei Marom with Rabbi Charlop every week for a number of years. Mei Marom is the series of sifrei machshavah written by his holy zeide, Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlop, rosh yeshivah in Mercaz Harav, a talmid muvhak of Rav Kook, and one of the gedolei Yerushalayim. And over the course of those years, we in the chaburah developed a very special relationship with Rabbi Charlop.

While the official topic of the chaburah was Mei Marom, it also delved into topics of “Zechor yemos olam; she’al avicha v’yagedcha, zekeinecha v’yomru lach.” Rabbi Charlop very often segued into stories of a world entirely foreign to us, the world of Yerushalayim a century ago. This was Rabbi Charlop’s world, and his stories brought us back to that time and place to meet gedolim we would otherwise have only read about or learned from their seforim. He met them, he knew them, he loved them, and he loved to tell us about them. And foremost among them was the Zeide, Rav Yaakov Moshe, whose image, demus d’yukno, was before Rabbi Charlop b’chol yamav. His reverence and awe for the Zeide was palpable.

He told us of when the Minchas Elazar of Munkacs, the biggest kanai in Europe, visited Eretz Yisrael in 1930 with his future son-in-law, the teenage illui Rav Boruchel Rabinowicz. And young Boruchel would sneak out in the dead of night to speak with the Zeide on Torah nigleh and nistar. And Rabbi Charlop told us of how he continued the relationship with Rav Boruchel’s son, the current Dinover Rebbe of Williamsburg, grandson of the Minchas Elazar.