He Ignited the Spark

Halfway into the year, the boys looked at each other and said, “Oh, no, we only have six months left of Rabbi Landau.” For the boys in his ninth-grade shiur, every minute with him was precious.

Rabbi Yaakov Landau, rosh yeshivah of Mesivta Tiferes Shmuel in Lakewood, rav of Chanichei Hayeshivos, and decades-long mesivta rebbi in Brooklyn’s Torah Temimah, passed away last week after a year-long illness. Despite daunting personal challenges, he always exuded the joy and happiness of limud haTorah. And despite his status as a venerated talmid chacham, one of the gedolim of the American Torah world, he was exceedingly humble: He loved every talmid, every member of his kehillah, and really, every member of Klal Yisrael. He would sit in shul on Shabbos afternoon and talk in learning to anyone who approached him, no matter what age or level of erudition.

The last Shabbos of his life, he somehow managed to get to shul for Minchah, escorted by his son Rabbi Chezky Landau. “All of a sudden he left me,” Reb Chezky said during a tear-infused hesped at the levayah, “and told me, ‘Every Shabbos there’s a young bochur who tells me a devar Torah. I’m going to go to look for him.’ He sat down and listened to the bochur, and then the bochur’s little brother also wanted to tell him a vort and he listened. He was so sick, yet he gave so much chashivus to everyone.”

For as long as he lived in Brooklyn, Rabbi Landau refused to leave his post as the ninth-grade maggid shiur at Yeshiva Torah Temimah. Although his stature certainly warranted that he teach a higher-level shiur or become a rosh yeshivah, he wouldn’t relinquish the opportunity to ignite the spark of Torah in young boys just entering mesivta. After over 30 years in Torah Temimah, Rabbi Landau moved to Lakewood, where four years ago he opened his own mesivta, displaying the same contagious freshness and enthusiasm he’d shown  generations of talmidim in Brooklyn.