Two young talmidei chachamim have made it their mission to redeem the Torah of the great German rabbanim by republishing seforim long thought lost
Photos: Elchanan Kotler
“So this is a research institute?”
I call out above the din in the bustling beis medrash.
This is my first question for Rabbis Eliyahu Simcha Hellmann and Avraham Bamberger on this sunny day in Jerusalem. It’s a challenge to hear their answer, and the background noise makes me realize how silly the question is.
Nowadays there are likely hundreds of kollels in the Holy City — but only one Kollel Achsanya shel Torah, nicknamed “Kollel Ashkenaz.” This pioneering venture is bringing a largely forgotten past to life, and the yungeleit show palpable excitement when they can shed new light from an old source on a familiar sugya.
It is axiomatic that the lands of Ashkenaz — generally taken to refer to Germany and Western Europe — were hubs of Torah life during the Middle Ages. So many revered figures from that time and setting — among them Rashi, the Baalei Tosafos, Rav Yehuda Hachassid, the Rosh, and the Mordechai — are still studied daily in yeshivos and batei medrash worldwide.
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