Everything about Shneur Kotler totally explained
Rabbi Shneur Kotler (
1918 -
1982) was the son of the famed
Talmudic scholar Rabbi
Aharon Kotler. Upon the death of his father in 1962, he became the
rosh yeshiva of
Beis Medrash Govoha, a
Lithuanian-style
Talmudic
Haredi but non-
Hasidic yeshiva in
Lakewood,
New Jersey.
Born in
Slutsk,
Russia, where his maternal grandfather Rabbi
Isser Zalman Meltzer was the rosh yeshiva and rabbi, Rabbi Kotler escaped to
Mandatory Palestine in 1940. There, he studied under the leading scholars of
Jerusalem, among them Rabbi Meltzer who had moved there previously.
In 1947, after
World War II, he moved to Lakewood to join his father, who had brought his
yeshiva there from
Europe. Rabbi Shneur Kotler assumed the leadership of the yeshiva with his father's death in 1962. He transformed Lakewood from a middling institution into a flagship center of excellence and fulcrum of the
Orthodox yeshiva world.
Whereas his father had actively restricted enrollment to a select group of students, Rabbi Shneur Kotler opened the yeshiva doors to a broader range of students and post-graduate fellows. From a group of approximately 200 students, the yeshiva grew to almost a thousand students by 1981. As more students enrolled, the scope of study broadened to the point where a student could join any number of groups studying all the tractates of the Talmud.
Rabbi Kotler sent out groups of married students, pioneers to establish
kollels in major communities across America, from
Philadelphia in the East to
Los Angeles in the West. The members of these kollels would divide their time between studying Talmud and spreading the experience of Torah learning to the local
Jewish populations. There are now Lakewood satellite kollels operating in 30 cities across
North America.
Rabbi Kotler was active in communal organizations and issues. He held leadership positions as a member of the
Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of
Agudath Israel of America and was on the rabbinical boards of the
Torah Umesorah National Society for Hebrew Day Schools and
Chinuch Atzmai. Rabbi Kotler was also very active in helping Jewish refugees from Russia and
Iran.
Death
Rabbi Kotler died in 1982 in
Massachusetts General Hospital, in
Boston. He was 64 years old. Tens of thousands of mourners assembled at Rabbi Kotler's funeral in Jerusalem; even vaster throngs had attended in America before his final journey.
He was survived by his wife, Rischel; a sister, Sarah Schwartzman of
New York; eight children, and many grandchildren. With his untimely death, his son Rabbi
Malkiel Kotler took over the leadership of the yeshiva, assisted by three other grandchildren of Rabbi Aharon Kotler, Rabbis
Dovid Schustal,
Yerucham Olshin and
Yisroel Neuman.
Further Information
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