The Loss Of A Giant: Harav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman zt”l

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The Loss Of A Giant: Harav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman zt”l

Almost half a million Jews crammed into the streets of Bnai Brak, Israel, to mourn the passing of Harav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman zt”l, on the 24th of Kislev, the day before Chanukah.

Harav Shteinman was hospitalized several weeks ago with shortness of breath and passed away early Tuesday morning. In accordance with his will, he was buried six hours after his passing.

Police blocked major highways and roads around the cemetery, and emergency medical services were on hand to deal with the flood of people flocking to the funeral. Emergency service MDA said even before the funeral began it had treated about 70 people for injuries resulting from the massive crowd.

Harav Shteinman led a council of sages that controlled the small Degel Hatorah lawmakers’ faction, part of the United Torah Judaism party, which has often held the balance of power in Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government includes ultra-Orthodox political parties, said the Jewish people had “lost a central beacon of spirit, heritage and morality.”

Following the death of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv in 2012, Harav Shteinman was widely regarded as the gadol hador, the leader of the non-Hasidic Lithuanian world.

Harav Shteinman was born and raised in Brest (Brisk), then part of the Russian Empire. He studied in Yeshivas Imrei Moshe, headed by Rabbi Moshe Skolovsky, in Brest, and attended shiurim (Torah lectures) given by Rabbi Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik, the Brisker Rav. He also studied in Kletzk under Rabbi Aharon Kotler who later founded the renowned Beth Midrash Govoah in Lakewood, New Jersey.

Upon reaching draft age in 1937, he was subject to the Polish draft, as Brest had come under the control of the newly-established Polish state in the aftermath of the First World War. He and his close friend Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik (a grandson of Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik) tried to evade the draft by starving themselves, but they were declared fit to serve by the draft officer.

The two then fled with other Brisk students to Montreux, Switzerland, where they returned to Torah study at Yeshivas Etz Chaim. With the outbreak of World War II, the two became war refugees and were incarcerated in the Schonenberg Labor Camp near Basel, where nearly all the inmates were Torah-observant. Harav Shteinman and his friend were put to work laying roads, but due to his thin frame and short stature, he was soon released from manual labor and assigned to a desk job.

Harav Shteinman was the only member of his family to survive the war. While still in Switzerland, he married Tamar (Tema) Kornfeld (d. 2002), the daughter of Rabbi Shammai Shraga Kornfeld of Antwerp. She had been sent to Switzerland from Poland to cure her respiratory problems and had also become a refugee when World War II broke out. Together they had four children.

During his initial years in Israel, Harav Shteinman and his family lived in Kfar Saba; his sons were sent to a cheder in Petah Tikva. Eventually they relocated to Bnei Brak, where he headed the Ponevezh Kollel. In 1955, the Ponevezher Rav, Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, opened the yeshivah ketanah of Ponevezh, called Ponevezh L’Tzi’irim, and asked Harav Shteinman to serve as rosh yeshivah together with Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz. Harav Shteinman stopped giving his regular shiur in 1998, but retained the title of rosh yeshiva. He was also rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Gaon Yaakov, which is led by his son-in-law, Rabbi Zev Berlin.

Harav Shteinman was also the author of a popular series of kuntresim (pamphlets) on Torah subjects such as emunah (faith), chinuch (education), and hashgachah (Divine Providence). The pamphlets are based on shiurim that he began giving to Ponevezh Kollel students in his home in 1994, and on shmuessen (ethical talks) that he began giving to students in Yeshivas Gaon Yaakov in 1978. Ranging in size from 24 to 100 pages, the pamphlets quickly sold out.

Rabbi Elazar Shach, the founder of the Degel HaTorah political party, when consulted for advice, would at times refer people to consult with Harav Shteinman.

Harav Shteinman was a leader of the Haredi Degel HaTorah political party and exerted much political power in the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) political coalition. He was close with the Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter, a major supporter of Agudat Israel.

When he was in his 90s, Harav Shteinman undertook a mission to visit and strengthen key Haredi and religious communities outside of Israel. In 2005 he visited a number of cities in North America with significant Haredi populations or institutions, including in Brooklyn and Passaic, meeting with many leading American rabbis including Rabbi Aharon Schechter of yeshiva  Chaim Berlin. He also made a short yet memorable visit to the Beth Gavriel Center in Queens were he met Rabbis and community leaders along with visiting the Sharei Tzion yeshiva. 

In May 2007, Harav Steinman visited France and then England, where he addressed large gatherings in Manchester and Gateshead. In June 2010 Harav Shteinman visited the Jewish communities of Odessa, Berlin, and Gibraltar. In 2012 he traveled to Paris to deliver talks to the French Jewish community.

Harav Shteinman was known for his extremely modest lifestyle. His apartment on Chazon Ish Street is sparsely furnished and has not been painted in many years. Until 2014, he slept on the same thin mattress that he had received from the Jewish Agency upon his arrival in Israel in the early 1950s.

Harav Shteinman originally published his main works on the Talmud anonymously under the name Ayelet HaShachar (alluding to his initials and those of his wife, Tamar [AYeLeT = Aharon Yehuda Leib Tamar] in Hebrew, as well as the “morning star” of Psalms.

 

May his memory be a blessing.