In 1931, Rabbi Yehuda Amital, the late Rabbi, invited Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, who was to live a long life, to immigrate to the Land of Israel and head the Har Etzion Yeshiva in Alon Shvut.
What is surprising about this invitation, ostensibly, is that at the time Rabbi Amital was the head of the yeshiva himself at the institution he founded. However, Rabbi Amital's greatness lay precisely in his modesty and the fact that he saw the good of the yeshiva before his own.
Unsurprisingly, Rabbi Lichtenstein refused the offer, and countered that he would agree to answer the call on the condition that they both lead the yeshiva. And so it was. For forty years, the two demonstrated a wonderful partnership, with each side bringing their abilities and perspective to build a glorious yeshiva.
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I grew up in the city of Newcastle, in the northeast of England. I was fortunate to live very close to a small town called Gateshead, which is well-known in the Jewish world for its magnificent yeshiva.
For those who don't remember, in those years (about 35 years ago), a dispute arose in the yeshiva. Without going into the substance of the matter, I can note that what remains in my memory is the freedom of the legendary overseer, Rabbi Matityahu Salomon, who held the yeshiva and accompanied it until the dispute was resolved.
At the behest of Rabbi Schach, Rabbi Salomon postponed his move to the United States for several years (he is now the mashgicha in Lakewood), as he believed that the sensitive situation in the yeshiva required his special care.
The sad conclusion
Needless to say, our aspiration is that our leaders would manage to conduct themselves with maximum humility and minimum conflict. Tensions surrounding the transition of generations in institutions and courts are not a new phenomenon (see Slobodka and Volozhin), but the tools for resolving conflict seem to be inadequate to the challenge.
Just this week we saw what inheritance disputes can lead to: destruction and loss of control to the point of violence. The harsh scenes inside the Pnobizh Beit Midrash raise many questions for anyone who values Torah, and above all one sad conclusion: there is violence in Israeli society, and it does not spare Haredi society.
Since World War II, several generations and doctrines of Torah leadership have developed, and yet for most of the years, the one who led with authority was Rabbi Shach, zt"l.
What was special about the head of the Ponevezh Yeshiva? His greatness was that his period, which was characterized by a tremendous flourishing of Torah study, was also the period in which one leader succeeded in concentrating all the forces of the Haredi world into one central force.
Lithuanians (of course), Hasidim, and the Sephardic Haredi community submitted to his authority, and as a result, Rabbi Schach was able to leverage the Haredi community to considerable achievements. It seems possible to map the changes parallel to the time of his departure and in the years after.
The baton did indeed pass from Rabbi Schach to Rabbi Elyashiv, and from him to Rabbi Steinman, who will be distinguished for a long life, three greats belonging to the same generation, but the further we move away from Rabbi Schach's leadership, the more we see the beginning of a fracture in the concept of leadership unity that he managed to instill. The very struggle between Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach and Rabbi Steinman is evidence of this fracture.
Building the image of the rabbi
Perhaps we are facing a natural return to a period of more decentralized leadership, but it is difficult to estimate the profound educational damage created by twenty years of struggle waged within the yeshiva, which occasionally (and increasingly frequently) slips into violent ways. This is not the way of the Torah or of Judaism.
We build the image of the rabbi in general and the Rosh Hashib in particular as a model figure, who projects to us through her life the path of leadership and lifestyle. This is true in the religious world in general, and in the Haredi world in particular, which sanctifies the term "Daat Torah" as a means that gives the rabbi the ability to lead.
Over the past 20 years, over 10,000 young men have passed through the Ponovizh yeshiva, not counting the students' family members and relatives, and the graduates of the satellite yeshiva. Can we even imagine the educational damage of a long process of conflict between the rabbis? What are the young men supposed to understand from such a situation?
It is very easy to find fault with the yeshiva students who commit the violence, but those who must take stock are the yeshiva leaders and their various factions.
The Haredi public must remember: Yeshiva Ponevezh is not a secondary yeshiva. It is one of the flagship yeshiva of the Haredi world in general. It is time for someone to take responsibility, to put an end to the war, to separate into two yeshivahs, or any other solution that does not perpetuate the disgrace of the Torah as a way of life.
