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Monday, September 12, 2022

Rav Shraga Feivel believed this type of yeshiva was necessary in order to save Yiddishkeit in America and produce true bnei Torah. But was it permissible, was it Torahdig, to create a mesivta with a full range of secular studies according to this model?

 

Rav Shraga Feivel ztvk"l at his beloved Bais Medrash Elyon

 The idea of post-elementary Torah education might have been
new in America, but the
idea of a mesivta that would offer
also a full range of
secular studies was unheard of in the hallowed yeshivos of Eastern Europe.

 Rav Shraga Feivel believed this type of
yeshiva was necessary in order to save Yiddishkeit in America

and produce true bnei Torah. But was it permissible, was
it
Torahdig
, to create a mesivta according to this model?


Rav Shraga Feivel would not rely on his own thinking
for such
a monumental decision. Instead, he wrote to four
of the leading
gedolim of that time: Rav Chaim Ozer
Grodzensky of Vilna,
Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz of Kamenitz, Rabbi
Yosef Rosen, the Rogatchover Gaon of Dvinsk,

and Rav Elchonon
Wasserman of Baranovitch.

Three out of the four responded that it was
difficult to issue a definitive ruling without being

in America to fully grasp the situation there. 

However, citing the urgent need for post-elementary Torah education as well as American laws that made secular education compulsory,they felt Mesivta Torah Vodaath should include secular studies in its curriculum.


Rav Shraga Feivel then presented his idea for a mesivta
to the
yeshiva’s board of directors. He was met
with stiff opposition.
It was difficult enough to finance an
elementary school, most
of them argued. To take on the
additional burden of a mesivta
that would be staffed with
both rebbeim and secular studies
teachers was unimaginable.

https://d1a8dioxuajlzs.cloudfront.net/accounts/7222/original/RavShragaFeivel.pdf?1628623851