Selections from The Making of a Godol, by Rav Nathan Kamenetzky
All citations come from the uncensored version (the one with the cheirem on it).
All italics are in the original. I added all bold formatting – with the intention of highlighting those sections of the books which mention parts of the past which others may seek to claim never existed. We have as much to learn from our teachers about the parts of their lives that we like to remember as we do from the parts of their lives which some would rather forget.
(Page 42): “My father (the twelve year old R’ Yaakov), a guest in their home, could not object, but made a “deal” with them: Laizer and Aaron would compensate him by letting him read their Russian books in his spare time.”
(Page 263): “Had my father (R’ Yaakov) received personal guidance instead of being cast into the Minsk yeshiva world on his own, he might have been deterred from reading such matter, since the rashei yeshiva forbade their talmidim to wander even casually into the dangerous territory of secular studies. On the other hand, given my father’s intellectual curiosity, there is room for conjecture that had he been forced to shut his eyes to the interesting secular books which his cousins read, he might have rebelled and rejected Torah education – perish the thought. Indeed, he told R’ Laibel Perlstein that since he was a boy, he had a prodigious drive to know every matter of wisdom that came his way.”
(Page 264-5): “It is noteworthy that when asked as an octogenarian whether young students at a Monsey yeshiva may be permitted to read light English literature (which would pass faculty censorship), my father – with the caveat that he would be “considered a leftist” for the ruling – referred to this experience of his own to prove that such reading is not harmful. He mentioned that he read Russian translations of such classics as the science fantasies of Jules Verne and Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthus Conan Doyle. He added that the licentiousness of present-day society and literature mandate that contemporary secular books be carefully screened before being put onto a permitted-reading list. The principal of the secular department in Mesivta Torah Vodaath, R’ Moshe Lonner, reported that my father suggested students study certain plays by Shakespeare “because in olden times there was less reference to topics to which yeshiva bahurim should not be exposed”, and referred to his own reading of these classics in the Russian language.
Another interviewee, R’ Avrohm Fishman, related that when he asked my father how to regard a child who is a prodigious reader, he replied that he generally considered monitored outside reading healthy “for many reasons” and listed the following: once a child gets into reading, he can be channeled into “kosher subjects, especially nowadays [when there is a lot of religious reading matter]” – without diligence in reading, holy books, lehavdil would also be neglected; through reading, a child’s horizons are broadened; reading develops the child’s mind – “What is wrong with Agatha Christie?” he asked rhetorically. He mentioned his own youthful reading, but added, “I read a whole lot – which I do not know if one is allowed.” ”
(Page 278): “In his extra-seder time, our protagonist had proceeded from light literature to serious books. He glanced through his cousins’ mathematics and physics books and got an inkling of these subjects. R’ Laubel Perlstein reported that one of the cousins was studying engineering and my father read through his technical books on the subject too.”
(Page 279): “One summer night, the Hazon-Ish invited R’ Zvi Hirsch to join him the following morning in a 4:00 A.M. swim in the Neman River. When they were in the water, the Hazon-Ish started to splash his companion playfully, and R’ Zvi-Hirsch asked him, “Rebbi, what is going on?” The master replied, “[If you can frolic, you can create novellae (in Torah)].” ”
(Page 279-280): “My father also looked at his cousins’ Russian novels by such authors as Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevski and the contemporary Tolstoi, but because grasping such heavy material requires sustained study and concentration, his knowledge of Russian literature was cursory at best. An anecdote is told in Mesivta Torah Vodaath, where my father served as Rosh Yeshiva: my father’s mention of the book Anna Karenina in a conversation with a group of talmidim was met with blank looks, and he said “What, this too you don’t know?!” implying that he respected such a tidbit of information to be elementary…According to R’ Perlstein, my father also read the philosophical works of Aristotle, Plato and Kant at some time in his life. R’ Perlstein added that he had once mentioned the English philosophers, Hobbes and Locke, and my father was unfamiliar with their names. Not long thereafter, when R’ Perlstein was planning to spend a two-week vacation as a guest in my father’s home in Monsey, he was asked to bring along books expounding the ideas of the two. At a table in the backyard, R’ Perlstein read to our protagonist from the books and received a running commentary, “In this he is right,” and “In that he is wrong.” ”
(Page 305): “Also like my father, R’ Aaron Kotler dabbled in secular studies at this time. He was more interested in literature than in the sciences which attracted my father’s interest. My father stated to his son-in-law R’ Yisrael Shurin that R’ Aaron was proficient in all of classical Russian literature. This was corroborated when, during a visit with a young, intellectual protege of the Hazon-Ish who headed a yeshiva in Ramlah, R’ Aaron blurted out, “This was expounded by Alexander Pushkin” – as reported to this author by the yeshiva head.”
(Page 307): “The subject of our protagonist’s – and R’ Aaron (Kotler’s) – dabbling in secular studies is incomplete if the reader is unaware of the words of the Netziv in Shu”t Meishiv Davar, 1:44. After setting guidelines for secular studies where required by governmental orders (emphasis added) ["And all of the great Torah scholars who are also wise in secular studies did this only because they were occupied in secular studies before they
immersed their minds in Torah (emphasis added), or after they had already become great in Torah. With both together, it is impossible to reach the gorla of study (of Torah)]. In the case of our protagonist and R’ Aaron, aside from the fact that this indulgence in secular subjects was only superficial – it could not realistically be termed limudei chol (secular studies) – they abided by the first of the two alternatives in the Netziv’s prescription (in the quoted sentence – as emphasized), which enabled them to become “great Torah scholars,” and reach “the goal of study“. ”
(Page 308-309): “…his parents tacitly endorsed the efforts of R’ Binyomin’s sister, Rasheh, to “educate” her nephew. The hedonistic Rasheh hired a teacher, Ashkenazy, to give our protagonist private lessons… the lessons went on for several months and the teacher was enthusiastic about training what he saw as a nascent professor. [Footnote 82: My father never happened to tell his children about these privae lessons, but there is no reason to doubt the truth in the reports that out protagonist had formal lessons in limudei chol (secular studies). R' Laibel Perlstein confirmed this fact when he reported that out protagonist told him he had private secular lessons as a youngster.] Aunt Rasheh began coaxing my father to drop his Torah studies altogether and he came to the realization that Ashkenazy was leading him in the same direction, he refused to continue with the lessons. [Footnote 84: At the meeting with Aunt Dvorah, she recounted that after he broke off with Ashkenazy, my father continued studying on his own, took external examinations and was awarded a Russian high school diploma. She was astonished when I told her my father never informed his children he had received a diploma. If Aunt Dvorah was right, my father's deliberate secrecy regarding this matter is instructve."
(Page 310-311): "After a visit with our protagonist in 5732 (1972), R'Mikhel Zilber reported that my father considered a high school education an imperative for Jews residing in America in his day. My father rold him that when a well-known mashgiach had asked him whether to send his son to school, he replied affirmatively, citing an evaluation that "all those who did not attend school were not successful (matzliach) in learning (Torah) either". For Jews residing in Eretz Yisrael, however, he considered secular education anathema, and summed up for R' Zilber, "In America you must, and in Eretz Yisrael you must not." "
(Page 311): "R' Zorah Varhaftig said that R' Aaron's acerbic battles against the irreligious factions in prewar Poland were rumored at the time to have been motivated by his having been somewhat (caught up in) the Haskalah as a youth and therefore more aware of its dangers. The basis for these rumors may be reasonably assigned to the influence his sister had on him at this time and later...but to say that "he was caught up in the Haskalah" seems exagerated."
(Page 313): "Dvorah Epstein, his (R'Shamshon Grozovsky's) granddaughter, told about her ancestry and showed this author a copy of her uncle R' Ruven's notations which revealed that his father was a 22nd generation of rabbanim. R' Ruven's was the seventh of eight children, and the second son. As in most rabbinic families of the day, not all of the Grozovsky children followed in their progenitors' path. According to this granddaughter, even in this illustrious family, the older son, Shmuel-Avrohm, "was not carefully observant". "
(Page 413): "...R' Naphtali Viyerushover (Zilberberg) wrote in a letter that R' Yisrael, wanting him to stay on in Vilna and learn there, declared, "One of the reasons that some of the Lithuanian Jews are found to study chitzonim [extraneous (non-religious) subjects] is that they only know the questions and answers of the Tosphoth on the hundreds of folios of gemara they have learned, but they do not know the sweetness [metikut] of what was assumed in the question and what was innovated in the answer, and do not experience even a drop of the ocean of wisdom and sweetness contained in the tosphoth, while in the extraneous studies [differentiated (lehavdil) by a thousand distinctions], the bit of wisdom therein is made distinctly apparent and immediately felt [because therein nothing is hidden (nistarot).” “