הרב אהרן קוטלר

Rav Aharon Kotler (5652/1892–2 Kislev 5723/1962) was the rosh yeshiva of Kletsk in Europe and the founder and rosh yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey, today the largest yeshiva in the United States. Born in Sislevitch near Minsk, he was orphaned young and raised by his uncle, a dayan in Minsk, who sent him to learn in Krinik under Rav Zalman Sender Kahana-Shapiro; from there he entered the Slabodka yeshiva of the Alter, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, and Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein, where the young "Ahrele Svislotzer" was known as an illui. Rav Chaim of Brisk said of him that in forty years he had not met his like, and Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk said this young man would yet be for his generation as Rabbi Akiva Eiger was for his. He married Chana Perel, daughter of Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, and joined his father-in-law in the yeshiva of Slutsk; when the Communists made Torah life impossible he fled with a large part of the talmidim to Kletsk in Poland, where his yeshiva grew.

With the outbreak of the Second World War the yeshiva moved to Vilna. Rav Aharon escaped through Siberia and Japan, reaching America in 5701/1941 through the Vaad Hatzalah; most of the talmidim who remained behind were murdered by the Nazis. On arriving he threw himself into rescue work, laboring day and night with Rav Eliezer Silver, Rav Avraham Kalmanowitz, and others, through every private and governmental channel, to save the rabbanim and bnei yeshiva trapped in Europe.

In 5703/1943 he founded Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood with fifteen talmidim, built on an ideal then new to America: Torah learned undiluted, without admixture of secular studies, and material support for those who give their lives to learning. At his petirah the yeshiva numbered 250 talmidim; it has since grown to many thousands, with more than a hundred yeshivos around it in Lakewood. After the petirah of Rav Isser Zalman he also inherited the position of rosh yeshiva of Etz Chaim in Yerushalayim, visiting from America. He stood at the head of American Torah Jewry as chairman of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudath Israel, head of the rabbinical board of Torah Umesorah, and a founder of Chinuch Atzmai, the independent Torah school system in Eretz Yisrael.

Rav Aharon was niftar on 2 Kislev 5723/1962 in New York; twenty-five thousand accompanied his levayah on the Lower East Side, and he was buried on Har HaMenuchot in Yerushalayim. His Torah is printed in the Mishnas Rabbi Aharon series — on masechtot of the Shas, responsa, and mussar — and at the head of the Lakewood yeshiva he was succeeded by his son Rav Shneur, and after him his grandson Rav Malkiel.