הרב אלחנן וסרמן

Rav Elchonon Bunim Wasserman (6 Shevat 5635/1875–11 Tammuz 5701/1941), rosh yeshiva of Ohel Torah in Baranovich, was the talmid muvhak of the Chofetz Chaim and one of the leading marbitzei Torah of Europe between the wars, until he was murdered al kiddush Hashem. Born in Birzh in Lithuania to Reb Naftali Beinish, a shopkeeper, and Sheina Rachel, he moved with his family to Boisk in Latvia in 5650/1890 and learned in the yeshiva of Telz under Rav Eliezer Gordon and Rav Shimon Shkop; on visits home he heard shiurim from the rav of Boisk, Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook. In the summer of 5657/1897 he met Rav Chaim Soloveitchik and became bound to him and to his derech halimud, learning under him in Brisk for two years and regarding him ever after as his rebbe muvhak.

In 5659/1899 he married Michla, daughter of Rav Meir Atlas, the rav of Salant, and sat and learned in his father-in-law’s house, turning down offers of rabbanut — among them the prestigious rabbanut of Moscow. In 5663/1903 he founded a mesivta in Amtchislav in Russia and earned a name as an outstanding teacher, and from 5667/1907 he learned in Radin, in the Kollel Kodshim of the Chofetz Chaim, becoming one of his foremost talmidim — learning there eighteen hours a day with his chavruta, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, later the Ponevezher Rav. In 5670/1910, at the Chofetz Chaim’s urging, he took the leadership of the mesivta in Brisk, and through the upheavals of the First World War he headed the exiled Radin yeshiva in Smilovich, near Minsk.

In 5681/1921 he settled in Baranovich in Poland and headed Yeshivat Ohel Torah, which grew under him to close to three hundred talmidim; copies of the notes of his shiurim passed from hand to hand through the yeshivot of Europe. He sat on the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudat Yisrael, and the Torah world looked to him as the spiritual heir of the Chofetz Chaim. Toward the end of 5698/1937 he traveled to America for seventeen months to raise funds for the yeshiva, and returned to Poland to his talmidim — refusing, at a stop in England in Sivan 5699/1939, the pleas of the community there that he remain abroad as the danger grew.

When the war broke out he fled with the yeshiva to Vilna, and from there to the nearby towns of Troki and Semelishok; under Soviet pressure he moved with a group of talmidim to Kovno. A last chance of escape was lost when his son Naftali broke his leg, and in June 1941 the Germans took the city. In those weeks he taught his talmidim and sons the halachot of kiddush Hashem and the nusach of the bracha said when one gives up his life. On 11 Tammuz 5701 he was seized with other rabbanim and talmidim and murdered at the Seventh Fort of Kovno, Hashem yinkom damo — telling those beside him, in his last recorded moments, that Heaven had chosen them as korbanot for Klal Yisrael, that their teshuvah would save their brothers across the sea, and that the fire consuming their bodies would one day rebuild the Jewish people. His Kovetz Shiurim remains one of the classic sefarim of the Litvishe yeshiva world, alongside his Kovetz He’arot on Yevamot, Kovetz Ma’amarim, and the kuntres Ikvesa DiMeshicha; the Ramat Elchonon neighborhood of Bnei Brak and Yeshivat Ohr Elchonon in Yerushalayim carry his name, as does the yeshiva his son Rav Elazar Simcha founded in Los Angeles.