הרב ראובן גרוזובסקי

Rav Refael Reuven Grozovsky (11 Kislev 5647/1886–22 Adar 5718/1958) carried the derech of Kamenetz from Lita (Lithuania) to America, standing at the head of Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn, Beit Medrash Elyon in Monsey, and the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah of Agudat Yisrael in America. Born in Minsk to Rav Shimshon Grozovsky, a dayan of the city, he learned in Slabodka under the Alter and Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein. When the First World War scattered the yeshiva to Kremenchug he married Chaya Sara Miriam, daughter of Rav Baruch Ber Leibowitz — and from then on his life was bound to his father-in-law, whom he considered his foremost rebbe, saying shiur beside him in Knesset Beit Yitzchak through its wanderings from Vilna to Kamenetz, and sharing a cramped apartment with him rather than part from his Torah.

When the war drove the yeshiva back to Vilna and Rav Baruch Ber was niftar, Rav Reuven led Kamenetz with his brothers-in-law. In 5701/1941 he reached America, where he threw himself into the work of the Vaad Hatzalah beside Rav Aharon Kotler and Rav Avraham Kalmanowitz — rescue, lobbying, sending parcels to talmidim exiled to Siberia — and brought a hundred and ten members of the Kamenetz community to safety. After the petirah of Rav Shlomo Heiman he was called to head Torah Vodaath, and alongside it Beit Medrash Elyon in Monsey, where his weekly schedule — whole nights awake preparing shiurim, shuttling between Monsey and Brooklyn — became legend.

His derech in learning demanded thoroughness above all: the maximum of thought applied even to “simple” ideas, and the full examination of every possibility before dismissing it — a method preserved in Chiddushei Rabbi Reuven on the yeshiva masechtot. His essays on the questions of the hour were collected in Ba’ayot HaZman, and his shmuessen and Torah in Maamarei Rabbi Reuven and other volumes. Injured in an accident in 5712 and weakened by illness, he continued learning until his petirah on 22 Adar 5718. His sons-in-law Rav Don Ungarischer and Rav Levi Krupenia continued his yeshivot.