הרב יעקב קמנצקי

Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky (20 Adar I 5651/1891–29 Adar I 5746/1986), rosh yeshiva of Mesivta Torah Vodaath in New York, was among the gedolei hador of postwar America. He was born on the family estate of Kalishkova, near Dolhinov in Lithuania (today in Belarus). After early years of learning in Minsk he entered the Slabodka yeshiva at fifteen and drew close to the Alter of Slabodka, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, hearing shiurim as well from Rav Baruch Ber Leibowitz in the city and from Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer in Slutsk. The First World War drove him from city to city until he reached Lomza and the yeshiva of Rav Yechiel Mordechai Gordon. In 5679/1919 he married Itta Ettil, daughter of the Slabodka mashgiach Rav Dov Tzvi Heller, and returned to learn in Slabodka and in Kelm; when Rav Isaac Sher opened the Slabodka kollel, Rav Yaakov learned there five years.

In 5686/1926 he became rav of the Lithuanian town of Tzitevyan (Tytuvėnai), where he served eleven years. At the end of 5698/1937 he crossed to America: some months filling the rabbanut of Seattle, then the rabbanut of Toronto from 5698/1938 to 5705/1945, when Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz called him to Mesivta Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn to say shiur in place of Rav Shlomo Heiman, who had been niftar. From 5708/1948 he stood at the head of the yeshiva until 5727/1967, when he settled in Monsey and gave his strength to publishing his sefarim.

He was among the first members of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudath Israel of America at its founding in 5709/1949, and its head, Rav Aharon Kotler, took counsel with him in many matters. After Rav Kotler’s petirah in 5723/1963 he stood with Rav Moshe Feinstein at the head of the charedi community of America and Canada. Chinuch was his life’s public work: he pressed for the founding of kollelim and of talmudei Torah for the children of immigrants from the Soviet Union, decided the she’eilot of Torah Umesorah — whose chairmanship he took up after Rav Kotler — and helped establish Chinuch Atzmai in Eretz Yisrael. He joined the fight of Eretz Yisrael’s Jews against autopsies, speaking at protest gatherings and meeting prime minister Levi Eshkol, and he directed the international effort for the release of Rav Yitzchak Hutner from the hijacked plane in 5730/1970. A master of the dikduk of lashon hakodesh, he held that “today English has become a language of Torah” and stood behind Torah sefarim in English.

His learning was marked by order and breadth: he taught that a lomed must first stand on the words of the gemara and the rishonim, and acquire wide beki’ut, before turning to the acharonim and to pilpul. Beside his shiurim in the yeshiva — among them a fixed shiur in masechet Chullin for those receiving semicha — he led a weekly group through two blatt of gemara with the Rif and the Rosh, through the Tur and Shulchan Aruch to halacha l’ma’aseh, gave a Mishnah Berurah shiur on Shabbat before kriat haTorah, and said mussar from Mesilat Yesharim and Chovot HaLevavot. His Torah is gathered in the Emet LeYaakov sefarim — on Shas, on Shulchan Aruch, and on Torah and Nevi’im with his observations in dikduk. After a stroke in 5744/1984 he lived in his daughter’s home in Baltimore; he was niftar on 29 Adar I 5746/1986 and was buried in Brooklyn. His sons include Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, rosh yeshiva of Philadelphia, and Rav Binyamin, founder of the Yeshiva of South Shore.