Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman

Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, known as the Grail, was one of the leading sages of his generation, rosh yeshivah of Gaon Yaakov and Orhot Torah and president of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Degel HaTorah. For close to eighty years he taught Torah in yeshivot and raised thousands of students, and in the last decades of his life he stood at the head of the Lithuanian Haredi public while living in a small, plainly furnished apartment in Bnei Brak, without titles and without pomp, carrying the burden of the needs of yeshivot, kollelim and families in Israel and abroad. He was born on the 14th of Cheshvan 5675 (November 1914) in the town of Kamenets, into a home of Torah and humility: his father, R. Noach Tzvi, was a melamed in Brisk and the supervisor of the town's eruv, and his mother, Gitel Faiga, came from a family of rabbis in Kamenets. As a child he studied in the local Talmud Torah, and at about eleven he entered Yeshivat Torat Chesed in Brisk, where the rosh yeshivah, Rabbi Moshe Sokolovsky, drew him close. In the family home, where a room was set aside for the rabbi of Brisk, Rabbi Yitzchak Ze'ev Soloveitchik, to register the town's marriages, the boy saw a great man of the generation face to face every day. At sixteen he went to study with Rabbi Pesach Pruskin in Kobrin, and in 1931 he moved to Yeshivat Kletzk under Rabbi Aharon Kotler, later returning to Torat Chesed. In his youth he formed bonds of Torah with Rabbi Soloveitchik and his sons, and was close to the dayan of Brisk, Rabbi Simcha Zelig Rieger, who ordained him. In 1937 Rabbi Shteinman left for Switzerland, after failing to obtain a certificate for the Land of Israel, and joined Yeshivat Etz Chaim in Montreux, headed by Rabbi Yerachmiel Eliyahu Botchko. There he began to deliver shiurim, and during the Second World War he knew hardship and wandering: as a Polish national he was interned in a labour camp in Switzerland, and after his release students gathered around him in Lucerne and became a framework of Torah within the Montreux yeshivah. In Tevet 5704 (1944) he married Tamar Kornfeld at a modest wedding, and afterwards settled in Lugano. In the summer of 5705 (1945) he immigrated to the Land of Israel via Spain and settled in Petah Tikva. His writings, sent ahead of him, were lost on the way; he earned his living by manual work in a workshop, and studied at the Beit Midrash LeTorat Eretz Yisrael in chavruta with Rabbi Chaim Shaul Karelitz. Half a year later, on the recommendation of the Chazon Ish, he was appointed rosh yeshivah of Yeshivat Chafetz Chaim in Kfar Saba, and in the summer of 5712 he headed the large yeshivah opened there in memory of Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski. In Elul 5715 Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman appointed him rosh yeshivah of Ponevezh LaTze'irim, and in 5725 he became rosh kollel of Ponevezh and, at the request of Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, held both posts together. In 5738 he founded Yeshivat Gaon Yaakov, and in Sivan 5758 (1998) Yeshivat Orhot Torah. Alongside his shiurim in the yeshivot he taught a weekly Gemara shiur at home, a halacha shiur in Mishneh Berurah, and a shiur in mussar and hashkafah from Derech Hashem and Nefesh HaChaim, and so, at his narrow table, he studied and taught until his final days. When Rabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach established the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Degel HaTorah in 5749 (1988), Rabbi Shteinman was invited to serve on it, and during the 1990s his influence in the community grew in matters of education, yeshivot and kollelim. After Rabbi Shach's passing in 2001 he was recognised as one of the leaders of the Lithuanian public alongside Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, and after Rabbi Elyashiv's passing he stood at the head of the majority camp. He guided the Chinuch Atzmai institutions and the Vaad HaYeshivot, the organizations of chesed and outreach, the newspaper Yated Ne'eman and dozens of funds and institutions; every day he received the public at his home for counsel and blessing, and dealt extensively with educational guidance, the direction of roshei yeshivah, shalom bayit and shidduchim. His humility, the simplicity of his life and his measure of yielding were his hallmark; yielding, yielding and yielding was his formula for a peaceful home. Rabbi Shteinman wrote some thirty books, among them the Ayelet HaShachar series on the Talmud and on the Torah. He passed away on the 24th of Kislev 5778 (12 December 2017) at the age of 103. In his will he asked to be buried within a few hours, without eulogies and without public notices, among simple people and in the cheapest of gravestones bearing no titles, and asked that those who wish to act for his merit study chapters of Mishnayot or Tehillim. Some two hundred thousand people accompanied his bier in Bnei Brak, and he was buried in the Ponevezh cemetery there.

Rabbi Shteinman left behind generations of students and a vast network of yeshivot, kollelim and institutions of education and chesed, together with some thirty books, foremost the Ayelet HaShachar series on the Talmud and the Torah. Neighbourhoods and streets and the Kiryat Ayelet HaShachar alongside Yeshivat Orhot Torah were named for him. But more than all else, what is remembered is the figure of a leader who stood at the head of thousands while sitting in a small apartment, and a will that spoke entirely of simplicity and humility, so that his path continues to influence the world of Torah and education for generations.