Living Legacy: Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzenski, zt”l

5 Av marked the yohrtzeit of the leader of Lithuanian Torah Jewry—widely considered the gadol hador of prewar Torah Jewry—Rav Chaim Ozer, zt”l.

When we think of a leader who carried the entire weight of the Torah world— the world of yeshivos that thrived before the Holocaust sent them all up in flames—we think of Rav Chaim Ozer, at whose doorstep in Vilna every dilemma affecting Yidden of his region landed. He was a sickly child in his youth, but he never forgot anything.

He was born in the year 1863, and learned under Rav Chaim of Volozin. His close friend in Volozin was Rav Chaim Brisker, with whom he remained close all of his life—working together to improve the lot of Yidden in Russia and Lithuania, spiritually and materially.

He married the daughter of the Rov of Vilna, a granddaughter of Rav Yisroel Salanter, and began serving on the beis din in Vilna.

His brilliance and leadership qualities were soon recognized, and with time he was appointed as Av Beis Din, and Chief Rabbi of Vilna. He was present at the founding of Agudas Yisroel in Katowice, and served as the head of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of the Agudah until his passing.

Vaad hayeshivos was founded by the Chofetz Chaim in 1924, in the aftermath of WWI, which nearly gutted all of Jewish life in Russia and Lithuania. It was designed to financially support the yeshivos throughout the region. Rav Chaim Ozer was appointed by the Chofetz Chaim to the leadership of Vaad Hayeshivos—a calling which he carried out with incredible dedication.

Related one Yid (we will identify him as Kuperstein): “My father came from a shtetl which was completely assimilated. He was the only frum boy from his entire city. Through a miraculous series of events, he came to the yeshiva of Rav Baruch Ber Leibowitz in Kamenitz, and remained there for eleven years. Once, when he passed through Vilna, he stopped into Rav Chaim Ozer, who asked him his name. The gadol immediately asked: ‘Kuperstein from that city?’ He added, ‘you are the only yeshiva bachur from this entire city, and so I remembered your name.’”

Can we imagine the dedication…? The Av Beis Din of Vilna, who learned Torah and was preoccupied with the greatest issues of his time without letup, memorized names from lists of thousands of yeshiva bachurim.

His efforts and his dedication were not limited to the great yeshivos and organizations; his sensitivity and love extended to every single Yid, from the greatest talmid chochom, to the lowliest pauper. Volumes could be filled with stories of his

Rav Chaim Ozer lost his only daughter during his lifetime, and he himself was niftar in the summer of 1940, a short time before the Nazis ym”sh arrived. Tzaddikim said that WWII could not reach Vilna until the tzaddik’s merit was no longer present in this world.

 

When we look around at Yiddishkeit thriving all around us, whether in the great Lithuanian yeshivos all around the world that have been reestablished by alumni of the great Torah centers, or in the Torah institutions that were led in America prior to the war by many of these alumni, until the arrival of the survivors from Europe—we appreciate the uniqueness of this gadol, Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, and his enduring living legacy.