Dozens of rabbinic leaders, Talmudic scholars and Torah educators gathered last weekend for a scholarly conference at Camp Gan Israel, the venerable Chabad-Lubavitch overnight camp in Parksville, N.Y.
The high-level conference known as Yarchei Kallah (literally, “months of the bride”—alluding to the marriage of the Jewish people to G‑d through Torah)—was held under the auspices of Agudas Chassidei Chabad, the umbrella organization for the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement. It is named for the medieval conferences when Babylonian scholars and laymen would gather semi-annually for month-long learning.
This year, many of the attendees were up-and-coming rabbis and scholars, sharing the podium with contemporaries sometimes more than double their age.
“For me, it is particularly moving to interact with my teachers and mentors from my yeshivah years,” says Rabbi Avrohom Lapidus, rosh yeshivah (head of academy) of the historic Torat Emet yeshivah, which was founded in Hebron in 1914 by the fifth Chabad Rebbe—Rabbi Sholom Dovber of Schneersohn, of righteous memory—and relocated to Jerusalem after the World War I. “There is so much discussion on such a variety of topics that it is impossible not to come away with a storehouse of new ideas and perspectives for the coming school year.”
Conference organizer Rabbi Avraham Shemtov, chairman of Agudas Chassidei Chabad called the annual retreat “a gathering of the best and brightest.” He added that “the mere fact that [the rabbinical leaders] get together in one place is a reason for celebration.”
On Saturday night, following Shabbat, the wider community attended a melava malka meal where rabbis and scholars presented talks on Jewish law, Talmud, Chassidic teachings and more, especially on the voluminous writings of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, father of the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
Learning, Experience and Wisdom
Since 1974, the Yarchei Kallah has taken place around the 20th day of the Hebrew month of Av, the anniversary of passing of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, who was the chief rabbi of Yekaterinoslav (currently Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine). He passed away in 1944 in Kazakhstan, having been exiled by the Soviets for his fearless leadership and determination to fight for the Jewish community’s right to serve G‑d in freedom.
The Rebbe welcomed the Yarchei Kallah initiative, which was founded to mark 30 years since his father’s passing, and noted with satisfaction that it was to be held at Gan Israel. Organizers point to the convergence of advanced Torah learning among the crowds of children as highlighting convergent key aspects of the Rebbe’s father’s life, beginning with his self-sacrifice on behalf of Jewish education for the young in the face of Soviet persecution and culminating with his lifelong devotion to advanced Torah scholarship.
They say it is especially noteworthy that half-a-dozen of the more than 50 attendees will be younger than 50, many of them the sons of longtime attendees of the summit.
In the words of Lapidus: “We get so much from this weekend. We learn a lot from the speakers, and we learn even more from the informal discussions that spring up between sessions. There is so much learning, so much experience and so much wisdom that we gain from mingling with our own rabbis and mentors.”
Rabbi Yisroel Friedman, rosh yeshivah of Oholei Torah in Brooklyn, N.Y., is known worldwide for the vast corpus of Talmudic commentary he has committed photographically to memory, an uncanny and razor-sharp analytical approach to discerning the underlying connective themes between seemingly disparate Talmudic exegeses, and for his clear legal renderings on a wide range of issues. At the same time, the 80-year-old sage has taught and mentored thousands of students. Many of them serve today as leading rabbis, teachers and rosh yeshivahs around the world.
Over the decades, his former students—regardless of their place in the Torah world—have ascribed their love for Torah learning to the rabbi, and expressed their appreciation and admiration for his humility and humor.
Rabbi Friedman, who has attended every conference since 1974, says he looks forward to meeting his former students (Lapidus being one of them) and seeing how much they have advanced since they sat in his classroom.
“It is a point of pride to visit with people who were once students,” he said, “and have now become teachers and leaders in their own right.”
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