By Yisroel Besser. It’s not every day that Bnei Brak turns to America to find a rosh yeshivah. But Rav Chaim Ginsburg, who was recently invited to head a newly established Kodashim Chaburah at the Ponovezher yeshivah, isn’t exactly a stranger. As a grandson of the famed mashgiach Rav Chatzkel Levenstein, the relationship between Reb Chaim and the yeshivah is both very long and deep

The elderly rosh yeshivah faced a sea of upturned faces, brows furrowed in concentration. It was Rav Aharon Leib Steinman’s first trip to America. The frail rosh yeshivah had undertaken the exhausting journey in the hope of providing American Yidden with chizuk, and this visit to Lakewood was a highlight of the trip; in this beis medrash, surrounded by thousands of bnei Torah and yungeleit, he was back home.

That shiur, 13 years ago, was his introduction to the American Torah world, one he would get to know quite well in the ensuing years. Speaking quietly, in the beginning, the Rosh Yeshivah’s voice became increasingly audible as the shiur progressed.

Suddenly, a question rang out. There was complete silence as it sat there, suspended in midair. Then Reb Aharon Leib looked up at the speaker, considering his question. It was as if he was back at the rickety table in Chazon Ish 5, surrounded by his talmidim in Bnei Brak.

Later, when I returned to the yeshivah dormitory, an impromptu discussion broke out regarding “Reb Chaim’s kushya.” The question was analyzed and rehashed. Some understood it,

others didn’t, but there was a general agreement that Reb Chaim Ginsburg, a leading rosh chaburah at the yeshivah, had done America proud; he’d shown the gadol from Bnei Brak that America also produced real talmidei chachamim.

Now, 13 years later, Reb Chaim has again given the American Torah world reason to stand a little taller. Bnei Brak — more specifically, the Ponovezh yeshivah — has reached out to distant America and invited Reb Chaim to serve as a rosh yeshivah for its newly established Kodashim Chaburah.

It is always pleasant to sit with talmidei chachamim; with Reb Chaim, it is especially so. There is something very approachable about him, a candor and warmth that explains the enthusiastic welcome he’s received from the talmidim at Ponovezh.

A Name for Your Rebbi This summer, at the conclusion of his first zman of delivering shiurim, Reb Chaim’s talmidim printed and bound the shiurim in a small kuntress. Reb Chaim has authored many seforim over the years, on a wide range of sugyos, but it’s clear that this booklet is special.

For Reb Chaim, Ponovezh is more than just a spiritual ascension; the return to Ponovezh is a return to his roots.

Just as our nation was molded and formed in the cauldron of Mitzrayim, so too did many of the great leaders of the post–World War II Torah renaissance experience the challenges and privation of wartime Shanghai. Hashem afforded special protection to one of our prime bastions of Torah, the Mirrer Yeshivah, keeping them a step ahead of their Nazi pursuers as they journeyed through Siberia, Japan, and ultimately to China. In Shanghai, they found a Jewish community and a shul at their disposal. Evidence that this was Divinely prepared for them is the fact that the shul had exactly as many seats as the yeshivah had talmidim!

The war-weary and bedraggled group resumed their learning with renewed vigor. Rather than break them, the oppressive heat and hunger of the Shanghai years spawned more Torah, more mussar, forming a long, uninterrupted song of emunah. At the Mirrer Yeshivah’s head marched an angel, saintly in countenance and comportment, the mashgiach, Reb Chatzkel Levenstein, who directed the yeshivah’s steps with calculations clearly coming from a world beyond.

Even as he dispensed practical advice, literally telling talmidim when to move and where to move, which rooms would be safe from falling bombs and which rooms would not, it was evident that he was elsewhere, on a higher plane.

The Mashgiach’s meager material needs were seen to by his devoted daughter — Rebbetzin Zlata Ginsburg. Her husband, Reb Ephraim Mordechai, was one of the exceptional talmidei chachamim of the yeshivah, selected, according to family legend, by the Mashgiach himself as a match for his daughter.

It was in Shanghai that Rebbetzin Ginsburg gave birth to three sons.

The oldest was named Yehuda Tzvi, after Reb Chatzkel’s father and after his rebbi, Reb Hirsch Broide, son-in-law of the Alter of Kelm.

Reb Ephraim Mordechai wanted to name his second son for the recently departed gadol hador, Reb Chaim Ozer Grodzensky. When he shared his intentions with his father-in-law, Reb Chatzkel asked, “And what about giving a name for your rebbi, Reb Yerucham?”

And so with Reb Shima’le of Amshinov as sandak, the baby was named Chaim Yerucham.

The relationship between Reb Chatzkel and Reb Yerucham was deep. Reb Chatzkel had been born to a chassidishe home in Warsaw. Orphaned of his mother when he was very young, he left home when he was in his teens, first for the yeshivah in Makova, then Lomza, and then in Radin. There, the mashgiach, Reb Yerucham, identified the root of his soul and sent him to the mussar yeshivah of Kelm.

Later, when Reb Yerucham temporarily vacated his post at the Mirrer Yeshivah, his old talmid Reb Chatzkel was invited to replace him as the Mirrer mashgiach. When Reb Yerucham returned, Reb Chatzkel left quietly to resume life as a simple yungerman in Kelm.

Eventually, Reb Chatzkel moved to Eretz Yisrael, assuming the position of mashgiach at the Lomza Yeshivah in Petach Tikvah.

Reb Yerucham was niftar in 1936. The Mirrer rosh yeshivah, Reb Leizer Yudel Finkel, turned to Reb Chatzkel again. This time, though, it was more complicated.

Reb Chatzkel was already established in the emerging Torah world in Eretz Yisrael, where he transmitted the path of mussar.

In Mir, Reb Yerucham had left behind a cadre of very loyal talmidim who were content to remain connected with their great rebbi through reviewing the notes of his shmuessen; they had no need for a new mashgiach.

In fact, Reb Ephraim Mordechai, who was learning in the Mir at the time and was part of that chaburah, wrote to his father-in-law and suggested that it might be difficult for Reb Chatzkel to be accepted by the talmidim.

Reb Chaim smiles. “My mother would always tell us my zeideh’s answer. ‘When a fire burns, one doesn’t make cheshbonos. He tries to save the people.’ He felt that for a yeshivah like Mir to be without mussar was dangerous. So he came.”

In one of his first shmuessen, Reb Chatzkel addressed those who would have him follow Reb Yerucham’s path. “A mashgiach iz nisht kein malpeh — a mashgiach is not a monkey!”

Regarding the steadfast refusal of many of Reb Yerucham’s talmidim to accept the new mashgiach, Reb Chatzkel said, “You have to feel for them. They’ve lost their rebbi and it hurts!”

Mir Reborn When galus Shanghai came to a close, Reb Ephraim Mordechai had an opportunity to travel to Eretz Yisrael, a lifelong dream of his. The Brisker Rav, under whom he’d learned, had obtained for him an affidavit. However, he opted, instead, to accompany his father-in-law to America.

Reb Chatzkel reassumed his position as Mirrer mashgiach in New York, and Reb Ephraim Mordechai was asked to deliver the yeshivah’s highest shiur. In time, Reb Chatzkel found himself unable to adapt to America and he returned to Eretz Yisrael, where he ultimately became mashgiach to a generation of roshei yeshivah in Ponovezh. His son-in-law stayed on American shores, where he brought up his Shanghai-born children in a milieu very different from the Lita he’d known.

The Mirrer Yeshivah’s first American home was in the Ashford Street shul in East New York, and the Ginsburg family moved to that neighborhood.

Soon after, the yeshivah moved to Flatbush, but the Ginsburgs remained in East New York. “On Shabbos we davened in Beis HaTalmud,” Reb Chaim recalls. “It was just two long tables, with Reb Leib Malin in the front. But it was two tables with gedolei olam, the likes of Reb Chaim Wisoker and Reb Shmuel Charkover, on either side!”

The conversation then turns to his father, Reb Ephraim Mordechai, of whom Reb Chaim says, “His life was learning. My mother was in charge of stretching his meager salary to feed our growing family. If he needed something, he would say ‘Zlata, ich nem a dollar — I’m taking a dollar.’ That was the extent of it.”

Reb Ephraim Mordechai never learned any English, but he was tolerant and understanding of his American children, allowing them to remain children even as he imbued them with dreams of Torah greatness.

“He encouraged us to play ball with the other boys and to ride bikes. He even allowed us to follow the Yankees on our little radios. If my father saw us reading a children’s book, he would smile and say, ‘Enjoy it, but if you like reading stories maybe read Tanach. It’s more interesting and one day you’ll be happy you did.’ My mother would gently tease him and say, ‘Der Tatte is a democrat.’ But she agreed with his liberal manner toward us.”

Reb Chaim suddenly rises and returns with a notebook.

“Do you want to know who my father was? This was my father.”

He shows me a thin blue notebook with page after page of impeccable handwriting that spills over the margins.

“My father spent two years by the Brisker Rav and these are his notes of those shiurim, many of which were printed as the Chiddushei HaGrach. The precision and depth of my father are evident in these pages.”

Reb Chaim next shows me a worn briefcase, a symbol of the Lithuanian Torah world: beaten, battered, all sorts of scars on its faded exterior. Inside, however, as he explains, the Torah is pure and intact.

“My father brought his notes from the Shanghai war years with him to America. Once we had a fire in our apartment in East New York and my father came out with this briefcase in his hands.

“There’s lots of Torah on Yevamos. They learned Yevamos for two zmanim, since they had no other Gemaros when they were in Japan, in transit.”

Waving a sheaf of paper, he says, his voice filled with warmth and longing, “Shanghaier Torah.”

See full article in this week’s Mishpacha Magazine.