Monsey Memories: When Beis Medrash Elyon’s 25th Anniversary Was Marked

Yitzy Fried
In the fall of 1968, 25 years ago, a dinner was held in
Monsey, marking 25 years since the founding of the legendary institution Beis
Medrash Elyon (an article on the founding and the history of this special place
shall follow). In advance of this, Der Tog ran the following article.
“Beis Medrash Elyon, the first American bastion of lomdus in
the old style, within the thriving Torah city of Monsey, near Spring Valley,
which developed around the yeshiva.
This Sunday evening, a dinner will take place in Monsey, the
tiny hamlet at the edge of Spring Valley, in honor of 25 years since the
founding of Beis Medrash Elyon, through the great dreamer and even greater man
of action, Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz.
The event will not merely mark the yeshiva’s anniversary but rather the jubilee of an entire Torah city in Rockland County—on the other
side of the Hudson—that has grown into a Torah metropolis in the Torah world.
If one takes a walk in Monsey today, it would seem like they have wandered into
an idyllic Jewish shtetl of the old home which we so pine for and which was so
brutally cut away from us by the accursed oppressors.
Today, in Monsey, there are shuls, shtieblach, yeshivos and
mesivtos—but the root of it all, the crown jewel of all of them, is the Beis Medrash
Elyon, where 175 brilliant talmidim and yungeleit preoccupy themselves
exclusively with Torah learning.
Twenty-five years ago, when Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz,
founded the Beis Medrash, it was a proclamation of a new Torah direction in
Jewish life, a direction that had as its purpose to raise not only bnei Torah
and lomdei Torah, but also gedolei Torah who would be familiar with all areas
of Torah.
Twenty-five years ago, the idea of a Kolel for young married
men was a novelty. Even Yidden, who treasured Torah and understood Torah, did not
think above semicha for rabbonus as the highest ideal for a yeshiva student.
But, along came the pioneer, and gathered a group of
brilliant men from Torah Vodaath and sat them down to learn Torah lishmoh in
Monsey, far from the hustle and bustle of the city. This broke through the
hardened American landscape, enabling the concept of Torah lishmoh to thrive
here as well.
It is thanks to a small group of individuals that the
yeshiva has been able to thrive in the ensuing years. One of them is Reb Yoel
Tzvi Rosner, who, with his burning ahavas haTorah, dedicated himself to Beis
Medrash Elyon. Thus, the honor being given to him at this Sunday’s dinner is
well-deserved.
The dinner for Beis Medrash Elyon is more than a local event for a local institution; it is an important celebration of the growth of Torah and the development of Torah scholars in the United States of America.

