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The history of the Telsher Yeshiva is unique. Commonly in those days, Jews devoted to Torah were concerned with young men in their area who were eager to study, and organized lessons for them without having the least notion that they were beginning to build something that would last for generations. Over time, however, the institution came to be. Students arrived, and it seemed as though all by itself a lamp began to burn that brought the light of Torah to the wider Jewish world.

It also was not unusual for a leading scholar to sit alone in his study, while his name was well–known among learned people in surrounding towns. Students who were ambitious in their Torah studies would gather around him. He would realize his responsibility and teach them what they demanded to learn. And over time a great institution of Torah arose, growing famous and standing as a blessing for the Jewish people.

These two factors contributed to the creation of the famous Telsher Yeshiva, which introduced a new epoch in Torah study based on deep understanding and intense thought.

Several talented young men, who had recently married and were still supported by their in–laws, became the core of the new Telsher Yeshiva in 1875. Over time, these young men achieved worldwide fame for their scholarship. Among them were Hagaon Reb Meir Atlas, zt”l^[4], who later became the rabbi of Shavel [Šiauliai]; Hagaon Reb Tzvi Yaakov Oppenheim, zt”l, who became the rabbi of Kelm [Kelmė]; and Hagaon Reb Zalmen Abel, zt”l, who died while still a young man. Their intention was not to create a big yeshiva. They simply gathered young men of pure character and studied Torah with them. Over the course of a few years their work developed, and they created a well–respected place for young men to study, a place where they could become familiar with its distinctive approach to Torah study, and to taste its distinctive wisdom.

At the same time that this seed was sprouting in Telshe, Hagaon Reb Eliezer Gordon, zt”l, was a young man in Kovno [Kaunas], where he married the daughter of the Gaon and Tzaddik, Reb Avraham Yitzchok Nevyazher, z”l^[5], who was a rabbinical judge there.

When the Gaon and Chasid Reb Yisroel Salanter ztsuk”l^[6] left Kovno to spread the teachings of Torah and Mussar^[7] throughout the world, he designated this young scholar [Rabbi Eliezer Gordon] as his replacement to give Torah lectures to the young men there who were his same age.

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A short time later the city of Kelm hired him as their rabbi. He had no plans to establish a yeshiva; nonetheless, talented and accomplished students flocked to study with him. The members of the yeshiva had no means of financial support, and they suffered bitter poverty. They received only a portion of their most urgent needs from the local townspeople.

Among the students who came to study Torah with Hagaon Reb Eliezer Gordon, zt”l, the youngest and yet most prominent was Hagaon Reb Yosef Leib Bloch, zt”l, who was later to shape the Telsher yeshiva's character and approach to Torah study.

Reb Yosef Leib spent five years studying with his teacher in Kelm. The two of them developed a close bond, and they decided together to commit themselves to spreading the new approach to study, which relied on clear thinking and logic.

In 1882, when the rabbinate in Telshe was vacant, the representatives of the Jewish people, led by the young men who had created the new institution of Torah, selected the Gaon of Kelm as their rabbi. He arrived in Telshe with a group of his students, and this became the foundation for the development of the great and world–renowned Telsher yeshiva.

That same year, several months later, Hagaon Mohari'l^[8] [Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch] married [Chasya] the daughter of Hagaon Reb Eliezer [Gordon] zt”l, and joined him in the task of developing plans and making the new yeshiva a reality. In 1884 he [Rabbi Gordon] was officially named the rosh yeshiva.

By then the Telsher Yeshiva had already earned a shining reputation, and its numbers kept increasing. All of the greatest rabbis of that generation recognized the right of the yeshiva to send fundraisers everywhere there was a Jewish community.

In the year 1885 Hagaon Reb Shimon Shkop, zt”l, was named one of the leaders of the yeshiva in Telshe, and, together with the aforementioned Gaonim [Rabbi Eliezer Gordon and Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch], he helped articulate the distinctive Telsher approach to the study and analysis of Torah.

In 1895 the yeshiva building was erected. Until that point classes had been held in the town's large study hall.

For 17 years the Gaon Mohari'l [Rabbi Yosek Leib Bloch], ztsuk'l, worked with his father–in–law to expand and refine the yeshiva's operations. In 1902 he left Telshe to become the rabbi of Vorne [Varniai], where he spent two and a half years. He then moved to Shadeve [Šeduva], where he served as rabbi for six years.

In Shadeve, too, students came to study with him, and a famous yeshiva was established there.

Later, Hagaon Reb Shimen Shkop, zt”l, left the yeshiva to take rabbinical posts, first in Maltsh [Malech / Малеч, today in Western Belarus] and then Bryansk. He also organized yeshivas in the cities where he served as rabbi. After the First World War he was chosen as the rosh yeshiva in Grodno, a position he held with success until the last day of his life, October 22, 1939.

In the year 1904 Hagaon Reb Chaim Rabinovitz, zt”l, who was famed for his extraordinarily penetrating analyses of Torah, was named rosh yeshiva.

In 1909 a great fire broke out in Telshe, and most of the buildings, among them the yeshiva, were burnt down. Hagaon Reb Eliezer Gordon, who was a devoted father not only to his students but to the entire city, worked tirelessly to rebuild the city from the ashes, including the construction of a wonderful new building for the yeshiva.

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However, these undertakings left him deeply in debt, and in his old age he was forced to travel to London to seek assistance in repaying those debts.

His noble soul could not withstand this anxiety about money, and several days after his arrival in London, his holy spirit breathed its last on February 13, 1910.

Hagaon Reb Yosef Leib Bloch, zt”l, was summoned to Telshe immediately after the death of his father–in–law to take the latter's place at the yeshiva and in the town. That marked a new epoch in the yeshiva. In addition to the distinctive approach to halachah that the founders of the yeshiva had introduced, there began a new era in religious and moral thought. This was linked to a profound, logical approach closely tied to the foundations of religious philosophy. In this respect the Gaon Mohari'l [Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch] was the wonderful master and outstanding pedagogue, who knew how to refine the young men's souls and elevate them in the worlds of wisdom and holiness.

In 1914, when the First World War broke out, Reb Yosef Leib Bloch and Reb Chaim Rabinovitz stayed in town rather than flee as refugees. Together with them there remained a large number of students, who continued their studies amidst the exploding bombs and the horror of war. A year later, when Vilna (Vilnius) was taken by the Germans, many of the students who had been driven to Russia returned to the yeshiva, and their number began to increase again.^[9]

After the First World War the Telsher Yeshiva became a worldwide center. Students from all over Europe, South Africa, and North America came there en masse.

A party at the Yavneh Gymnasium with the students of the upper grades, with Director Trachtenberg and the teachers

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The Gaon Mohari'l [Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch], zt”l, the great leader and popular educator, also taught his students the spirit of Mussar. During the period of Lithuanian independence, when all of the education institutions were reformed according to modern principles, the yeshiva expanded its scope to the education of younger students. The first task was the establishment of a preparatory school for the advanced yeshiva, where students were admitted who had some knowledge of Talmud, Rashi, and Tosafos. The course of study in the preparatory school lasted four and a half years, and included instruction in various subjects.

Elementary education was not neglected, either. Under the direction and guidance of the Gaon Mohari'l [Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch], the educators in the yeshiva devoted themselves to developing these grade levels in a manner fully consistent with Torah, fear of Heaven, and modern principles. Education in Telshe served as a model for religious education throughout Lithuania.

The education of girls was also influenced by the yeshiva. The girls' gymnasium Yavne in Telshe graduated Jewish girls who had knowledge of Torah as well as other subjects.^[10]

The Yavne teachers' seminary, which was established in 1918 in Kovno, was transferred to Telshe in 1924, so that it could benefit from the influence of the Gaon Mohari'l, zt”l, and from the tradition of the Telsher Yeshiva.

The most amazing thing was that these expanded spheres of activity in no way reduced the concentration on study of Torah, and the “voice of Torah” rang out day and night.

In 1921 the yeshiva established a rabbinical kollel, which provided its members advanced training in Torah and fear of God, and produced the greatest and most well–respected rabbis, who occupied leading positions.

That same year Hagaon Reb Avrom Yitzchok Bloch, ztsk'l, may his blood be avenged, was named as one of the leaders of the yeshiva. With his great analytical and logical powers, he popularized the teachings of his father and master and implanted in the students the distinctive Telsher approach to learning and life, devoting himself body and soul.

In 1927 the rabbinical kollel moved into its own building, and in 1933 a fine building was erected to house the preparatory school.

The expansion and ramification of the work demanded effective, creative efforts. The Gaonim Reb Zalmen Bloch, Reb Eliyahu Meir Bloch, Reb Chaim Mordkhe Katz, and Reb Avner Oklyansky were named Roshei Yeshiva and directors.

The Gaon Mohari'l [Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch], ztsuk'l, died on November 9, 1929.^[11] His last will to his children and students was that they should sanctify the Name of God in all of their deeds. He did not find it necessary to say any more, remarking that, thank God, he was leaving behind scholars who would know and understand what they had to do.

His son, Hagaon Reb Avrom Yitzkhok Bloch, was appointed as his successor, and together with him the students of the great master continued the path of Torah and faith that he had taught.

Hagaon Reb Chaim Rabinovitz died on October 30, 1930,^[12] and his son, Hagaon Reb Azriel Rabinovitz, was named as his successor.

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A distinctive chapter of blessed work is the spreading of Torah that the students of the yeshiva undertook. A special “Council for the Diffusion of Torah” was created, in order to increase the study of Torah among the younger generation in the cities and towns of Lithuania. Students of the yeshiva were sent to various places to establish elementary yeshivas and teach the students there until they were ready to enter the advanced yeshiva. Each of these emissaries was sent for a year, after which others arrived to take their place. This model served as an example for other yeshivas, and did much to advance the spread of Torah in Lithuania.

In this fashion the Telsher yeshiva continued to grow, and its influence on the education of several generations continued to increase.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, and even under the Soviets, the yeshiva didn't interrupt its work^[13]. But in the middle of Elul^[14] an order was issued decreeing that, due to housing shortages, all the students of the yeshiva–over 500 all told–would be dispersed to five separate towns in Lithuania. After this dispersal the leaders of the yeshiva had to constantly travel from town to town in order to teach the students. The studies continued, and the students continued to exhibit enthusiasm and concentration. Thus it went until the beginning of the German occupation, on June 23, 1941.^[15]

The leaders of the yeshiva, together with the rest of the Jews of Telshe, were martyred at the hand of the murderous Nazis on July 15, 1941.^[16]

That ended an era of over 70 years in the history of Jewish scholarship, which the Telsher Yeshiva had spread throughout the world.

The writer of these lines, together with his brother–in–law Reb Chaim–Mordkhe Katz, shlit”a,^[17] left Telshe on September 4, 1940, and after long journeys through Siberia, Japan, and the Pacific, they arrived in America in November of that year. For a year, until the war broke out between Germany and Russia [on June 22, 1941], they managed to save a group of ten students of the yeshiva who made their way to America via Siberia, Japan, and Australia. On October 28, 1941, the anniversary of the death of Hagaon, Our Master, Yosef Yehuda Leib Bloch, ztsuk'l, the Telsher yeshiva was opened in a small house in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Telshe Yeshiva in the year 1961 in Cleveland (United States) with Rabbis Eliahu Bloch and Motl Katz

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The yeshiva [in Cleveland] quickly began to grow, and students from all parts of the United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, began to arrive. Many of these were young men who had planned to travel to Europe to continue their studies. The building was too small for the large number of students who wanted to enter the yeshiva, and the directors had to buy a large new building.

In the beginning of 1944 the yeshiva moved into the new building. From that point on, the yeshiva grew and regained its fame. Students from North and South America, Australia, South Africa, and even the Land of Israel and various European countries, come to the Telsher Yeshiva to be imbued with its spirit of Torah wisdom. The yeshiva includes a three–level preparatory section, where students who have some experience studying Talmud with Tosafos^[18] enter and prepare themselves for the yeshiva.

The yeshiva also has a senior and junior high school, accredited by the Board of Education of the State of Ohio.

On September 7, 1943, a Hebrew elementary school, the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland, was opened, starting with kindergarten and the lowest grades. Now there's a complete elementary school and the first year of high school, whose students are ready to enter the preparatory division of the advanced yeshiva.

In Elul of 1947^[19] a kollel was established, where outstanding students of the yeshiva could continue their studies, in order to enrich their knowledge of Torah and faith, thus becoming imbued with the fullest perspective of the Telsher Yeshiva.

In November 1948 a teachers' seminary was established.

Thus was rescued a great treasure for world Jewry–the Torah center known as the Telsher Yeshiva.

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Rabbi Eli[yahu] Meir Bloch was born in Telshe on Simchat Torah in 1894.

His father was the Gaon Rabbi Joseph Leib Bloch, ztz”l, the Rabbi of Telshe and the Rosh Yeshiva of that city's renowned Telshe Yeshiva. He received his education [both] in the Telshe Yeshiva and in his father's home, which was a center of great Torah scholars.

While still quite young he began to be active in the fields of education. From the age of 18 he was the chairman of the Educational Council, which was founded in Telshe in the year 1912.

He had by then already displayed great talent, and he developed that institution into one of Lithuania's model educational organizations.

After World War I, he was one of the founders of the youth group Tse'ire Israel [“Youth of Israel”] which became the predecessor of the later Tse'ire Agudas Israel.

In 1920 he became the son-in-law of Rabbi Avraham Moshe HaKohen Kaplan, a respectable Torah scholar and successful merchant in Memel [later known as Klaipėda].

While he was in Memel he dedicated himself primarily to the organization of a Torah true Jewish community. He organized the local Talmud Torah there as well as a group of young men to learn in depth a daily Daf Gemara [“Page of Talmud”].

In 1925, he was among the organizers of the network of Orthodox educational institutions in Lithuania called Yavne. In the same year he also founded a gymnasium [advanced high school] for girls in Telshe, which was one of the most successful Orthodox educational institutions for girls in Europe.

In 1928 he was appointed as the Rosh Yeshiva [Dean] of the Telshe Yeshiva and soon became a pillar of this world-renowned Torah center. In the same year as well as two years later [in 1930] he visited America where he [succeeded] in developing a lot of friends and supporters of the yeshiva who [ensured] its survival and its growth.

In 1931, he was among those who reactivated the periodical Yiddish Lebn [“Jewish Life”]. After a hiatus [of some length of time], the aforementioned Orthodox periodical was reactivated by the Tse'ire Agudas Israel [organization] in Lithuania, whose headquarters were in Telshe, and he [Rabbi Bloch] was one of its pillars. He was a frequent contributor to the Yiddish Lebn and he also published spiritually rich articles in the Hebrew-language journal Ha-Ne'eman [“The Faithful One”] about various contemporary problems.

In 1936 he participated as delegate from Lithuania in the Knessia Mechina [Preparatory Convention] in Marienbad^[1].

After Lithuania was occupied by the Red Army [in June 1940], he succeeded in fleeing to America and soon after his arrival he

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threw himself into various rescue activities in which he participated until the end of the war.

1n 1941, together with his brother-in-law Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Katz, may he live and be well, he founded the Telshe Yeshiva [in Cleveland, Ohio] which grew into the most respected and most popular yeshiva in the world. However, he did not limit his educational work to the Yeshiva. In Cleveland itself, he organized a yeshiva ketana [a Jewish primary school] (called the Hebrew Academy), which today is one of the largest elementary-school level yeshivas in the country. Besides this, he also took a great interest in founding elementary-level yeshivas in other localities and also inspired his students to dedicate themselves to the spreading of Torah [Jewish education].

At the same time he actively participated in building up the Agudas Israel movement in America, where he became one of its chief spokespersons. In the last years he was continuously in the leadership of the Agudah in America, and also a prominent member of the international Agudas Israel movement.

In 1947, he participated, as representative of the American Agudas Israel in the Agudas Israel world congress in Marienbad. He also took part in Paris in the preparatory conference to the fourth Knessia Gedola [“World Congress”]. He opened the fourth Knessia Gedola and gave a memorial speech for the kedoshim^[2] of Europe.

He visited Eretz Israel several times and planned to open there a branch of the Telshe Yeshiva.

Although he was ill for a length of time, his interest did not lessen even for a second, in the Yeshiva and in other communal matters. From his sickbed, he remained interested in all of the smallest details of the religious and spiritual status of the Yeshiva and all the problems [facing] the Agudas Israel movement, as well as in the news coming from Israel.

As before, he corresponded regularly with rabbis, communal activists, members of the Yeshiva community, and communal leaders, from near and far, and he made known his position on various problems [issues].

He rose up to heaven, in holiness and purity, on the holy Sabbath [of the reading of the Torah portion Parashat Va-era, [Saturday, January 22,]1955. May his soul be bound up in everlasting life.

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The Torah World recently suffered a terrible and irreplaceable loss with the passing of the Gaon^[3]. Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch, ztz”l.^[4] One who was among the select few of the great Torah luminaries of our generation has left us; a great Rosh Yeshiva,^[5] outstanding for spreading the teachings of the Torah, who accomplished much in the field of Torah dissemination and education. And he left us right in the midst of his great accomplishments, so that hundreds of his Torah students are feeling literally like a “ship which has lost its captain at sea.” The writer of these lines does not feel competent to provide a full portrait of his spiritually rich personality. That will surely be done by others who are more qualified. The purpose of this article is solely to illuminate one aspect of this colorful personality: The importance of Rabbi Bloch to the Agudas Israel movement?

The Agudas Israel movement feels itself particularly orphaned and bereft. Its loss consists not only in that a great leader has been torn from its midst, a leader who served it with heart and soul, and who contributed so much to it; but especially because an exemplary personality has been taken from the Agudas Israel. Rabbi Bloch, ztz”l, served as an example of a great Torah leader within the Agudas Israel movement. With his courage, fearlessness, and dismissal of all considerations that might be contradictory to the Agudah's mission – even well-intentioned ones - he was one of the rare outstanding few among the great Torah leaders who totally identified with the Agudas Israel. Although he was the leader of a large yeshiva, he nevertheless always simultaneously saw before his eyes the image of the entire Jewish People. This image of the Jewish People is what guided and showed him that the only way to restore the Jewish People back to “good health,” back to its true original roots, was through the Agudas Israel. He understood very well that only the Agudas Israel could give back to the Jewish People that of which it had been robbed by various free-thinking elements and movements.

More than once, in his speeches about the Agudah's ideology, Rabbi Bloch focused on the point that the Agudas Israel had never intended to become a new Jewish religious school of thought for the individual Jew. That [work] had to be done by the yeshivas, the prayer houses, the Chassidic community, or the groups following the Mussar movement.^[6] The Agudas Israel had never intended to replace [the great yeshivas of] Slabodka, Mir, Radun, [and] Lublin, and certainly not the Chassidic centers of Ger, Tshortkov, Lubavitch, Satmar, and Klausenberg. Those are great and holy centers

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which shape the souls of thousands of individuals, each one according to his own style. What the Agudas Israel did assume as its duty was to bring back to the Jewish masses the age-old historic recognition that the Torah and Jewish cultural heritage are not only the domain of the individual, but are also the domain of the community at large, the domain of the entire Jewish People.

This very idea which the free-thinking elements had unfortunately succeeded in implanting into the minds of the Jewish masses, namely, the historically false assertion that the Torah is, G'd forbid, a private matter for each individual, and is not connected to the life of the Jewish People as a whole; this very [idea] the Agudah strove to uproot from Jewish life – as if it were a foreign plant which had been grafted (onto it) from the non-Jewish world.

From this very consciousness, that the Torah and Yiddishkeit [Jewish cultural heritage] belong to the [Jewish] People, it naturally must follow that every act and every transaction that is national in its nature – whether in the political or social arena - must be regulated according to the spirit and the word of the Torah, in the exact same manner as every individual act or individual transaction must be so regulated. In short, the aspiration of the Agudas Israel was to bring the Torah and Yiddishkeit back to communal life, the same as it had been throughout the thousands of years of existence of the Jewish People.

It was this holy and great idea that Rabbi Bloch, ztz”l, served with such exemplary self-sacrifice, so that there were times that even his closest friends were in awe [of him]. He was capable of lifting himself up above the most difficult personal and social conditions in the service of this ideal.

The writer of these lines met Rabbi Bloch for the first time, in the Agudah arena, 15 years ago, in Vilna.^[7] That was a terrible period for the Torah community. Driven out of their established yeshiva centers, they wandered as refugees in the houses of study of Vilna. The problem of the day, at that time, was how to find a piece of bread to keep oneself alive. The

threat that Soviet Russia would spread its wings over Lithuania, to which Vilna by then belonged, and thereby seal the fate of thousands of the Torah world, literally hung over their heads. Every day they prepared themselves for the arrival of the Russians. Everyone was completely involved with searching for ways and means to get out of the trap, and to escape through the almost totally sealed borders (which prevented) migration.

One can well imagine how the heads of the yeshivas felt about the tragic situation of the Torah community, and what kind of problems they had to struggle with. In these very circumstances, Rabbi Bloch, who was then the Rosh Yeshiva of the Telshe Yeshiva, considered it necessary and possible to come to Vilna. Speaking before a large mass gathering, with his blessed oratorical gifts, he developed with great brilliance the ideas of the Agudas Israel. Whoever was familiar with the situation at that time, could appreciate the great courageous spirit which this [act] required, especially because such an activity involved a dangerous risk to life, in view of the approaching political changes. He [Rabbi Bloch] knew, however, that Agudas Israel was not a luxury that could be postponed until “normal times,” but that it was an historical necessity and that no circumstances should delay it.

I had occasion to experience a second instance when Rabbi Bloch rose above (was unmoved by) circumstances, when Rabbi Bloch visited the State of Israel three years ago and I too happened to be there at that time. He had come on a special mission to set up a branch of the Telshe Yeshiva in the State of Israel. His visit was supposed to be a very short one. One can imagine the work and the problems involved with this [mission]. Nevertheless, Rabbi Bloch considered it necessary and possible to appear publicly before an Agudah gathering in

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Jerusalem and (participate) in a presentation to establish the Agudas Israel's ideological position with regard to the State of Israel in general, and with regard to its leaders in particular.^[8] The presentation was a masterful work of art, which required a great deal of courage. However, not for one minute did he take into consideration that his words of criticism, which he ‘flung’ in the faces of the leaders of the State - whose favor he then needed with regard to his mission - might harm his plan to set up a branch of the Yeshiva. At that time I heard from the distinguished men of the city of Jerusalem that such a brilliant and courageous presentation had never before been heard in Jerusalem from the lips of an Agudas Israel leader.

The greatest miracle in terms of his courage and fearlessness was displayed, however, when he needed to transplant the Telshe Yeshiva to American soil, where, in order to support a yeshiva, one is often required to lower oneself and prostrate oneself to various wealthy people. In this place there is a widespread and false view which has developed into a myth, that the idea of the Agudas Israel is a disadvantage when raising funds for a yeshiva. On this very issue, however, Rabbi Bloch never hid his support for the Agudah. Wherever he went and wherever he stood, he proclaimed his philosophical connection to the Agudah. He allowed himself to do so, despite the fact that the [Telshe] Yeshiva was his life mission, relying upon the principle that “It is Time to Act for the L'rd, for they have violated your Torah.”^[9] And Rabbi Bloch sincerely believed that in today's times we are in the situation of “It is Time to Act for the L'rd.”

His consistency and integrity were particularly visible in Cleveland itself – the headquarters of the Telshe Yeshiva. In Cleveland there were groups who were waiting for Rabbi Eliyahu Meir, ztz”l, to request from them funds for the Yeshiva. And they would have given willingly and with a generous hand, which might have solved the financial problems of the Yeshiva. But he did not do it, because, perhaps, this [act] might be incorrectly interpreted by someone in the wrong way, as a kind of approval of the philosophy of this group.

For this consistency and fearlessness, Rabbi Bloch was rewarded and he merited to experience (from the original Hebrew) “When the L'rd accepts a person's ways, He will cause even his enemies to make peace with him.”^[10] This means that when the Master of the Universe approves the ways of a person, then even his foes make peace with him. In the end, both friends and opponents recognized his truthfulness and uprightness, and they always were helpful in supporting his Yeshiva, which developed into one of the greatest and best Torah centers of America. He was the one who dispelled the false and fabricated myth that being outspoken about the Agudah is an obstacle to the support and maintenance of a yeshiva in America.

In this very sense, in terms of courage, fearlessness, self-sacrifice, and complete identification with the Agudas Israel, Rabbi Bloch was truly an exemplary personality whose loss cannot be replaced.

His luminous and virtuous personality was a living refutation of an additional widespread and unfounded legend with regard to the Agudas Israel. Opponents, some of them with malicious intentions, and some, without any bad intentions, spread a myth, far and wide, that the “Agudas Israel is a political party, with the same political schemes as other political parties.” This false and fabricated myth -- it must be admitted–spread around and was embedded in the beliefs of many naïve and unknowledgeable people. But those who

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knew the character and personality of Rabbi Bloch, who represented the essence of purity, decency, uprightness, and truth, knew how far Rabbi Bloch was from political schemes. Nevertheless, the same Rabbi Bloch fully approved and found to be correct all the political steps and negotiations which the Agudas Israel needed to carry out from time to time.

Rabbi Bloch well understood that if politics has become “discredited” and generates unpleasant “associations” among people, it is only so because it is in the hands of undesirable elements who abuse it, just as they abuse, without a doubt, a lot of positive values. For oftentimes, people make politics into a (primary) objective, instead of using it as a means to an end. But when politics is used in its pure original sense, then it is a useful and necessary element. For what does politics mean in its original sense? It means simply the art of regulating relationships with groups of a different philosophy, which life obligates one to come into contact with. Just as the individual must know how to regulate his behavior with regard to other individuals, with whom he comes into contact, the same is valid for a group. When utilizing political methods, the Agudas Israel always did and to this day still does practice it in its purest and most idealistic form. Politics for the sake of politics, or for the sake of party prestige, never had a place in the Agudas Israel, if only for the simple reason that all of its political steps must go through the approval process and be endorsed by Da'as Torah.^[11] If, for example, party interests were to come into conflict with the interests of Chizuk Hada'as,^[12] which is the ultimate purpose of the Agudas Israel, party interests would never take the upper hand, which unfortunately is the case with other religious parties.

One detail among many others, of recent times, illustrates this well. When the Agudas Israel stepped down from the Israeli government, after having participated in it for four and a half years, it was a crushing blow for the movement as a whole. The party's prestige suffered greatly, and a terrible incitement campaign against it began. The Agudah lost good government positions. It lost many other benefits which a party in a government enjoys. In short, in terms of party interests, it was a very unfortunate step and the Agudas Israel knew this very well. It nevertheless went forward with it, for sitting in the government under those circumstances was against the interests of Torah Judaism, according to the rulings of the great Torah leaders. It therefore gave up its party interests in favor of the higher Torah interests. Can one call this party politics? Did any other party, including any religious party, raise itself to such a high standard? It seems appropriate to quote here the great saintly Gaon Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, may G'd avenge his blood,^[13] and may his merits protect us, who said: “Just as we say, the House of Israel is not like all the nations, so too, the Agudas Israel is not like all the parties.” Rabbi Bloch understood this very well, and illustrated it with his own personality.

Another interesting and rare aspect of Rav Bloch's personality is worth mentioning here, an aspect seldom seen in life and certainly not among the great Torah leaders. Although he was of the highest rank and among the elect few of the leaders of the movement, he was also able, at the same time, to be a simple “foot soldier.” Being among the most important leaders and within the

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ranks of the World Agudas Israel, a member of the presidium of the American Agudas Israel, a member of the Mo'etzes Gedolei Ha-Torah (the Council of the Great Torah Sages which transcended all the branches and levels of the Agudah), at the same time he found it possible and necessary to be a member of the local branch of the Agudah in Cleveland. Whoever observed him at various conventions, meetings, and particularly at the last, fourth, Knessia Gedolah [“the great gathering”], where he was given the great honor of opening the proceedings, could see him serving as a true soldier, carrying out instructions, which perhaps were sometimes not in keeping with his own personal opinion and position. One never felt that he was doing someone a favor by attending a meeting or a convention. For him, this was a self-understood obligation, which he carried out whole heartedly. For him, when it came to the Agudas Israel, the concept of great or small did not exist. He gave no less consideration (or importance) to that which is usually referred to as “small.” He knew that every single thing in Agudas Israel, as small as it might appear, was a ring in the holy chain of Chizuk HaTorah and Judaism. And just as a chain is not complete if a link is missing, so too is it in the life of a movement.

A Torah giant has left us, a luminous, exemplary personality, a leader of great caliber, a great Agudist, whose every breath, every second of his life, was for the Agudas Israel. Great, terribly great, is the loss. There is no trace of exaggeration in saying about him, “Woe unto us, who can ever replace him!”

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