Reb Meier Shapiro 
5647/1887 - 5694/1934
A Torah So Large, A "Korban" So Small
We live in an age of specialization." An oft-heard phrase that has lost much of its punch through repetition becomes vital again after a glimpse at just one of the many gedolim (Torah giants) of a mere fifty years ago, a glimpse that reveals the breadth and scope of in-depth Torah knowledge, halachic decision making, leadership and warm, popular regard that characterized just one of the pre-war gedolim who so profoundly influenced our time - Rabbi Meier Shapiro, Rav of Lublin, and Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin.
On the 7th of Adar, 5647 (1887), Yehudah Meier Shapiro was born to Rabbi Yaakov Shamshon Shapiro in Zibenbergen, Rumania. Reb Yaakov Shamshon, a descendant of the renowned Rebbe, Reb Pinchas of Koretz, traced his lineage to King David. His parents had great ambitions for Meier. At his Chumash derashah (the inspirational message memorized and recited by youngsters about to begin their study of Chumash), which marked his initiation to learning Torah, his mother encouraged him: ”Learn well and I will merit to hear your derashah when you enter the rabbinate.” Reb Meier once recalled his mother weeping over the Torah he would not be learning because the special melamed (instructor) that his parents had engaged for him was two days late in arriving.
Similarly, in the year 1900, when young Meier’l went to Minstrich to study under his grandfather’s tutelage, his grandfather turned to his daughter and said, “A Torah so large and a korban (sacrificial offering) so small?” To which his mother replied, “This korban - this small one - will yet be a gadol (great in stature).”
Reb Meier’s mother was accustomed to repeating this phrase, “A Torah so large and a korban so small,” in reference to the sacrifices required to teach her Meier’l Torah.
As a boy, Meier gained a reputation as a child prodigy and was known as the Shotzer Illui (the genius of Shotz). The youthful genius started a yeshivah in Shotz, a prototype for the many yeshivos he was to found throughout his life in various communities.
At the age of 23, he wrote his first sefer, Imrei Daas on the Torah. During the same year he was selected as Rav in the Eastern Galician town of Glina. As Rav, he had to contend with a congregation almost devoid of Torah knowledge. Because of their ignorance, many of the townsmen were opposed to the Rav’s Torah-building activities. His reaction was to set a life-long pattern of response to weakened Yiddishkeit - he started a sizeable yeshivah and housed it in a large building in the center of the town.
During World War I, when Reb Meier was driven from Glina, he started a yeshivah in his temporary refuge as well, returning to Glina after the war.
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Quotes "When hiring a shochet, kehillos worry about a given candidate's yiras shomayim (piety), his skills in shechita and bedika, whether he’s quick enough and scholar enough. And what are we entrusting to a shochet? An animal! When we hire a melamed to whom we entrust our dearest possession, our children, how very exacting we must be in our investigation of his various qualifications " * * * Engraved on the portals of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin was "L'chu bonim ... yiras Hashem alamedchem." The Rosh Yeshivah explained, "L'chu bonim - when you leave, know that all you learned in yeshivah was that 'yiras Hashem alamedchem' - the yiras Shomayim (fear of Heaven) you learned here should be treasured throughout your life." |
Entering the National Arena
The famed Agudath Israel leader, Rabbi Yitzchak Meier Levin, once recalled the circumstances of Rabbi Meier Shapiro rising to a position of leadership in both the Polish rabbinate and Orthodox life in general while Rav in Glina: “In 1922, Rabbi Yosef Lev undertook a trip to Eastern Galicia for Agudath Israel. On his return, he reported that there was a small-town Rav in Eastern Galicia who was a strong Agudist and had within him the potential to be a beacon of light to the Jewish world. They soon brought him to Warsaw, and during the first interviews, were impressed by the strength and magnetism of his personality. It was at this time that Polish Jews were first beginning to organize and we saw that this was the person that we sought to power and guide our new movement.”
On his trip to Warsaw, Rabbi Shapiro was invited to address a convention of 600 rabbis. He exhorted the rabbis to take the reins of leadership in their respective communities and thereby derail attempts by irreligious elements to seize control.
His address made such an impact on them that the very next day a delegation of leaders of the Warsaw Jewish community offered him the Chief Rabbinate of Warsaw - flagship city of the world’s largest Jewish community. There was one small condition: that Rabbi Shapiro not affiliate himself with Agudath Israel. Rabbi Shapiro answered to the point: ”I am not a part of Agudath Israel - the Agudah is a part of me.”
Not long afterward, Rabbi Meier Shapiro was enthusiastically elected President of Agudath Israel of Poland at a convention of over 6,000 delegates and guests. Soon afterwards, he became Agudath Israel’s delegate to the Sjem, the Polish parliament, with the strong backing of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages - the movement’s policy-making body).
Rabbi Meier Shapiro remained in Glina for ten years. In the midst of the growth of his national stature in Polish Orthodoxy, Rabbi Shapiro moved from Glina to accept the position of Rav in Sunik, another Galician town, where he remained for three years.
A Torah-Study Program
It was during this period in Sunik, when he was but thirty-seven years old, that Rabbi Meier Shapiro was catapulted into the annals of Torah history by creating an institution in Torah study enthusiastically adopted by Jews on all levels of Torah education, from ba’al habayis (layman) to gadol hador (greatest rabbi of the generation) - the Daf Yomi.
At the first Knessiah Gedolah (International Congress) of Agudath Israel, in 1923, Reb Meier proposed the Daf Yomi. The idea was breathtaking in its simplicity. Jews throughout the world would unite in studying the same daf (folio page, in Yiddish blatt) of the Talmud daily. The Chofetz Chaim said that this development “brought joy to Heaven.” The first blatt in tractate Berachos was scheduled to be started a scant two weeks after the Knessiah, on Rosh Hashanah 5684. The success of the project was at first in doubt, but was sealed when the Gerer Rebbe sent word to the thousands of Chassidim staying in Ger for the Yomim Noraim (High Holidays) that he would learn the first blatt after Maariv on Rosh Hashanah. There was an immediate rush for Berachos gemaros after Yom Tov, and by the second Knessiah Gedolah, in 1929, a quarter of a million Jews were studying the Daf Yomi.
The number of blatt Gemara learned by Daf Yomi adherents is in the millions. Even more important are those dafim learned by those who otherwise would not have studied at all, but were attracted by a Daf Yomi shiur’s convenience in shul, by its imposed discipline. And then there are the regained dafim of the “forgotten Mesechtos,” which are not part of the conventional Talmud syllabus, but have been “remembered” through Daf Yomi. In this period of search for a concept of Jewish unity, Reb Meier’s brainchild is almost prophetic, and it is perhaps due to the added zechus (merit) of the limud HaTorah caused by the introduction of the Daf Yomi at an Agudath Israel function that the Agudah itself has forged onward to this day without straying from the Torah path.
In 1924, Rabbi Shapiro became Rav in Pietrokov. This was a large town in Poland proper, distinguished for Torah learning for centuries, and home of a vibrant Jewish publishing industry. In 1926, while in Pietrokov, he published Shaalos U’Teshuvos Or Hameier, a collection of his halachic responsa, which made a major impact on the Torah community. The happiest days of Rabbi Meier Shapiro’s life are said to have been the days he spent in Pietrokov. The populace appreciated a gadol of Rabbi Meier Shapiro’s caliber, and as Rav, he was able to govern the community without hindrance.
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Quotes One of the wealthy donors to the yeshivah, Reb Wolf Ziebart of Lodz, stopped over in Lublin for two hours between trains on a business trip, and decided to make best use of his time by visiting the Lubliner Rav. At the time, Rabbi Shapiro was giving shiur in the yeshivah, and the ironclad policy of the yeshivah was not to allow anyone to enter during shiur. Thus, when the magnate arrived at the door to the beis midrash, he was stopped. Reb Wolf tried persuasion, then threats and finally pressed a ten zloty note into the guard's hand-all to no avail. Finally, the caretaker agreed to open up the balcony for Reb Wolf to observe the shiur. Ziebart walked upstairs and watched for over an hour. Following the shiur, he greeted the Rosh Yeshivah, complaining that he had been forced to stand on the gallery for an hour and look down on the bachurim from a distance. Rabbi Shapiro responded, "Wealthy individuals like yourself spend a lifetime looking down at yeshivah bachurim - and you couldn't take one hour of it?" An embarrassed Reb Wolf Ziebart expressed his regret for the outburst by giving the yeshivah a generous donation on the spot. * * * Once, when asked by a reporter where he intended to find 500 rabbinical positions for the 500 students of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, Rabbi Shapiro answered: "Only two of them will become Rabbonim; the other 498 will be ba'alei battim capable of appreciating a Rav!" |
The Years in Lublin, Home of "Chachmei Lublin"
In 1929, Rabbi Meier Shapiro moved to a major community and Torah center of Poland - Lublin. There he became engaged in the next major creation of his life - Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin. His lomdus was soon apparent to all. Once when visiting a typical beis midrash in Lublin where bachurim were sitting and learning, he observed that they were learning three different mesechtos - Chullin, Eiruvin, and Gittin. He extemporaneously gave a shiur combining all three mesechtos to his astounded audience.
The idea of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin went far beyond the creation of a new "makom Torah," beyond even the establishment of Poland's first structured yeshivah (in the contemporary meaning of the word). Until this time, bachurim who were b'nei Torah would congregate in batei midrashim and shtieblach, and "shteig" (advance) in learning on their own. If, in poverty-stricken Poland, their families were unable to support them, as was usually the case, the bachurim were forced to sleep on the benches of the beis midrash. Or, if they were lucky, they would earn a few cents by sleeping in freezing cold factories and stores overnight as "night watchmen." Every day, they would eat at the home of a different family, although there were rarely enough families to go around. This was called essen teg (eating "days"), and the popular saying went that bachurim seriously interested in learning were sentenced to essen teg und trinken treren (eating days and drinking tears).
The Lubliner Rav wanted to change the status of the ben Torah from "nebach'l" to a royal prince, in a most emphatic way. Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin was the means. The yeshivah's building was (and still is) one of the most impressive in the city of Lublin. Inside the building were 500 bachurim, well-housed, well-fed and well-dressed. The seder (schedule) in the yeshivah was much more orderly and systematic than in any comparable secular learning institute, either then or now. Each incoming bachur was issued a number. This number assigned to him a bed in the dormitory, a place in the dining room, and a seat in the beis midrash. The number was sewn into or applied to every possession and article of clothing he owned. If, for example, a bachur needed to launder clothing, he deposited the articles to be laundered in the yeshivah laundry, and would discover the freshly laundered article in the box bearing his number the next morning.
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Quotes A storeowner complained to the Lubliner Rav that he lacked customers. The Lubliner Rav inquired, "What do you do when you're not serving anyone?" The storekeeper answered, "I read the newspaper." The Lubliner Rav advised him, "Learn Torah or say Tehillim. As long as you read the newspaper, you're doing what the yeitzer hora wants, so he doesn't permit you to be disturbed. But once you're doing mitzvos he'll be happy to send you business to distract you." * * * Rabbi Meier Shapiro once gave a speech in a certain town on behalf of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin. During the speech, he noticed a small child wedged into the crowd. After the speech, Reb Meier approached the child and asked him whether he understood the complex derashah. The child answered, "No." Reb Meier then asked him, "Then why did you come?" The child said, "I came because I heard the Rav was going to speak about money." "If that is why you came," replied the Rav, "you understood my speech better than most people here." |
The ruchnius (spiritual program) of the yeshivah was similarly organized. Lubliner bachurim were the cream of European b’nei Torah. An examiner visited various parts of Europe annually to determine which of the bachurim eagerly seeking entry met the Lublin standards. A bachur seeking admission was tested on several hundred blatt Gemara which he was expected to have memorized. Only the top-scoring applicants gained entry. After admission, a bachur was assigned to one of four shiurim. Successful bachurim advanced into the Rosh Yeshivah’s shiur, given by Rabbi Meier Shapiro himself.
The result of this amazing transformation in the status and life-style of ”learning” bachurim was to imbue them with pride in themselves and an impetus to progress in learning. It also made prospective in-laws view the taking of a son-in-law who learned more favorably. The end result was an enhancement of the honor accorded Torah and those engaged in its study throughout Europe. Naturally, in poverty-stricken pre-war Poland, supporting such an institution was far from simple.
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Quotes When asked why he changed rabbinical positions frequently (as he became Chief Rabbi of successively more important cities), the Rav answered, "Only a nail with a head can be removed easily from one place and put into another." |
When Rabbi Meier Shapiro first entertained the idea of creating this unique new Torah institution, he knew that it would consume the bulk of his energies. He therefore asked Rabbi Yitzchak Meier Levin to lighten his burden of Agudath Israel activities. He told Reb Yitzchak Meier: "If one Meier Shapiro was able to do so much for Agudath Israel, free me a bit from the burden of Agudath Israel. In return, I will give you a hundred Meier Shapiros."
In 5294 (1933), Rabbi Shapiro was offered the Chief Rabbinate of Lodz - second largest city in Poland and a stronghold of Torah and Chassidus. His contract stipulated that the Lodz Kehillah pay up the debt of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin and support a similar new yeshivah in Lodz, in addition to a large salary.
Unfortunately, all of this was not to be. Before he was to have moved to Lodz, the Lubliner Rosh Yeshivah contracted diphtheria and lived only a few weeks. On the 17th day of Cheshvan, 5694 the Lubliner Rav was niftar; it was a day of mourning for all of Polish Jewry. He made one last request - that the bachurim in the Yeshivah dance and sing. It was in this atmosphere of simchah that Rabbi Meier Shapiro joined the "Yeshivah Shel Ma'ala."