Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim


Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim is an Orthodox yeshiva in the United States, based in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, New York. It is primarily an American, Lithuanian-style Talmudic yeshiva. The Yeshiva is legally titled Rabbinical Seminary of America, however it is often referred to as just Chofetz Chaim, as that was the sobriquet of its namesake, Yisroel Meir Kagan. The school has affiliate branches in Israel and North America.

History

The yeshiva was established in 1933 by Rabbi Dovid Leibowitz, a great-nephew of the Chofetz Chaim. Rabbi Leibowitz was a disciple of Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel and he also studied under Rabbi Naftoli Trop and the Chafetz Chaim in the Raduń Yeshiva. Both of these yeshivas were in Lithuania. However, for a time Radin was governed by Poland.
The new yeshiva was named for his great uncle Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan, who had died that year. Although it's officially named Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yisrael Meir HaKohen, the yeshiva is often referred to as just Chofetz Chaim, as its namesake, Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan, was known as the Chofetz Chaim, after his book with the same title.
The yeshiva's first building was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In December 1955 it relocated to Forest Hills, Queens, and at the start of the 2003 academic year, to Kew Gardens Hills, Queens.
After its founder's death in December 1941, the yeshiva was headed and developed by his son, Rabbi Henoch Leibowitz. Today, it is led by two of Rabbi Liebowitz's close disciples, Rabbi Dovid Harris and Rabbi Akiva Grunblatt.
RSA houses a boys' yeshiva high school, an undergraduate yeshiva, and a rabbinical school that grants Semicha. Rabbinical students at the yeshiva often spend a decade or more there, studying a traditional yeshiva curriculum focusing on Talmud, mussar, and halakha.

Characteristics

There are six primary characteristics of Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim of Queens that distinguish it from other Yeshivos:
  1. An emphasis upon unfolding the latent processes of reasoning within the steps of the Talmudic sugya being studied. The methodology places emphasis on the notion that the initial assumptions of the Talmud must be highly rigorous, and that the movement between the initial thought process of the Talmudic sugya to the final thought process must be fully unfolded and understood.
  2. An approach to ethical and Biblical texts and its commentaries that emphasizes a rigor that other yeshivas of this genre generally accord to Halakhic or Talmudic texts alone. The yeshiva promotes the idea that ideally a deduction from these texts should be muchrach meaning "logically and textually compelling." This approach yields a convincing discourse on Torah that is "well-grounded".
  3. The study of Mussar, both by attending and reviewing semiweekly lectures and through daily individual study of Mussar texts, is strongly emphasized. Rabbi Dovid Leibowitz founded the Chofetz Chaim yeshiva in the footsteps of his rebbe, the Alter of Slabodka, and Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, the founder of the Mussar movement. Through the study of mussar one may hope, over many years, to improve character traits by increasing self-awareness and self-control. Rabbi Henoch Leibowitz would continually remind his students that as important as it is to become a lamden and a great pedagogue, it is even more important to become a mentch.
  4. An emphasis on propagating the ideals and values of Judaism. Upon completion of a rigorous term of study, students are encouraged to seek employment in the field of Jewish education, often launching their own educational institutions themselves or with a partner. Hundreds of alumni have gone on to become religious instructors, synagogue rabbis, education and outreach coordinators, community leaders, and organizational officials.
  5. The omnisignifigance and complete subservience to "Daas Torah" as defined in the introduction to the 6 - volume collection of Rabbi H. Lebowitz's mussar lectures, "Chidushei Halev", as well as numerous public ethical discourses. This is the concept that everything is included in the Torah and the way that the Torah logic works is the way that God's mind works; therefore one who has spent years dedicated to in depth Talmudic study has shaped his mind to think like the Torah/God and is thus able to apply the Torah's logic to all manner of situations.
  6. The dress code is unique in that they allow the students to wear colored shirts as opposed to white shirts which are mandatory in other Lithuanian Haredi Yeshivos. This is in line with the view of Rabbi Henoch Leibowitz who once joked that "A person can be a student of the Torah even when wearing a colored shirt."

    Affiliates and branches by location

United States

Rabbi Solomon Sharfman, former rabbi of the Young Israel of Flatbush
Rabbi Dovid Harris, serves as co-Rosh Hayeshiva at the Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yisrael Meir HaKohen.
Rabbi Akiva Grunblatt,serves as co-Rosh Hayeshiva at the Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yisrael Meir HaKohen.
Rabbi Baruch Chait, composer, and Rosh Yeshiva of Maarava, located in Moshav Matisyahu, Israel.