A candid far-ranging conversation with Rav Yisroel Bunim Schreiber, Rosh Yeshivas Nesiv Daas
uring the recent visit of the gedolim on behalf of Keren Olam HaTorah, a fascinating scene unfolded, one that is still talked about in the halls of Lakewood’s batei midrash. A young Lakewood bachur wanted to know every machlokes between Rabbah and Rav Yosef throughout Maseches Bava Basra. He asked Rav Chaim Mordechai Ausband, who pointed across the room to a visiting rosh yeshivah from Eretz Yisrael whom most of those present had never heard of. “Ask him,” he told the bachur.
What happened next was recorded on video and has since been watched by tens of thousands of people. Rav Yisrael Bunim Schreiber sat without a sefer in front of him and began traveling through the masechta in his mind, daf after daf, calling out each machlokes as he reached it, until he had covered the entire masechta. The room went quiet. Everyone present was stunned—everyone, that is, besides Rav Ausband, who had pointed to Rav Bunim Schreiber for a reason.
In the yeshivah world in Eretz Yisrael, Rav Bunim had been a household name for years. But until this visit, he was not well known in the United States, even among many bnei Torah. This remarkable encounter introduced him to a much wider audience. The clip went viral, followed by many others, and Rav Bunim Schreiber quickly became a household name in America’s Torah community as well.
Rav Bunim had never been outside Eretz Yisrael before. He came as part of the Keren Olam HaTorah delegation at the request of Rav Dov Landau, despite being seriously ill. Weakened by medical treatments, Rav Bunim chose to remain in the New York and New Jersey area rather than travel around the country with the delegation. Instead, he gave shiurim—dozens of them, in yeshivah after yeshivah, on sugyos across Shas, without preparation and often without a single sefer open in front of him.
He arrived at one yeshivah and only then asked what they were learning. Told that they were learning Perek Merubah in Maseches Bava Kama, he delivered an iyun shiur on the spot. On one day alone, he gave three shiurim in three separate batei midrash. He recited lengthy passages of Rashi, Rishonim and Acharonim word for word from memory, without mistakes.
Word spread about these extraordinary shiurim, and very quickly, wherever Rav Bunim went to speak, huge crowds followed. They came eager to hear his Torah, but also to witness his astonishing geonus. One kollel he visited was learning Mikvaos. While driving to the beis midrash, Rav Bunim was told that it was a large kollel, with more than 150 yungeleit. When he arrived, however, he found an overflow crowd of well over 400 people. The rosh yeshivah gave a brilliant shiur on mayim shelanu.
That night, his host asked whether he had not originally intended to speak on a different topic in Mikvaos. “I did,” Rav Bunim replied. “But that shiur was very granular on the sugya, and when I saw the size of the crowd, I realized that not everyone there was part of the kollel and that many did not hold in the sugya on a level where they could follow all the diyukim and raayos.”
After another of his shiurim, the rosh yeshivah of Keren HaTorah, Rav Eli Yagod, asked him how long the shiur had taken to prepare. “Sixty years,” Rav Bunim answered. “And two minutes.”
He gave a shiur to an elite chaburah of yungeleit learning Ohalos. They tried to shlug up his chiddushim, but he parried each of their kushyos with ease. He was so deeply immersed in the sugyos that it seemed as though he were learning them together with the yungeleit at that very moment.
As if these scenes were not powerful enough, there was also the stark visual reality of Rav Bunim’s condition. He had lost his hair, beard and peyos while undergoing chemotherapy. He was visibly weakened by his illness and treatments. And still he had made the trip and given dozens of shiurim rather than using the time between fundraising meetings and events for Keren Olam HaTorah to rest.
All of this is on my mind as I find myself nervously knocking on his door in Ramot Polin, not far from his yeshivah, Yeshivas Nesiv Daas, for my scheduled appointment with the Rosh Yeshivah. Nesiv Daas is known as a yeshivah of an exceptionally high level, with more than 400 talmidim.
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