"Don't get spoiled in army" • Tale of Hesder Yeshivos

Nothing could be further from Hesder Yeshivos – than Ponevez Yeshiva. The leading yeshiva in Israel for the ideology of 'Nor Torah', Torah in its purity, without any mixture of foreign studies, and certainly not of military service. There is no one who lead this principle in the past generation than Hgram"m Shach zt"l, one of the Roshei Yeshiva, who fought for maintaining of Torah and its study as a supreme value in the yeshiva world in general and in particular at Ponevez.

A Hesder Yeshiva is the opposite of this idea, which talks of the combination of the book and the sword, yeshiva studies that combine military service. These two opposite and contradictory ways, but it turns out to those going back to the days of the Hesder, that the concept and first implementation of the Hesder Yeshivos – was brought about by a relative of Hgram"m Shcach, and that Hgram"m himself even taught as maggid shiur at his yeshiva until he resigned.

It all started in early days of the young country established in Israel. Rabbi of Rehovot was Rabbi Raphael Zvi Yehuda Meltzer, son of Hagaon Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, who was a long time Kletzk Rosh Yeshiva in Lithuania and then as head of the Etz Chaim Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Kletzk and its famous yeshiva was destroyed in World War II and most of the students were killed, but the heads of the yeshiva survived, including the famous Rabbi Aharon Kotler and Hgram"m Schach, who was a relative of Hgra"z Meltzer and a son in law of his sister. Hgrtz"i Meltzer was an enterprising man, he came to Rehovot, founded a Beis Din, set up the Kletzk Yeshiva and established a yeshiva high school next to it which included secular studies, and became known as Yeshivat Hadarom, which prepared the students for teaching in a five-year program.

One of the Ramim at the yeshiva was a relative of the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Meltzer, Hgram"m Shach.

The Yeshiva Gedola lasted until 5717 (1957), when it merged with Yeshivat Hadarom, where Rabbi Meir Tzvi Bergman –son in law of Rabbi Schach, Harav Yehuda Amital –son in law of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Meltzer, Harav Mordechai Breuer and more, taught. But if at the beginning it seemed that it was a yeshiva on the boundary between Hareidi and Zionism - it ultimately turned towards Mizrahi and took in national religious youth to its ranks.

In those days, the founder of the yeshiva was concerned, he was intimately connected to the Mizrahi and followed the ranks of the religious Zionist views, but on the other hand he saw how most graduates of his yeshiva choose to serve in the IDF and completely abandon the study of Torah. There was also a minority who was influenced by Torah personalities who served as Maggidei Shiurim at the yeshiva and with their encouragement abandoned the yeshiva and moved to Haredi yeshivas in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!