Mission.
The Yeshiva’s mission is to train and shape ehrliche Yidn, who love Torah, are loyal to the Mesorah and internalize the midos that are so central to the elevated life of a Chassidishe Yid. The learning of Missar is not as a set of abstract principles but for the purpose of building a Hashkufa and being put to use as a daily hanhoga.
We realize that most talmidim will not become kli kodesh. Chazal long ago informed us that many enter the hallowed halls of Torah study but only a precious few are zoche to the cloak of Hoyro’ah. Our mission is to prepare the one among many who is destined for eminence in Torah, but also to prepare the many for lives as devoted Chassidishe Ba’ale Batim who faithfully raise good families, devote daily hours to kvias itim, are committed to chesed and make a kiddush Hashem in their varied life trails. We seek to infuse talmidim with a sense of kdisha; a hashkufa molded around the teachings of our venerable zaddikim.
In a secular generation that is so committed to maximizing personal desires, comforts and pleasures we seek to imbue talmidim with sense of devotion to others, to community, family and the common good. It is not so useful to preach against the powerful culture of the times; it is more effective to set compelling examples of commitment and concern that stand against that insistent culture of Me, Me.
Today’s student is different from his old world counterpart. He has been raised in a society that questions authority and bridles at orders. The old focus on discipline and cold demands do not work with today’s bochur. Today’s more sensitive student does not react well to a strict approach. Stern words and punitive measures often prove counterproductive. Today’s learning environment requires honey not vinegar.
He needs warmth and reason. He wants to understand why, not out of chutzpah, but because the environment has shaped him to expect reasons for rules. Bochurim respond more positively to an embracing style of chinuch that treats them as individuals with unique interests and qualities. If the older approach emphasized “Yirah” today the more effective approach stresses “Ahava.”
For related reasons we have adopted a style of learning that is still relatively new among chassidishe mosdos, a style that emphasizes sharp lomdus. Today’s bochur needs to feel involved with this learning. He needs to take delight in his studies. That kind of connection, one based on geshmak, can bind him to life long learning. It draws the student in by engaging his mind, his logic, in sevarah. It offers the kind of intellectual excitement that makes Torah learning more challenging and rewarding than the older emphasis on rote memorization of large quantities of learning.
Lomdus with chassidish warmth, an emphasis on avoidah and kdisha are all part of the armor for today’s talmid to withstand the powerful street, and frankly one cannot speak of a Yeshiva mission today without paying attention to the need to protect against the powerful effect of the street culture. Yes, we forbid internet, media and all forms of gass culture, but is seeps into their lives and it is a concern. One of the most powerful antidotes is simcha. A student who is satisfied, happy and self-respecting is less likely to be tempted. And so, an important part of our mission is to produce happy, confident talmidim, who respect the grandeur of Torah and the lives of our zaddikim.
Especially today, it is important to offer bochurim a serious daily Halucha seder. Before a student goes out to start a life as a Baale-boss he needs to know how to learn Halucha; not in kitzur or even in Mishna Brurah but full scale study of Halucha. This means starting with the Gemorrah and from there to the Rishonim, Tur and Bais Yoseph before turning to the Shulchan Aruch and nosei keilim. Learning Halucha is not simply learning rules; it is understanding principles and concepts in depth and how they are derived from the Gemorrah and the rishonim.
The mission embraces all of the above with goal of molding a chassidishe ben Torah, a Mekabel, a mushlam in midos, a 24-7 yiras shomayim. We aim to carry forward a compelling picture of Old World devotion in modern 21st century America with a full commitment to Chassidic life. At the same time, we note that we are non-sectarian in our chassidus. We do not aim to shape followers of any single Chassidic mold or outlook. What we vaue in chassidus is the prishus, the veneration of zaddikim, the yiras Hashem, the warmth of avoidah and the respect for age old practice.
Historical Influences
The roots of today’s Kasho Yeshiva stretch back to the Old World communities of pre-war Europe. There, in 1939, Rabbi Refoel Blum, zt’zl, responding to the call of the local community, founded a yeshiva for outstanding students in the Slovakian city of Mihalovce. The year 1939 was filled with foreboding for world Jewry, but the Rebbe girded with the blessings of his great teachers, Rav Shaul Brach, ztzl, the revered Rav of Kasho, and the Stropkover Rav, ztzl, looked past the looming threats to focus on teaching Torah.
The times may have been inauspicious, but the message was transporting: in the darkest times one must kindle light. For three years the talmidim poured their best efforts into learning the Holy Torah. Local ba’ale batim, impressed with the great scholar in their midst, asked for the Rebbe to give them shiurim as well. In those anxious three years the Chevra Shas completed much of seder kodshim.
Alas, the flames of war engulfed the Jewish populations of Europe. By 1942 the Rebbe was forced to flee from Mihalovce to the relatively calmer environs of Budapest, Hungary. The city was teeming with refugees who had illegally slipped into the country from Slovakia to evade the German takeover. In the fraught moment the Rebbe looked past the terrifying present to summon the courage to keep the spark of Torah alive. He projected the immortal message of Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon: the gvil, the body may burn (chas vesholom) but the osios porchos, the letters that represent the inner spirit, endure eternally. He established an underground Yeshiva (the very presence of the refugees was illegal) and in this season of menace the Yeshiva completed masechta Bava Kama and the sacred studies continued almost to the very end of the war. Later the Rebbe recalled that while many of the illegal refugees were rounded up by the Hungarian officials and deported, not a single one of his talmidim was ever deported.
And then the war was over. Entire communities had been wiped out. Millions had perished. The loss was incalculable. Thousands of years of tradition, learning and sacred civilization had been vaporized. Thousands of lost, broken people, orphans, widows and mourners all, wandered the bombed-out environs, left to ponder their losses and confront a deeply shadowed future. They made their way to designated gathering areas and DP camps in search of answers, relatives, reassurance, a comforting word, some salve for their bottomless pain. They had seen the darkest face of evil unveiled, and now they needed to be brought back to a semblance of normal life and faith.
To Kasho
Because of its proximity to the Polish border, as well as its central train station, the city of Kasho served as a gathering place for survivors. They filtered into the city yearning for hope and direction. Drawing on resources of compassion and determination, Rabbi Blum, walked among the dispirited and organized a regional Orthodox community. He established the infrastructure for a rebuilt Jewish community. The kindly Rebbe was driven. He would not stop rebuilding. He established a Cheder, a Shul and a Mikvah; and to deal with the heartrending, dismayingly complex shaaylos of agunos and almonos issued clear rulings so they could proceed with their lives. The Rebbe and his Bais Din offered definitive piskei din on more than one thousand aguna related shaaylos. Few fully appreciated the strain and the pain that these shaaylos caused him but he refused to let up; the people needed him and a rebuilt klall Yisroel must be founded on taharos hayuchsin.
Serving as the spiritual leader of virtually all of post war Slovakia Rabbi Blum was simultaneously committed to re-building his yeshiva. From every corner of the region he gathered together young men, many of them orphans, and provided for their every need. He began with three bochurim, but before long there were scores of boys and the sweet kol Torah began to regain its voice. For these students the Rebbe was father, mentor, provider and beloved teacher.
Sadly, the travails were not over. He had tried to replant the pious life in Eastern Europe but the aftermath of war brought Soviet rule and yet another era of oppression. The atheist state refused to allow him to teach the Torah and to raise a new generation of faithful believers, in safety.
He was a witness with an important experience to share. A witness digests his experiences and gives them meaning. And he, the scion of a rabbinic dynasty going back centuries, was clearly tasked with something more demanding than wandering the diaspora in sackcloth and telling sad stories. His experience and learning, his mastery of the hallowed traditions of old, his memories of the great men of his generation prepared him to play a leading role in reclaiming the heritage of klall yisroel. To him and a handful of others fell the challenge of making the sacred remnant a people of destiny again, a faithful, kind, gentle, observant people who would once again share their ethical and moral teachings, the lessons of ancient Sinai. So, when the scourge of Communism spread its cold fog over Yiddishkeit he made the painful reckonings once more, to leave his homeland, this time for good.
To America: Brooklyn, New York, 1948
He arranged passports, visas and travel expenses for each of his talmidim and migrated to America. The U.S. had deep traditions of freedom and tolerance, but he understood full well the challenge he faced in trying to plant a Chassidic Yiddishkeit that was not common in the United States at that time. He focused on the survivors. To those afraid to build families, he preached the imperative to live again and to raise children to make the world better. To a people terrified by the world outside, he preached renewed faith. Many doubted that this mission would succeed.
Slowly, penny by penny, he raised the money to succor his flock and then to build a place of worship for them to pray and learn. But to secure a Jewish future he knew that more was required and so at great sacrifice he set aside his scholarship, his family, his own needs and raised the funds to build a Cheder to raise a new generation in Torah. He was a revered scholar but he brought himself to the level of young students to teach them the Holy Torah and to imbue them with a love of learning and a respect for the traditions. Overcome by debt he merged with the Tzelemer Yeshiva until in 1958 it became possible to open an independent Kasho Yeshiva Ketana on Ross Street. Here he shaped a new chassidishe generation of talmidim, carrying forward the sacred mesorah of his own rebbeyim.
He had always harbored a vision of a self-contained Yeshiva community, far from the distractions and busyness of the city. Finally in 1967 his dream became possible and the yeshiva moved to Irvington, N.Y. and then in 1979 to more spacious location in Bedford Hills in Westchester County. He was by then one of the precious few Old World Gedolim, and Jews from every corner of the world flocked to Bedford Hills seeking his advice, blessing and hadrocho until on 20 Adar 5765, at the age of 95, the Kasho Rebbe passed on to a higher and better world.
His oldest son, Rabbi Eliezer Chaim Blum, succeeded his father in the holy task of teaching and spreading Torah. As the duties of leading his flock continued to grow the Rebbe passed on the leadership of the Yeshiva to his gifted son HaRav Avrohom Shloima (the present day Rebbe), whose multi-volume commentaries on Talmud Bavli are widely recognized as classics.
Return to Brooklyn
Regrettably the vision for a sustained Bedford Hills community with its own Yeshiva was never fully realized. The community faced many challenges that discouraged growth and the Rebbe himself took on great responsibilities for the world-wide Jewish community. Meanwhile, few in the expanding Kasho community joined the pioneers who moved to Westchester. They remained in Williamsburg bound to the textured Chassidic infrastructure. As the Rebbe aged and his responsibilities kept growing he could no longer devote as much of his limited kochos to the Yeshiva whose numbers continued to dwindle. The Williamsburg based chassidim implored him to move the Yeshiva to Williamsburg where they could keep their boys local. In 2005, with the extraordinary help of the Taub family, the Yeshiva purchased a building at 101 Spencer Street and established a new home for the Kasho Yeshiva Ketana.
This move impacted the Yeshiva Gedolah because after several years the boys who were graduating from the Yeshiva Ketana had no special connection to Bedford Hills (especially after the Rebbe became ill) and chose to remain local. After the Rebbe’s petirah the Board of Directors and the Rosh Yeshiva, realizing that the Yeshiva Ketana graduates were going to other Brooklyn mosdos for Bais Medrosh, agreed that it was important to open a Yeshiva Gedolah division in Brooklyn. Otherwise the special mission of the Yeshiva with its unique curricular approach and its emphasis on service to klall would come to an end.
The new Yeshiva Gedolah opened in rented space in Brooklyn’s Canarsie section for the 2013 school year under the leadership of the present Kasho Rebbe, R’ Avrohom Shloima Blum, who has been a rosh yeshiva for close to 40 years and has served klall Yisroel in the exalted tradition of his ancestors for an even longer period. Thankfully the Yeshiva attracted a very fine group of students, many from its own Yeshiva Ketana, but also from a variety of other Chassidishe mosdos. As admissions continued to expand and with all the necessary elements in place, the Board turned to the next challenge: finding a proper home l’Hagdil Torah Ulehaadirah.