Polishing Souls Until They Shine
published in Hamodia Magazine July 14, 2010
Few people are as driven and have accomplished as much in their lifetimes as Rabbi Yehudah Silver. He has had as dramatic an impact on kiruv and chinuch throughout the world and has inspired thousands of Jews on their religious journeys. He has directed schools and has been a driving force behind many of the most recognized kiruv ventures. Everywhere he goes, frum Jews approach him to tell him that they are observant today because of him. He has had close ties to the most significant gedolim and the simplest of yidden. Perhaps most surprising about his incredible lifelong mission is that it began in a jail cell.
Illustrious Beginnings
Rabbi Silver grew up after the Second World War in Chicago, where his father and grandfather were both Rebbeim in the Skokie Yeshiva. After graduating high school in 1961 he traveled to Eretz Yisrael where he learned in Kfar Chassidim. He was affected deeply by the Menahel Ruchani Rabbi Elyah Lopian zt’l, and the Rosh Yeshiva Rav Elya Mishkovsky zt”l, to whom he attributes much of his later development in learning. He also visited and asked shailos of the Steipler Gaon zt’l.
At the time Christian missionaries were becoming a pressing problem in Israel. In 1963, the anti-missionary and Jewish outreach organization Peilim/Lev L’achim organized a major demonstration against missionaries throughout the country. The organization recruited more than one hundred bochurim and planned simultaneous protests in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The organizers approached the young Rabbi Silver and asked him to translate their protest signs into English. Their target was a Christian group in Haifa headed by a missionary named Samuel Birnbaum. The missionaries were preying on poor, uneducated Jewish youngsters from Iraq, Tunisia, Iran and other Sephardic countries. Most of them were recent immigrants who didn’t understand the difference between Judaism and Christianity. The missionaries attracted them by offering free shoes and other gifts to their parents.
“There were few English-speaking bochurim in Eretz Yisrael then. You could literally count them on two hands,” Rabbi Silver recounted. He translated the signs for the group, and quickly got more involved. “Once I started getting involved and went along to the [protest] and heard what we were supposed to be doing, to go and get the names and address of kids they were targeting, it became very important to me.”
In Rabbi Silver’s group were other bochurim who would later become leading Rabbanim and Roshei Kollel in Eretz Yisrael. The group traveled to Haifa, but the missionaries had gotten wind of the demonstration and had hidden the children in an adjacent apartment. The group broke into the home where they were gathered and stormed into the room. On benches around the sides of the room sat the young Jews under Birnbaum’s watchful eye.
“We walked into the room. The kids were sitting around the room absolutely frightened. The missionaries had told them that we would cut off their tongues and ears,” Rabbi Silver said. “We said the Shema Yisrael with them. When we said the words ‘Hashem Echad,’ Birnbaum jumped up and said “No, Hashem is three!”
The missionaries called the police, who immediately came and arrested Rabbi Silver and the other bochurim. They were charged with trespassing, hosting an unlawful assembly and resisting arrest. The government initially threatened to expel all of the foreign bochurim. During their trial, members of the group were found guilty and were offered a sentence of either a stiff fine or time in prison.
The group asked the Steipler what they should do. He poskined that they should not pay the state the high fine and should instead go to jail. Rabbi Silver and eight other bochurim from the Haifa group were sentenced to two months in prison, which was later reduced to one month. They served their time in the Tel Monde prison near Netanya, while bochurim from the other groups were sent to other institutions.
After the bochurim were released from prison, they were each presented with a personalized inscribed copy of the Steipler’s sefer Chayei Olam in recognition of their Kiddush HaShem. Inside the sefer the Steipler wrote a powerful inscription and bracha for Rabbi Silver:
“This sefer is presented as a mazkeres yididus, to the dear boy Yehudah Silver in recognition of his being imprisoned (for his demonstrating against the monstrous and cursed missionaries, yemach shemam). And in merit of his suffering in prison he will certainly be blessed to grow in Torah and Fear of Heaven and he will succeed in whatever he undertakes.”
The episode had dramatic impacts. The group succeeded in its goals – to publicize the activities of missionaries in Israel. Media in the country and throughout the world carried the story. The group was able to get the names and phone numbers of many of the young Jews in the missionary’s group, and they reached out to them and their parents to try to bring them back to Judaism.
For the young Rabbi Silver, the events, combined with the Steipler’s bracha, lit a spark in him of the urgent need to save Jews. The spark caught in him and has fueled his mission until today.
“I am convinced that any success I may have had in kiruv is due to the bracha of the Steipler zt”l,” Rabbi Silver said.
The Return to America
After several years in Israel Rabbi Silver returned to America and learned in Yeshivat Chaim Berlin. He became close to Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner zt’l, to whom he attributes much of his hashkafa and his development into a Ben Torah.
While in Chaim Berlin, Rabbi Silver married a girl from Memphis, TN. After Kollel the Silvers moved to her hometown where he served as a Rebbe in the local day school and yeshiva high school for nine years. Next stop was Savannah, GA where he became the principal of the local day school. Most of the families who sent their children to the school were not observant, so in addition to the classes in school for the children, Rabbi Silver began running educational programs for the parents to help the children bring home the lessons they were learning in school.
One student in Savannah in particular stood out and Rabbi Silver saw much potential in him. After eighth grade Rabbi Silver prevailed on him to go to yeshiva in Memphis and he agreed. Rabbi Silver ran into him once or twice over the years but eventually lost contact.
Several years later Rabbi Silver received a phone call in his office. It was from the student from Memphis.
“Rabbi Silver, I get a Mazel tov!” he said.
“Mazel tov! What is it, a boy or girl?” Rabbi Silver asked.
“Neither. I just finished Shas,” came the excited reply.
The phone call left a deep impression on Rabbi Silver. Here was one of his first students calling to tell him how much his work meant to the life of another Jew.
“He wanted me to have a little bit of nachas. It was a very special phone call,” Rabbi Silver said.
Back To Israel
After three years the Silvers moved again, this time to Milwaukee, WI where he became the principal of the Hillel Academy day school. It was a big move for him – from a school in Savannah with 90 students to more than 250 in Milwaukee. The community there had been built by the Twerski family. Rabbi Michel Twerski had learned in Chicago and Rabbi Silver’s father zt”l was his first Gemorrah Rebbe. Rabbi Silver became close to him upon moving to Milwaukee.
“Reb Michel was an amazing kiruv person. The shul was dedicated to that concept and I learned a lot from him,” Rabbi Silver said.
In 1983 after three years in Milwaukee, Rabbi Silver got the phone call of a lifetime from Rabbi Noach Weinberg zt’l. When he was a bochur in Eretz Yisrael, Rabbi Silver had spent much time at Rabbi Weinberg’s Shabbas table. Rabbi Weinberg was now calling to offer him the opportunity to join his new yeshiva, Aish HaTorah. Rabbi Silver jumped at the chance.
In 1983 Aish HaTorah was still young and small. It was growing, but there wasn’t much work yet for Rabbi Silver to do. So he taught a few classes and learned with some of the bochurim. He wondered what he was meant to do in the new yeshiva.
He received his answer one day in August 1985 when Rabbi Weinberg called him into his office. He told Rabbi Silver about a Jewish outreach group called Arachim which was publicizing a new system they had developed for kiruv. They were about to run a seminar to recruit prospective lecturers and Rabbi Weinberg told Rabbi Silver to go.
“I came home and told my wife, ‘Rav Noach wants me to go and listen. I don’t really want to go, but I’ll go and I’ll come home by 2:00 and then we’ll go shopping.’ I came home at 2:00 as I said, but it was 2:00 in the morning! I was totally mesmerized and blown away. I immediately realized that this was the best way to reach people.”
The Arachim course showed how Torah prophecies have come true, and used science, Torah codes and other resources to provide logical proofs to Judaism. Rabbi Silver came back to the yeshiva and told Rabbi Weinberg about the program and his conviction about its power. The Rosh Yeshiva replied with three words, “Run with it!”