Sixty years ago it was clear that hundreds of Jewish
communities and almost all organized Torah learning on the
European continent came to virtual extinction. The great
centers of Torah in America and Eretz Yisroel had yet to
emerge and the few gedolim who survived were
desperately concerned for the future of Klal
Yisroel.
It was at that time of gloom that Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer
Dessler, zt"l, shouldered the immense burden of
establishing the Gateshead Kollel. So declared the Gateshead
Rov in the Kollel Beis Hamedrash on the occasion of Rabbi
Dessler's 48th yahrtzeit last Wednesday on 25 Teves.
Other kollelim and yeshivos followed but, he said,
Gateshead had the special duty to live up to the purpose
which Rabbi Dessler and the late Gateshead Rov, Rabbi N.
Shakovitzky, had in mind in establishing the Gateshead
Kollel: to provide those talmidei chachomim who would
be the urgently needed future rabbonim and roshei
yeshivoh.
The Gateshead Rov then demonstrated the importance of
character training. Doson and Avirom were appointed as
officers in Mitzrayim and suffered immensely for their
genuine effort to protect Klal Yisroel from ill-
treatment -- yet they become reshoim. Moshe rebuked
them for smiting each other and in their hatred of him
thereafter, they became his lifelong trouble-makers.
Rabbi Dov Sternbuch emphasized that Rabbi Dessler introduced
completely new concepts in the understanding of mussar
and medrash, which have been accepted worldwide with
admiration. The five volumes of his seforim have been
reprinted thirty times and are studied in all parts of the
Jewish world.
Rabbi Sternbuch then inspiringly related one of Rabbi
Dessler's shiurim on nes and teva,
saying
that there was absolutely no difference between them except
that we regard teva as routine and nes as
extraordinary. People see nes as outside their domain
and teva the result of their own action. This is not
so. Everything is in HaKodosh Boruch Hu's complete
control.
There are ample provisions in the world for everyone. The
mon in the midbor descended from heaven daily,
sufficient to feed Bnei Yisroel for 2000 years. Even
today, were humanity deserving no one would be lacking
anything.
A member of the Kollel, Rabbi Naftoli Levy, presented an
erudite shiur on shechita performed by a non-
Jew.
Rabbi Chaim Holder, another member of the Kollel, eloquently
demonstrated how the avodas Hashem and sterling
middos of the Ovos enabled Klal Yisroel,
through Moshe Rabbenu, to receive the Torah and to adhere to
its high spiritual demands.
