The WebYeshiva Blog

For over 50 years Rabbi Brovender has taught thousands of students from all around the world. This week we introduce you to Aaron Liebman. Aaron has taught or served as an administrator in a number of Jewish high school settings across the United States since 2006, He currently teaches at the Yeshiva of Cleveland (a Chofetz Chaim institution) and his wife teaches math and science at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland. They live in Cleveland with their three children.

How did you meet Rabbi Brovender?

At two key points, I met Rabbi Brovender: first, as a former public-school student. Green and trying to understand Yeshiva University, I spent my second year of college at Yeshivat Hamivtar in the effort to learn how to learn. That formative year, with essential help from Rabbi Ebner, I gained a lot and went back to YU, better able to take what it had to offer. I had encountered a different caliber of Rabbi on the Hamivtar faculty. It was a wonderful place. Then, post- college, I returned for a longer stay. I still remember the Sunday I had been invited to enjoy an excellent brunch in New York City where Rabbi Brovender encouraged the gathered to join the kollel at Yeshivat Hamivtar. The pitch: in addition to the advantages of the salubrious climate around Yerushalayim, funding was available to support such a choice. Why would we stay in New York? I was convinced to switch continents, at least temporarily, for Asia.

What do you find most important or striking about the “Brovender Method” -his unique way of teaching?

Rabbi Brovender’s reputation as a maverick has always been linked in my mind to his being a democratic personality. I heard, even while a student (22 to 30 years ago), that there was a lot of voting that went on behind the scenes at Yeshivat Hamivtar (for example, about what masekhet to study) and that, after hands were raised, Rabbi Brovender lost. His capacity to leave space for other people is routinely acknowledged. By what method has he done this? “I don’t know.” Rabbi Brovender has done a lot with that phrase over the last nearly sixty years and, long ago, so did Socrates. The phrase turns up in many of the thousands of recordings on YU Torah, WebYeshiva, and elsewhere, as Rabbi Brovender begins opening a space for learning and for speaking about Torah: a pasuk, a word, a difficulty. Into that space, substance is introduced, and a kind of unexpected complexity is revealed. By being substantive, Rabbi Brovender has held his own and remained interesting to young and old, decade after decade; under the unreasonable pressure of the demand that a Rosh Yeshiva be always profound – ועלהו לא־יבול is a daunting standard – Rabbi Brovender has won, has earned, the crown of leaves. His students, and the broad community he has spoken to, have enjoyed the many digressions (linguistic, literary, or political) along the way. If Rabbi Brovender still sometimes grumbles about useless vocabulary he mastered while working for a PhD, he has also made use of that training in many knowing asides: the distinction between\ע\ and \א\ was preserved among Sephardim but lost among Ashkenazim – but not so fast! There’s a gemara about people in Beit She’an, in Beit Haifa, and in Tivonin who could not lead davening because they also confused those sounds (Megillah 24b). He once cautioned me that the gemara about טוטפות stemming from an African root (Sanhedrin 4b) – was homiletic. And, should anyone raise a question about proto-Canaanite, Rabbi Brovender could remind them of the distinction between the written and, the more elusive, primordial, spoken Hebrew tradition. Rabbi Brovender has maintained a highly individualistic style: he has achieved much good with straight, bracing talk, and much with the use of intentional paraphrases that listeners might resist, or by way of contextualization: “in the idiom of the Medieval Jewish philosophers…” or so-and-so, “a chassidishe rebbe, but – that’s okay…”. Unhelpful distinctions among people were not a part of the bet midrash where Rabbi Brovender learned or in a classroom when he taught. He tried to broaden the range of voices, including Medieval, Charedi, and Hassidic, in a way that students could appreciate. I think the hope was that it could lead us to insights: the Mishnah Berurah was useful in learning, and could be meikal (see, neilat ha-sandal). There was the text in front of us, and texts behind that text. Interpretation, at times, he offered, had less to do with how a scholar would read a single text but in interactions among texts, and disagreement resulted sometimes from scholars simply looking at alternative lists of mekorot. As an observer of reality, Rabbi Brovender has shared generously with us from his experiences often employing his famous humor with a talent for setting up for us the incongruity (please note I am paraphrasing all Rabbi Brovender quotes in this piece): “…I entered the apartment, and there was Rav Soloveitchik standing on the windowsill...” “…It’s 1967, and everyone in Israel is depressed. … And the military received a shipment of these berets -- you can see them in the pictures. Soldiers could now ready themselves for war, you know, by positioning their hats, rakishly…” I remember that tense day when Yassir Arafat arrived in the West Bank with the armed men and the celebratory shooting that could be heard outside of Efrat and I was then in a shiur with Rabbi Brovender. I interrupted to suggest that maybe we should sell T-shirts in nearby Arab villages to raise money for the Yeshiva. Rabbi Brovender then offered a much funnier comment (which I’ve forgotten!) – but, he cautioned me, “You see, Aaron, I can handle the jokes here.” And even in the wake of the most frightening events we witnessed and lived through such as when he was pulled from his car during an Arab riot, that humor helped. Recalling the incident, Rabbi Brovender commented at one point: “…I thought to myself at that moment: so, this is what being beaten by a mob feels like…” We could find a way to laugh at the inhuman and the merely human. Rabbi Brovender shared our exasperation at absurd realities, or we came to share his and gained some of his perspective. Rabbi Brovender might have been neo-Hassidic before we had the term. During his, thank God, long career— from seeing the Hippies to meeting the Neo-conservatives in shul— he has always been in the vanguard of cool. Never one to retreat into his own institution, his own building, and wait in anticipation for some glorious future day on which all those who do not agree with him fail, Rabbi Brovender’s religious commitment has led him to a lifelong legacy of communication.

When it comes to Torah learning, what were you most drawn to after learning with Rabbi Brovender?

An openness to different genres of Torah that continues in my own learning and teaching today. For example, Mussar. The Sefer Cheshbon HaNefesh (Moral Accounting) has an unusual history that intersects with the ninth chapter of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. I teach both. Rabbi M.M. Levin of Satanov (1749-1826, “the father of the Galician Haskalah” and friend of Rav Yisrael Salanter) used the bookkeeping method for attaining “ethical perfection” outlined in the Autobiography, including Franklin’s list of thirteen virtues, as the framework of his own book. It remains a minor classic of Mussar literature. Anyone who takes the time to compare Franklin and one of Rabbi Levin’s chapters, for example, on frugality, קימוץ , will see differences in both the tone and the substance. For Rabbi Levin, Sefer Kohelet’s perspective on heaping up wealth as an act of nihility and the fury and accusation of Mishlei 24, combine in a chapter railing against conspicuous consumption and the corruption of communal leadership that it brings. Franklin’s virtues are not simply translated but transmuted by Rabbi Levin.

What lesson or specific Torah that you learned from Rabbi Brovender, do you keep coming back to or carry with you wherever you go?

My chelek in Torah, what I am able to share with my family, is deeply indebted to Rabbi Brovender. Key figures in chumash, Avraham Avinu, as understood by the Rambam, arrived to me first through Rabbi Brovender. My understanding of Bilaam and the sinister ambiguity of his poetry are inseparable from how Rabbi Brovender discussed him. From Rabbi Brovender, I first learned the Ramban’s Introduction to Chumash.  From Rabbi Brovender, I first met the Rambam. Rabbi Brovender and I spoke on occasion about his relationship with Rabbi Soloveitchik. In listening to Rabbi Brovender, I understood there had been moments of communicative unsuccess in that relationship. There was sadness that the Rav did not support his decision to make aliyah. To hear Rabbi Brovender speak about his relationship, as a talmid, with Rabbi Soloveitchik was to perceive that relationship with its sincere admiration but shorn of the excessive romanticization that can accompany hero-worship: frustration, and some pain, were part of the reality. I took away from these conversations a deepened appreciation for the human aspect of the relationship between a talmid and his rebbe. The truth is, I remember too much to recall here. There was Rabbi Brovender visiting Yaakov Silverstein in the hospital after the back surgery and smuggling in ice cream bars. Another time, when a student in the Yeshiva became sick or had some other serious personal difficulty, Rabbi Brovender made quiet but often effective efforts to help. I have sincerely missed Rabbi Brovender. It’s been a long time, and I am sorry we don’t live nearer to each other. I would like to introduce him to my children. I hope we have that opportunity added to what we have already been zocheh (had the privilege and the advantage) to enjoy. I cannot restrain myself from concluding with a heartfelt limerick: The wise guy of Kiryat Mattersdorf is him not frightened by anthropomorphism. Students say thanks for the provender –  the feed, and for teaching us all how to read –  The gifts of the Rav Chaim Brovender.   ------------------ To share your personal story about learning with Rabbi Brovender please contact us

For over 50 years Rabbi Brovender has taught thousands of students from all around the world. This week we introduce you to Jeffrey Graber, a retired technology specialist and resident of Kemp Mill, Maryland where he notes, “there are several alumni of Rabbi Brovender's many schools.”

How did you meet Rabbi Brovender?

I met Rabbi Brovender at the start of the second year of his original audacious undertaking when the students were not day school graduates on their gap year. We were a bunch of men who had not been exposed to traditional learning but sensed there was something valuable there. Rabbi Brovender along with Rabbi Jay Miller, gave us the golden opportunity to explore Torah learning and discover that there was something there and give us a new life!

What do you find most important or striking about the "Brovender Method" -his unique way of teaching?

In those early years, the method was to show us that learning Torah was something that “modern” urban people could appreciate and find enriching. Learning Torah was not archaic, not simplistic, but complex, intellectually challenging material fit for the sophisticated student.

When it comes to Torah learning, what were you most drawn to after learning with Rabbi Brovender?

Respect, Derech Eretz, Ahavat Yisrael, and Simchah.

What lesson or specific Torah that you learned from Rabbi Brovender, do you keep coming back to or carry with you wherever you go?

This may sound strange but … One night over 50 years ago (I don't remember what night) Rabbi Brovender gave a drashah on a Psalm (I don't remember which one). It was brilliant, powerful, moving, inspiring, transcendent....just the most amazingly beautiful drashah. I don't remember the message but I have never forgotten the feeling. And perhaps, this is what Judaism really is all about. I’d like to add, I have had a rewarding career in the “computer field”. I had the good fortune to be an early pioneer of the World Wide Web which made the Internet popular. When we visited our daughter in Israel during her “gap year” in the late 1990s, we took some time and visit Rabbi Brovender. How amazed I was when Rabbi Brovender started quizzing me about all this new technology, how it worked and how it could be applied. Surprised as I was at his interest, I did my best to explain. A few years later, to my great delight, there was Rabbi Brovender announcing WebYeshiva! Truly a testament to his genius and foresight. ------------------ To share your personal story about learning with Rabbi Brovender please contact us  

For over 50 years Rabbi Brovender has taught thousands of students from all around the world. This week we introduce you to Rabbi Aaron Frank, Upper School Principal at the Ramaz School in Manhattan. Prior to coming to Ramaz, Rabbi Frank was the Head of School at Kinneret Day School and previously Associate Principal at SAR High School. Before moving to New York, he worked at the Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School in Baltimore for twelve years, serving as Lower School and then High School Principal. He served as Associate Rabbi of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale under the mentorship of Rabbi Avi Weiss from 1996 until 2000 and was a founding member of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Baltimore. Rabbi Frank is married to Laura Shaw Frank. They have four children: Ateret, Yanniv, Elinadav, and Neri.

How did you meet Rabbi Brovender?

I met Rabbi Brovender in 1991 at a pivotal time in my life. I was post college and really in need of a place where I could learn seriously and be immersed in an environment of Torah and frumkeit, also while valuing my individuality and personal journey. The yeshiva and Rabbi Brovender were the perfect place.

What do you find most important or striking about the "Brovender Method" -his unique way of teaching?

Although I had spent my whole life in Day School, my textual skills were very weak and I was in one of the lower level shiurim with Rabbi Brovender. He had a magical way of making you feel so valued and also being straightforward and honest about what it takes to be committed to Torah and mitzvot. This balance struck us all, and of course with his signature sense of humor that would leave all the guys laughing daily!

What lesson or specific Torah that you learned from Rabbi Brovender, do you keep coming back to or carry with you wherever you go?

Rabbi Brovender is serious and passionate. He is someone who is not able to be put in a box.  He lives the way he sees things as truth.  He is not modern and he is not Haredi.  He is simply who he is –a well educated, smart, serious and caring soul. I was one of the more liberal guys in the yeshiva, and Rabbi Brovender was a true rebbe. He was always understanding of my world, while being kind and while giving me food for thought about the derekh of my life. This showed most clearly in how he helped guide me through our wedding through the lenses of halakhah and also helped to find ways that it would be personally meaningful.  I am blessed to have learned and been impacted by him. ------------------ To share your personal story about learning with Rabbi Brovender please contact us

For over 50 years Rabbi Brovender has taught thousands of students from all around the world. This week we introduce you to Rabbi Gideon Sylvester. After making aliyah from London where he was a rabbi for seven years, Rabbi Sylvester lives in Jerusalem and serves as the British United Synagogue’s rabbi in Israel.    How did you meet Rabbi Brovender? I came to Yeshivat Hamivtar from high school. Not many English people knew of the yeshiva in those days, but it had a strong reputation as a yeshiva which taught learning skills in an intelligent way, without imposing any philosophical outlook on its students. Within a short space of time, Yeshivat Hamivtar became the go-to yeshiva for intelligent young British men seeking a place to develop their learning skills. Many of my friends stayed on at the yeshiva and learned for semicha there. The result was that the yeshiva had an immense impact on the British community and beyond.  Rabbi Brovender has not only huge numbers of students, but generations of people taught by his students and students of his students.    When it comes to Torah learning, what were you most drawn to after learning with Rabbi Brovender?  When it comes to the texts that Rabbi Brovender inspired me to learn, it seems an impossible question to answer because the beauty of Rabbi Brovender’s approach is the diversity of texts that he learns and teaches. This mastery of so many types of Torah makes Rabbi Brovender a fascinating Torah scholar.  He introduced me to the thought of the Lubavitcher Rebbe which I learn each week with one Hamivtar graduate, the ideas of Rebbe Nachman which I learn with another. He taught us Gemara which I learn with a third Hamivtar graduate and the thought of the Ramban which I learn each week with Rabbi Walk.  But if I had to choose one text that I learned to love because of Rabbi Brovender, it would have to be the Rambam’s Hilchot Teshuvah. Rabbi Brovender showed us how the Rambam links so many philosophical topics elegantly connecting one to another.   What do you find most important or striking about the 'Brovender Method', about his way of teaching? Perhaps the most striking thing for me is Rabbi Brovender’s combination of extreme intellectual rigor with infinite kindness. Rabbi Brovender’s shiurim were always robust, there was little time for side issues, those were deferred to lunch time. This taught me powerful lessons about the intensity of Talmud Torah.  Yet, alongside the no-nonsense approach to learning was great tolerance of all the students regardless of how weak their learning backgrounds. And in times of need, Rabbi and Mrs. Brovender remain an immense source of humanity, strength and kindness.  Time and time again, they have been at my family’s side to support us through semachot and more difficult times. We are immensely grateful.   What lesson or specific Torah that you learned from Rabbi Brovender, do you keep coming back to or carry with you wherever you go?  There are several lessons from Rabbi Brovender which I think about a lot of the time. The first is simply the thrill of being able to read and understand a text. Often, when I am learning with a chavruta, and particularly with one from my Brovender’s’ days, I pause and marvel at the fact that we are sitting reading and analyzing a piece of text in ways that would have been impossible without the Yeshiva that Rabbi Brovender founded. He opened the world of Torah learning to us and for that I am eternally grateful. [caption id="attachment_101173" align="alignleft" width="283"] Rabbi Sylvester receives semicha from Rabbi Brovender[/caption] The second thing I carry around with me is the fact that Rabbi Brovender was unafraid to surround himself with brilliant and immensely talented scholars with a wide range of approaches and perspectives. Rabbis Brovender, Riskin, Schrader, Jablinowitz, Felix, Walk and Ebner brought such a diverse array of approaches. It created a vibrant intellectual atmosphere, a rich source of spirituality and an inspirational example of coexistence. What was true of Rabbi Brovender’s faculty holds true of his students. There is no typical Hamivtar graduate. Yet, if an alumnus has picked a serious way of life, Rabbi Brovender embraces their path. The third thing I carry with me is Rabbi Brovender’s willingness to say “I know what the words mean, but I do not know what this means”. We all were aware of Rabbi Brovender’s encyclopedic knowledge of Torah. Yet when confronted with the words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, he had no fear of stating that he did not really know what that meant. In so doing, he fulfilled the words of the Gemara, that a person should always teach his tongue to say I don’t know (Berachot 4a). Each time Rabbi Brovender fulfills this, I am filled with love and admiration for his modesty and his intellectual honesty. The fourth thing I carry with me are two statements that Rabbi Brovender once made. In the first, he reminded us that if we really believed in God, we would never, ever be remiss in performing even the smallest mitzvot, -we would certainly never be late for shul. The second which carried a similar meaning, is that he told us that “there are no Sundays in divine justice.” This meant that in this world we had to be constantly attentive to our religious duties. In other words, when it came to God, there were no days off. It was a powerful and demanding message which expressed his deep faith and his exacting standards.  Yet alongside this passion, there is always a rye sense of humor which meant that Rabbi Brovender’s yeshiva and his shiurim are always warm, happy, uplifting places to be. ------------------ To share your personal story about learning with Rabbi Brovender please contact us  

For over 50 years Rabbi Brovender has taught thousands of students from all around the world. This week we introduce you to Daniel Berkove. Born and raised in Detroit, he lived and worked in the US, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and France before moving to Israel at the end of 2000 to study in a yeshiva –just in time for the beginning of the second intifada. Today, Daniel is a consultant in the energy industry working with companies and governments across Africa and the East Mediterranean region. Outside of family and work he studies Torah and tries to get in some exercise. He also dabbles in music, having created and produced “The Blessing Israel” music video, an initiative dedicated to raising awareness around antisemitism that featured Christian and Israeli Jewish stars. The video garnered over three million views across various platforms. Daniel lives with his wife Ayelet and five children in Givat Shmuel.

How did you meet Rabbi Brovender?

We met for the first time after I became a student at HaMivtar. But before then, when I was looking for a yeshiva to study in, many people recommended that I meet Rabbi Brovender and check out HaMivtar. HaMivtar, they explained, was well suited for someone with my background, an older student with a university education who was taking a sabbatical from his career. As it turned out, however, apparently I needed to study at three other yeshivas over the course of a year before I took that advice. When I finally did, I knew immediately that HaMivtar was the right place for me and I stayed for about three years. Since leaving the yeshiva, I have been fortunate to maintain a relationship with Rabbi Brovender. My wife and I were honored that he was our mesader kiddushin and the sandak for our third boy.

What do you find most important or striking about the "Brovender Method" -his unique way of teaching?

I was most struck by Rabbi Brovender’s laser-focus on understanding texts as they are written. Whatever text is before you, you have to explain how your interpretation derives directly from those words. He taught me that to understand a text, it was necessary to read the words carefully, not to impose any preconceived notions on their meaning, and to think critically. This also means that often there can be multiple acceptable ways to understand a text, even if some may be mutually exclusive. To learn and see for myself how Judaism embraced this rigorously intellectual and honest approach was exciting and inspiring. What made Rabbi Brovender’s method particularly compelling, however, was his masterful ability to show us how it was done. In every shiur, from whatever text we were studying, he would find a way to read it that would be insightful and persuasive, even from language that seemed simple or prosaic, at least superficially.

When it comes to Torah learning, what were you most drawn to after learning with Rabbi Brovender?

I was most drawn to the study of Tanach. These are the greatest books ever written, unmatched in depth, craftsmanship, and humanity. Rabbi Brovender helped me to understand this.

What lesson or specific Torah that you learned from Rabbi Brovender, do you keep coming back to or carry with you wherever you go?

There are several lessons that I learned from Yeshivat HaMivtar that I continue to think about:

• In my last year at HaMivtar, I was given permission to study in its rabbinic program. Proud to be accepted into the program, I shared the news with Rabbi Brovender. His response, however, was to say, “More important than what you’re going to study next year is what you’re going to study over the next 20 years.” This comment has stuck with me and reminds me continually that learning Torah is not a sprint but a life-long marathon.

• The rabbis that Rabbi Brovender attracted to HaMivtar were diverse, each sharply distinct from one another in personality, teaching style, and interests. What they had in common, however, was a love for and mastery of Torah, an open mind and facility for critical thinking, and a love and ability for teaching. To me, they became living examples of the “70 faces of Torah,” the truth that the Torah is majestically pluralistic; that there is no one right way to understand and live Torah but many ways.

• Over the years I’ve asked several halachic questions of Rabbi Brovender about difficult issues I was grappling with. The first time I asked such a question of him, I was surprised by hows thoughtful, sensitive, and nuanced his answer was. Not that this manner didn’t comport with his personality, but I had expected that an answer to a halachic question would be more black-and-white and more impersonal. How Rabbi Brovender answered that question then, and how he has answered others since, helped me understand that halacha is meant to be practical, compassionate, and personal, and that a meaningful, fully Jewish life can and should be lived not just in the study hall but in any place and situation.

Finally, I’d like to add that Rabbi Brovender and Yeshivat HaMivtar gave me the best education I ever received. I’m deeply grateful to Rabbi Brovender, and to the other wonderful Yeshivat HaMivtar rabbis with whom I studied, for this priceless gift that continues to give.   To share your personal story about learning with Rabbi Brovender please contact us