Elazar Shach - Life in Europe

Life in Europe

Elazar Menachem Man Shach was born in Wabolninkas (Vabalninkas, pronounced Vaboilnik in Yiddish), a rural village in northern Lithuania to Rabbi Ezriel and Batsheva Shach. The Shach family had been merchants for generations, but Batsheva's family, the Levitans, were religious scholars who served various Lithuanian communities. Batsheva's brother, Rabbi Osher Nisan Levitan, later became an important figure in the Union of Orthodox Rabbis. Elazar was a child prodigy, and was sent to study in the Ponevezh yeshiva at age seven.

When World War I began in 1914, many of the Slabodka yeshiva students were dispersed across Europe. Shach initially returned to his family but then began traveling across Lithuania from town to town, sleeping and eating wherever he could while continuing to study Torah. After the war Shach rejoined Meltzer and his son-in-law, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, in Kletsk, Poland. When Meltzer returned to Slutsk, Shach followed him (the Slutsk yeshiva later gained fame as the Lakewood yeshiva in America).

Meltzer became both a father figure and patron to the young Shach, even arranging his marriage with his niece, Guttel, in 1923. Shach received rabbinical ordination from Meltzer, and from 1927 to 1932 taught in the Kletsk yeshiva. After the passing of Rabbi Meir Shapiro, head of the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski sent the yeshivah's administrators a letter, recommending Shach for the position. After delivering a discourse at the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva, Shach traveled to Vilna to consult with Grodzinski about the wisdom of taking on the new position, and upon hearing the various aspects of the question, Grodzinski advised Shach to turn down the offer. Shach then taught Talmud at the Novardok yeshiva. In 1936 he became rosh yeshiva at the Karlin yeshiva in Luninets.