Community Involvement and Leadership
With the start of World War II and the Holocaust, Sarna expanded the scope of his activities: he was among the founders of the Vaad Yeshivos, and was also active in the Vaad Hatzalah. After the founding of the State of Israel, Sarna served as one of the leaders of the Chinuch Atzmai Torah School Network. Although he shunned direct political involvement, Rabbi Sarna had a strong affinity for Agudas Yisroel, and he was an active member of its Council of Torah Sages.
Despite the involvement in community and Jewish projects, the Hebron yeshiva and its students remained his lifework. He delivered shiurim in halacha and musar every week at the yeshiva and in his own home. For seven years, he also delivered discourses on the laws and meaning of Shabbat. In 1936, with the passing of the yeshiva's mashgiach, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Chasman, Sarna assumed that role himself.
As rosh yeshiva and mashgiach, he acted warmly toward his students. This attitude is apparent in one of his letters, in which he wrote, "Yesterday, I entered the yeshiva close to midnight, and found thirty students studying with exceptional fervor. At that time, I thought, 'Fortunate is the generation which has merited such young people. May Hashem protect them and bless them.'"
Over time, his brothers-in-law, Rabbis Aaron Cohen and Moshe Chevroni, were appointed roshei yeshiva of Hebron, while Rabbi Meir Chadash was appointed mashgiach. Later, Rabbis Hillel Paley, Simcha Zissel Broide and Avrohom Farbstein were also invited to become roshei yeshiva there.
Read more about this topic: Yechezkel Sarna
Famous quotes containing the words community, involvement and/or leadership:
“Every community is an association of some kind and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“It may be tempting to focus on the fact that, even among those who support equality, men’s involvement as fathers remains a far distance from what most women want and most children need. Yet it is also important to acknowledge how far and how fast many men have moved towards a pattern that not long ago virtually all men considered anathema.”
—Katherine Gerson (20th century)
“The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency—indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman—but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)