JERUSALEM (VINnews) — For the second time on the same day, the Torah world was plunged into mourning with the news of the passing of Rabbi Yitzchok Scheiner, the Rosh Yeshiva of Kamenetz just hours after the passing of Rabbi Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik, the Rosh Yeshiva of Brisk.
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Rabbi Yitzchok Scheiner was born according to his own testimony in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1922 “right after my parents got off the boat from Galicia.” Although his parents were very devout, they did not have know how to provide a Torah education for their son.
“My aunt lived in Pittsburgh” Rabbi Scheiner recently recalled, “and she convinced my parents to move there. Growing up, I didn’t even know what a yeshivah was. I attended public school from elementary through high school.”
Rabbi Scheiner had heard that in New York there was a Yeshiva being founded by Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz and Rabbi Binyamin Wilhelm but he said that “everyone thought they were strange and unrealistic. It’s true, they were unrealistic. They created something from nothing. But in Pittsburgh at the time there was nothing. I had lots of friends, there were many Jews but very few- you could count on one hand- remained religious.”
Rabbi Scheiner’s life changed after a Meshulach (fundraiser), Rabbi Avraham Dovid Bender, came to Pittsburgh to raise money for the yeshiva. “In general he would go to another neighborhood where he had relatives but once he came to our neighborhood and stayed with us, since we were one of the few families that ate Kosher. Hashem organized it in this way.
“Most Meshulachim would come to their lodgings, eat and sleep and would not take notice of the kids in the family where they were staying. But Rabbi Bender was different. I was 16 then and he asked me what I was learning so I told him that I had finished school. He was interested in me and asked my parents ‘Why don’t you send him to a yeshiva in New York?’ My parents responded: ‘Yeshiva? What’s a Yeshiva?’ They were very devout, kept Shabbos and Kashrus, maybe they heard of yeshivos in Poland but had not idea that there could be such institutions in America.
“He said: ‘I’ll take him there’.It took six months until I left with him to New York, since once I ran after a bus and slipped on the ice and sprained my foot. I was in plaster for three months and couldn’t go to New York, I had to visit the doctor every few weeks.”
Rabbi Scheiner attributed his spiritual growth to his mother. “She would cry rivers of tears during candle lighting that I should remain Jewish, go to shul and say kaddish. My mother’s prayers were eventually answered and Rabbi Bender took me to New York.”
During the 1940s, Rabbi Scheiner studied at Yeshiva College (Yeshivas Rabbenu Yitzchok Elchonon) and at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas under Rabbi Shlomo Heiman. Toward the end of the 1940s, he married a granddaughter of Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Kamenetz.
During the 1960s, Rabbi Sheiner taught at a Yeshiva in Montreux, Switzerland.
After the death of his father-in-law (who was the rosh yeshiva of the Kamenitz yeshiva in Jerusalem), Rabbi Scheiner headed the yeshiva alongside his brother-in-law. Since the death of his brother-in-law in 1998, Rabbi Scheiner, who lived in Jerusalem’s Kerem Avraham neighborhood, served as the central rosh yeshiva with his brother-in-law’s son at his side. Rabbi Scheiner’s two sons and his son-in-law also teach at the yeshiva.
During the period of coronavirus Rabbi Scheiner was very careful, hardly leaving his house. Due to his concern regarding the virus, he did not attend the recent meetings of the Council of Torah Sages of which he had been a member since the 1990’s. A half a year ago he suffered a stroke but later recovered. Recently he received the first dose of the vaccination but was infected 10 days later and his condition deteriorated since then until his passing just a few hours after Rabbi Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik.
BDE two great pillars gone
he didn’t die from covid, he died from being 98