According to some traditions, his mother was the one named Hendel, and she was Rav Yitzchok of Kaliv’s stepdaughter, whom he married to Rav Pinchas Zelig, the Kol Arye’s father. She was a great tzadekes, whose influence on her son’s greatness in Torah began before he was even born, for while the baby was still in the womb she would frequently come to shul in Mad, Hungary, and listen behind the mechitza to the fiery deroshos of Rav Amrom Rosenbaum (nicknamed Rav Amrom Chasida).
One day as she sat listening, as was her daily custom, and Rav Amrom Chasida was in the midst of a difficult sugya and pilpul, she burst into tears. As others approached her, fearing for her health and safety, she turned them away, saying, “Do not fear! It is not out of pain or distress that I am shedding tears! I am crying, pleading with Hashem, asking that I merit to raise this child with a good mazal, so that one day, he too should merit to say such a deep derosha and pilpul as this one I am listening to!”
A few days later, on the Yahrzeit of his ancestral forebear, Aharon HaKohen, the child who was in fact destined for such Torah greatness as his mother had asked for was born, his way to greatness having been paved for him by his holy mother’s true tears.
His father was nicknamed Rav Zelig the Chassid and his humility matched his scholarly erudition for at the sound of nearing footsteps he would quickly hide the seforim he studied from day and night so as to conceal his Torah study from the public eyes and hide his true gadlus as much as he could.
Instead of typical children’s games, the young genius was busy with Torah. Soon enough there was no more need for his attendance in the local cheder; all the melamed had to hear was the humble child’s mutterings under his breath to realize that he had long ago far surpassed anything like his peers.
The melamed asked the young children if they could repeat for him all the names of the ofos temeos – the impure fowl and birds mentioned in Parashas Shemini. While his peers struggled to accomplish this task, the melamed heard the child prodigy saying to himself quietly, “What difficulty is that? Let’s see who can recite sugyas hanesher (in Chullin p. 61–63, discussing all the laws of ofos temeos) by heart with Gemora, Rashi and Tosfos.”
The Kol Arye also remembered Rav Hirsch Charif’s visit to Mad, and knew by heart the Rav and Gaon’s derosha and pilpul, which, despite his youth, he had listened to, memorized and understood at the age of just eight years old!
One incident should suffice to shed light on the one-year period that the Kol Arye studied in Verboy under the Shaarei Torah until he left at age sixteen. The Kol Arye’s seat during the shiur in Verboy was once again, as it had been in Pressburg, in close proximity to the Rosh Yeshiva. The Shaarei Torah had presented a chiddush and the Kol Arye had challenged it. The Shaarei Torah argued that he could prove his point from the Rambam in Hilchos Me’ila. The Kol Arye asked to see the point inside and his Rebbe asked him to bring the sefer.
However, due to the seating arrangement, not only was the bookcase on the far side of the room far from the Kol Arye’s seat beside the Shaarei Torah, but the dense crowding of talmidim prevented him from going between the rows to fetch it, and so he asked those in the row behind to ask for the volume to be brought from the bookcase. The request passed from one row of talmidim to the other until one of them fetched the requested sefer and handed it to the Kol Arye, who was dismayed to see he had been handed the Rambam’s volume of Sefer Ahava instead of Sefer Avoda.
Quickly realizing that this game of broken telephone had caused someone along the way to mistakenly hear a request for Hilchos Mila instead of Me’ila, and not wishing to embarrass the talmid who had made the error or the one who had fetched the volume, he quickly recovered himself and using his genius and insight, he solved the problem and declared amazingly, “I can prove the answer to the question instead from Hilchos Mila!”
All eyes in the room fixed themselves on the Kol Arye in stunned silence. How could this be? Did they hear him correctly? As for the Kol Arye himself, he calmly proceeded, on the spot, to build a logical edifice from the Rambam in Hilchos Mila that was completely solid and correctly supported the argument. The Shaarei Torah was amazed and delighted. As a sign of his affection he stood up, walked over to his prize talmid and kissed him on the head, handing him a gulden, a practice in those days of admiration, honor and respect for especially wise talmidim who proved their prowess.
One morning, the Pnei Yehoshua told his wife that their son had passed away and ascended to the Heavenly Academy. “He is now in the mesivta de’rakiya in the world of truth – alma de’kshot. Last night my son appeared to me asking that since he is now in the mesivta de’rakiya they honored him to say a derosha and asked him to give over something from his father, the Gaon, the Pnei Yehoshua. He was ashamed and embarrassed to admit that he did not know any. Therefore, he appeared to me to ask me to teach him a pilpul or chiddush to say over in the Heavenly Academy. I told him, this is how I know he has passed on to the world of truth.”
The holy Sanzer Rav said that the chiddush that the Pnei Yehoshua had told his son is found in the sefer Pnei Yehoshua on Bova Metzia, in one of the two aforementioned sugyos cited above. The Sanzer Rav ended his tale and remarked in conclusion, “I too have a Himmel Torah that my chiddushim merited to be recited in the mesivta de’rakiya.” To this, the holy Kol Arye responded, “Praise be to Hashem that I too have chiddushei Torah that are Himmel Torah.” He then related the story about his kuntres of Hilchos Berochos. (Toldos Kol Arye)
Among his various customs and ways of running his Yeshiva was not to show any favoritism to the children of the wealthy. In fact, just the opposite: the children of poor families were accepted with a berocha and with open arms, and he invested in them, honing them to sharpen their skills so that they would serve as Rabbonim and Poskim.
Two eyewitness examples should suffice to paint the picture of what the Yeshiva in Mad looked like.
The first account was given by Rav Mordechai Chuna Fuchs of Vilchowitz, a fiery Vizhnitzer Chassid who told this to the Kol Arye’s great-grandson, Rav Avrohom Yehuda Schwartz of Taplitza, son of Rav Yitzchok Meir Schwartz of Dragmirest, the son of the Bais Naftoli.
It was a long, cold winter night, the kind of night whose inky blackness stretches into long, dark hours, illuminated by the light and warmth of Torah study and sweet song of the chant of talmudic pilpul.
Usually during the winter months, when the days were short and the nights long, we davened Maariv early and sat down right afterward to a long learning seder before having dinner. The bochurim all sat in the Heichal HaYeshiva learning, while the Kol Arye sat with them in his place at the front of the Bais Medrash. That day we were studying an especially deep and complex sugya, and the Kol Arye was so engrossed in the topic at hand that his concentration was doubled or tripled. In fact, the Kol Arye’s concentration was so deep that he did not even mark or notice the passage of time. As the hours passed, suppertime arrived and the hungry bochurim began to head for the dining room to eat.
When they returned, they were simultaneously horrified and transfixed with respect and admiration. They were horrified to see that someone had forgotten to close the door behind him and had instead left the doors of the Bais Medrash open and the frigid air had been blowing in like freezing breath! Yet they were transfixed with amazement, respect and admiration for their esteemed and beloved Rosh Yeshiva, who was totally oblivious to his surroundings. So engrossed was the Kol Arye in his study of the sugya, that he neither noticed the open doors, the freezing cold wind, nor the absence of the entire student body who had gone to dinner and returned! In fact, he remained this way all night long. Until far past midnight when almost all the bochurim had left and gone to sleep for the night, a few of the greatest pupils and staunch talmidim, whose deepest respect, love and admiration for their Rebbe, the holy Kol Arye, kept them faithfully awake like an honor guard, watched the Rosh Yeshiva as he sat studying, oblivious to the world and in another world whose total reality was Torah. Eventually the Kol Arye woke from this trance and was amazed to see what time it was. “I thought it was just around nine o’clock. It’s so late – I must have lost all track of time.” He apologized for the oversight and asked his beloved talmidim to please “go to bed and sleep, gather your energy for the studies of the upcoming day.”
The next account was told by Rav Yehuda Greenfeld of Semihali, mechaber of Kol Yehuda, son of the famed Semihali Rav, Rav Shmaya Greenfeld, who was also a star talmid in the Yeshiva of the Kol Arye in Mad. Sometimes in the winter months, the Kol Arye changed the seder of the Yeshiva’s timetable to match the long winter nights. He had the entire student body go to bed early in the evening and awake after a few hours’ sleep, about an hour before midnight. They would rise like lions from their beds and run quickly back to the Bais Medrash, where they would eat a hasty dinner and gather round the Rosh Yeshiva, who delivered a deep, complex shiur on a sugya that lasted all night until dawn.
