Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz and Rav Reuven Grozovsky
R’ Yitzchok Scheiner, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Kaminetz Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, was raised in Pittsburgh at a time when there were no yeshivos or Talmud Torahs nearby. His parents were frum, but with no other options available, they sent him to public school. After completing eight years of elementary school, he attended Peabody High School.
Upon graduating, he was accepted to the University of Pittsburgh, where he intended to major in mathematics. He excelled in both math and Latin, with his teachers predicting he would become a scholar in those fields.
However, as hindsight reveals, one significant factor would alter his path: Forty days before his future wife was born, a Heavenly voice proclaimed, “Esther Leah bas R’ Moshe (granddaughter of the renowned R’ Boruch Ber Leibowitz) will marry Yitzchok Aryeh ben R’ Dov.”
At the time, R’ Scheiner was just a three-year-old boy growing up in Pittsburgh with no formal Torah Chinuch, while his future wife was born in Vilna, a city known for its Gedolei Torah. Despite living nearly 6,000 miles apart, R’ Yitzchok’s future was intertwined with that of a girl from a distinguished Torah family, the granddaughter of the Gadol Ha’dor, the author of Bircas Shmuel, a sefer used in yeshivos worldwide.
How did Hashem orchestrate such a match? The summer after R’ Scheiner graduated from high school, R’ Avraham Bender visited Pittsburgh on a fundraising mission. Although he had never been to the East End neighborhood where the Scheiners lived, Hashem led him there on this occasion. Since the Scheiner family was one of the few keeping kosher, Rabbi Bender stayed with them.
During a casual conversation, he learned that Yitzchok planned to attend the University of Pittsburgh. R’ Bender asked, “Why aren’t you sending your son to a yeshiva in New York?” The Scheiners, unaware of the yeshivos in New York at the time, agreed to send their son there. Yitzchok followed through and traveled to New York. The next summer, Yitzchok attended Camp Mesivta, a summer camp in the Catskills, then the only Orthodox Jewish learning camp of its kind. (He had developed a bad cough, and it was recommended that he breathe the fresh mountain air.)
There, he met individuals who later introduced him to Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, where he learned for many years under the esteemed leadership of R’ Shlomo Heiman and later R’ Reuven Grozovsky.
R’ Grozovsky had married the daughter of R’ Boruch Ber Leibowitz. After World War II, R’ Grozovsky escaped Europe and eventually settled in New York, where he joined Yeshiva Torah Vodaas. It was there that R’ Grozovsky recommended his niece, the granddaughter of R’ Boruch Ber, as a suitable match for his talented student, R’ Yitzchok Scheiner.
Thus, through a series of divinely orchestrated events, R’ Yitzchok Scheiner and his rebbetzin were brought together. (Excerpted from the ArtScroll book - Living Emunah on Shidduchim)
Reprinted from the Parshas Va’eirah 5785 email of The Weekly Vort.
