Yahrtzeit of Rav Ahron Kotler Ztl

when raron Cutler came to New York City from Kobe Japan he met with a small group of students at Penn Station on the railroad platform and he said together we will rebuild Torah right here in America after the devastations of the Holocaust rarin felt that it's only through Torah LMA that we could rebuild our nation he said Torah is the life force behind the Jewish people and it's with that that we need to reestablish centers of Torah and yishay right here in America and that passion for real Torah led him to opening the lakew Yeshiva in 1943 with only a minion of talmidim and it grew to what it is today with nine bashim over 6,000 talmidim and numerous satellite Kim all around the world through his wisdom and his dedication he imparted to his talmidim and to all of Cl Israel a love and a respect for Torah learning that was unheard of here in this country beforehand and he didn't just teach this he lived it for example one of his drivers was describing a typical day with raran and he would take him around to run all of his errands and he ate a small breakfast and right after that he got busy the entire day the Yeshiva office going to philanthropist and after this long and busy day and not getting home till around midnight he had this excruciating look on his face and he said oi I haven't leared anything today despite talking and learning to the driver and opening a safeer whenever he could he felt that he didn't do any real learning that day and immediately he took a gimar and started to learn rarin was the manik hadora and as such he was always attuned to the needs of clel as the leading rashash Shiva he was the head of the Moet gor he set out good of policies on many issues he led Toro misora and he was so focused on building yeshivas all over the continent and this wasn't just in America in the 1950s when Israel was an emerging country rarin said that we need to start building Yeshiva right away and it's with that that was born creating an environment where over 10,000 Jewish children are learning Torah today and most notably were his passionate efforts on behalf of the vat Salalah saving Yiddish and is shamas from the hor of the Holocaust even though he spoke very minimal English but nothing got in Riv arin's way in order to save even one Jew noted Asen Mr Irving buam recalled how one night when rarin wasn't well and it was raining and was snowing outside rarin treed all the way to Washington and went around late at night from office to office in order to save people from the Holocaust he reached out to anyone and everyone that could possibly help even a Mafia Boss and a fascist newspaper Editor to see what could they do to save Jewish lives he sent money to people starving in Siberia he got visas to get people out of Europe and he would raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to bribe the Nazis to save Jewish Souls one time when he was meeting with the US Secretary of Treasury Henry morgantha he was asking him for help to be able to bribe the Nazis to be able to save Jews and Henry Morgan said no that's totally against policy we can't bribe the enemy and raron looked at him with fire in his eyes and he said maybe you're afraid of losing your position but I want you to understand that the life of even one Jew is worth more than your entire position and with that Morgan th understood the message and he said I too am a Jew and I too am going to help and his a was beyond there's a story told about a yid named Raa whose entire family was wiped out during the Holocaust and he settled in Lakewood and he made Bas medish Cava his second home and Anum Kipper he went over to RAR and he told him I'm not feeling well and raron put his arm around him and he said no worries go back to your room and rest up well after Min raran called over one of the tal and said I want you to go to R's room and davo over there if he's up to it you'll D in together with him but if not just dve in there by yourself next to him and the talmid shocked looked at rabaran and said rebi but it's Nila the most important Fila of the year and rabaran looked at him and he said I'm talking about for an Al and you're telling me about nil and it was on the second of kle 5723 that we lost raron but his legacy still lives on and it's incumbent upon all of us to think about his tremendous AAS his incredible love for Torah and ask ourselves what can we do right now to carry on the message of raran Cutler [Music]