Born at the end of 1877, this genius was discovered by a Volozhin Yeshiva student, Aaron Rabinowitz, on a farm near the town of Maichat shortly before his twelfth birthday. Aaron convinced the slight and bashful boy to accompany him to the Volozhin Yeshiva, and introduced him to the Rosh Yeshiva, R. Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, as a candidate for enrollment in the yeshiva. Surprised that Rabinowitz had brought a mere child to his world-class yeshiva which students usually joined at sixteen or seventeen, R. Berlin made a dig at Rabinowitz and said, ‘Why didn’t you bring his crib along?!’ Aaron replied, ‘Let the Rosh Yeshiva test him and decide what size crib he needs.’ As the brilliant Torah flashes flitted back and forth between the little boy and the wizened sage, the assistant rosh yeshiva,R. Hayim Soloveitchik, entered the room and joined in. R. Soloveitchik then brought the entrance test to a close by asking Shlomo where he was from, and when he received the reply, “From Maichat,” R. Hayim announced: “Then you are the Maichater Illui.” The epithet stuck to R. Polachek throughout his lifetime; even his posthumously published sefer of hiddushei Torah was named Hiddushei ha-Illui mi-Maichat.
His final destination was RIETS [Yeshiva’s seminary], where he delivered his shi’urim four to five times weekly. He was also a distinguished member of the Agudat ha-Rabbanim, and his presence highlighted its conventions. He was active in raising funds for the assistance of destitute rabbis in Europe through the Ezras Torah organization, and he was a member of Mizrachi.The Maichater Illui was only fifty years old when he was summoned to the Yeshiva on high.
The Early Years
I was fascinated by the essays on the early years of Yeshiva College. Dr. Alvin Schiff, a longtime administrator at Yeshiva, shared his memories of the school in the late 1940’s:
Max Bear came from the Samson Raphael Hirsch School in Frankfurt am Main to be the director of the dormitory. Everything about him was unique – his heavy accent, his booming high-pitched voice, his overly sincere desire to make the dormitory livable, and his difficulty in understanding the nature of American Jewish youth, not all of whom were as serious about their studies as he thought they should be.
In my junior year (1945-46), I was the chairman of the SOY Jewish Affairs Committee. As such, I had many discussions with Dr. Belkin about the relationship of the student body to Jewish issues. The period of 1945-47 was the memorable time of the United Nations resolution regarding Israel statehood. I represented Yeshiva University – Yeshiva received university status in 1945 – on the Youth Zionist Actions Committee (YZAC) and encouraged my fellow students to participate actively in pro-Israel programs and activities. Prior to the United Nations vote, YZAC organized a rally in midtown Manhattan, and I rounded up students to participate in it. The dean of YC, Dr. Moses L. Isaacs, who was a member of the Agudath Israel, did not take kindly to my involvement in and encouragement of the student participation in the rally. In fact, he brought the matter up at a faculty meeting, noting that I was disrupting the school schedule. But I was not censured. Interestingly, it was Dr. Belkin who came to my support.
Debate and Rebellion
One of the most contentious episodes was not one discussed in the series but that actually took place in it. Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg wrote about his experiences teaching at Yeshiva in the 1960’s and his own spiritual odyssey that led him away from the school. In response to some of Rabbi Greenberg’s claims about what occurred at that time, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein wrote in to the newspaper arguing with many of his former colleague’s statements, using such strong terms as “sharpest revulsion,” “what riles me,” and “patently erroneous.” This uncharacteristically harsh letter led to a lengthy response by Rabbi Greenberg.
Another controversy described in the series took place during my tenure at Yeshiva. In 1991, The Commentator discovered a plan by the school’s administration to close down the graduate school for Jewish Studies. When students learned of this, they took to protesting this decision 60’s-style. Michael Eisenberg, the editor of the newspaper at the time, wrote about it:
