From Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet, respected Torah scholar, prolific author, and beloved teacher, comes a beautlfully written and compelling scholarly memoir. Beginning with his childhood on Washington Avenue in the Bronx, he writes expansively of growing up in a post - World War II world where Lithuanian Torah scholars were transplanted to the soil of twentieth-century America; of the ideological clashes between Hasidim, Mitnagdim, and the modern world; and of his Personal encounters with dozens of well-known Jewish personalities - including his rebbe, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.
With the cancellation of the security clause, he is also able to narrate the gripping inside story of the covert emissaries sent behind the Iron Curtain to reach out to Soviet Jewry. From the world of Yeshiva University, to aliyah to Israel, to becoming a key player in teaching Torah in the refusenik Russian community, Rabbi Rakeffet covers the events of his fascinating life with candor, tremendous insight, and a great deal of humor.
Hardcover