Roshei yeshiva, rabbanim, and admorim packed the Keter HaRimon hall in Bnei Brak on Sunday night for an emergency asifa for Keren Olam HaTorah, raising a unified cry over what the gedolim repeatedly described as the gravest assault on olam haTorah in Eretz Yisroel in decades.

The asifa came amidst the combined crises of the gezeiras hagiyus, the slashing of yeshiva budgets and the financial choking of thousands of bnei Torah and avreichim, and served as a call to global Jewry to carry a piece of the burden of holding up the limud haTorah of Eretz Yisroel.

The pain of the families, more than the politics, set the tone from the opening words. HaRav Dov Landau shlit”a expressed the daily fear that has taken hold inside the homes of bnei Torah. Standing before the assembled gedolim, he spoke of the trembling of the wife of the avreich and the mother of the ben yeshiva every time her husband or son walks out the door, dreading that the military police will seize him.

"Our heart aches from the pain of their families," Rav Landau said, laying out the new blunt reality: the responsibility for the kiyum of the olam haTorah no longer sits on the shoulders of the gevirim alone. Every Yid, he said, must accept the responsibility on their shoulders, to whatever extent they can. 

Harav Moshe Hillel Hirsch shlit”a, Rosh Yeshivas Slabodka, added that the days of hoping the situation would reverse itself in a year or two are over. The old yeshiva budgets are not coming back, he said, and the framework in which a handful of wealthy supporters carried the olam haTorah simply cannot stretch to meet the moment.

"Every Yid must be a shutaf in Keren Olam HaTorah," Rav Hirsch declared. He laid out the math openly: the cost of sponsoring a single avreich for one month is $276. We ask every Yid to, at a minimum, sponsor a month, either at once or spread across a year at $23 a month. Those who can give more, the Rosh Yeshiva said, should give more. And if one can sponsor an avrech for a full year at $276 per month, Hakodosh Baruch Hu should shower you with blessings.  

Harav Meir Tzvi Bergman shlit”a told the assembled gedolim and the tzibbur that no threat, of any kind, will move klal Yisrael to give up a single bochur, and urged tefillos for the gedolim who are set to travel to America in the coming days on behalf of Keren Olam Hatorah.

The Sanzer Rebbe shlit”a said that the gezeira against limud haTorah is the inner milchamah of the geulah, the war waged by those who want to uproot Torah from Klal Yisroel. 

"When Yidden support lomdei Torah, the money takes on a tzurah of kedusha," the Rebbe said. He invoked the Noam Elimelech on the passuk "v'tzarta hakesef b'yadcha," explaining that the dollars given to hold up olam haTorah become, in shamayim, a kli of taharah that is mevarech both the giver and his home.

Harav Shmuel Betzalel shlit”a, Rosh Yeshiva or Porat Yosef declared that this “Keren Olam Hatorah”, created by generous Jews across the world is actually a new “Keren”, a source of shefa Tovah - spiritual and physical blessings from Hashem for Klal Yisrael. 

Harav Dovid Cohen shlit”a spoke about the fact that while the gezeiros continue seemingly with increased strength, the support from Klal Yisrael throughout the world continues to grow as well. The Rosh Yeshiva described the beauty of the simcha and satisfaction with which Yidden give beyond their abilities to Keren Olam Hatorah, and he underscored the fact that it is now time for all of Klal Yisroel to join in supporting the Keren on whatever level they can. 

By the end of the kinus, the gedolim had set a course. A delegation of roshei yeshiva and gedolei Torah is preparing to leave for the United States next week, in what marks the third such mission of askanim and gedolim on behalf of the keren since the gezeiros began. The earlier missions, the gedolim noted, were met with support from American Yidden that no one in Eretz Yisroel had dared expect, with hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to keep yeshivos and kollelim open and to keep avreichim learning while the state walked away from its obligations.

Now, with the dollar weakened and the need growing greater each day, the gedolim are calling for every Yid to take on a share of the burden.