Kollelim

Rosh Kollel: Rabbi Mordechai I. Willig

This program combines intensive Torah learning for future rabbinic leaders with courses in skills such as counseling, advanced public speaking and writing, business ethics and conflict resolution. It offers generous stipends to RIETS' most promising young leaders, who attend world-class seminars and lectures to develop their potential.

Participants receive more than 400 hours of professional training as a supplement to their intensive Torah studies. Students enter the four-year Kollel Elyon program after finishing their Yoreh Yoreh semikha studies.

Rosh Kollel: Rabbi Michael Rosensweig

This program provides post-rabbinic training for scholars who will become future roshei yeshiva and spiritual-intellectual role models for the Jewish community. Candidates are selected from among the most promising young rabbinic scholars and are also eligible to receive graduate school stipends

Rosh Kollel: Rabbi Hershel Schachter

The Marcos and Adina Katz Kollel embodies, in the highest sense, the concept of Torah Lishmah. With over 100 students, most of whom are still in the Yoreh Yoreh semikha program, it is the largest kollel in RIETS. Its program of shiurim and intensive self-study provides training for prospective teachers and scholars and enables men to engage in advanced Talmudic scholarship. Students study approximately 20 dapim of Gemara per semester and may be eligible to receive a monthly stipend. The kollel meets from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Sunday through Thursday, and includes regular bechinot and a night seder requirement.

Rosh Kollel: Rabbi J. David Bleich
Assistant Rosh Kollel: Rabbi Mordechai I. Willig

This intensive four- to five-year program grants Yadin Yadin semikha to outstanding scholars who have already received Semikha Yoreh Yoreh, enabling them to serve as poskim in areas of Even HaEzer and Choshen Mishpat. They study Halacha and Responsa while observing the Beth Din of America and other batei din.

Director: Rabbi Dovid Miller

High in the hills overlooking Jerusalem, the Gruss Institute stands as a tower of Talmud Torah. Opened in 1977, the Institute offers yearlong programs of study for both semikha and post-semikha students. RIETS students can spend one of their four years of study at the Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Institute kollel in Jerusalem.

Our Israel Campus in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem, includes:

• The Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Institute of RIETS, offering yearlong programs for chaver, semikha and post-semikha students
• Programs for Yeshiva University undergraduates
• Student dormitories and sports facilities
• The Yeshiva University Israel Alumni Office, which provides outreach to more than 3,000 graduates in Israel for Y.C. and RIETS students. 

The beit midrash on our Israel Campus is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Israel Miller, Z"L. Rabbi Miller guided the founding of the Bayit Vegan campus and established the Gruss Institute for advanced rabbinical study. He devoted 60 years of his life to the University, first as a student and then as an administrator.

For Rabbi Miller, the beit midrash at the Israel Campus personified limud Torah. Every day hundreds of students spend time developing their learning and teaching skills, exploring the vast treasures of Torah and preparing for lives as professional and lay leaders of the Jewish community.

The learning environment in the beit midrash continues to offer a microcosm of the devotion to rabbinic tradition and intellectual diversity emblematic of Yeshiva University.

Beyond Our Campus

Beyond the Israel Campus, new technologies are opening virtual windows to talmidim throughout the world, enabling them to join in study through webcasts of daily classes that are taught in Jerusalem. The presence of Yeshiva University in Jerusalem infuses Israeli society with the values of Torah Umadda, the University's guiding philosophy.

And soon, a new venture will extend Yeshiva University's reach by bringing recent musmachim to communities throughout Israel as leaders of satellite kollelim. Pilot programs are planned for Ra'anana and Modi'in, cities in which Yeshiva University alumni are well represented.

In establishing the Rabbi Jacob H. Kupietzky Memorial Program for the Study of Kodshim, the Kupietzky family pays tribute to Rabbi Kupietzky's father, a Talmudic scholar who learned with the legendary Chafetz Chaim, and paves the way for a new generation of scholars to acquire mastery of the rarified texts and esoteric concepts of the Talmudic order of Kodshim.

We at RIETS have been and continue to be beneficiaries of the generosity and grand vision of Rabbi Jonah and Fran Kupietzky.

This year we are blessed with a remarkable cadre of three young men who received their Yeshiva College degrees in the fields of mathematics and philosophy, and are now proudly focusing their intellectual energies on the study of Kodshim as this year's Kupietzky Fellows.

The Talmud teaches us (Menachos 110a) that those who study Kodshim are viewed as if they are actually performing the sacrificial order in the Holy Temple. Through the munificence of the Kupietzky family, our students are able to bring the Jewish people closer to our eternal aspiration for ultimate redemption.

Rosh Kollel: Rabbi J. David Bleich

Established in 1978, the Chaver Program is a kollel for men entering or completing professional studies other than the rabbinate. Study programs in Gemarah, Halakha and ethics have been established for students who delay their entrance to graduate schools of medicine, law, psychology and business. Participants pursue a post-college year of intense study of Talmud and Halacha related to their professional goal while attending regular RIETS shiurim.