(Click HERE for photos) As part of a muti-city trip on behalf of Torah Vodaath, Harav Shmuel Dishon� shlita, a talmid of the yeshiva and presently Menahel of Mosdos Yad Yisroel- Karlin Stolin, came to Los Angeles to attend a reception for the Yeshiva hosted by Mr. & Mrs. Barry Weiss.

On Wednesday evening July 16th, Rabbanim, Baale Batim and friends of the Yeshiva�
attended this special reception which represented a show of support recognizing 90 years of torah leadership in America.

Harav Dishon described how in the early years Reb Shraga Feivel Mendelovitz, zt”l approached� the local Jewish community and asked them to send their children to the Yeshivah.� Their response was not the desired one. �Reb Shraga,� he was told,� �what you are trying to do will not happen. It will not happen here in America.�

And Reb Mendelovitz replied, �Yes it will. I believe it and I know it.�
He quoted to the them pasuk in yirmiyahu. �lech-teich acharei bamidbar b�eretz lo zaruah��� �You followed after Me in the desert, through a land not planted.�
�
The pasuk says a desert, why the repetition by saying �a land not planted?�
A midbar is eretz lo zaru. Why repeat it? To which he answered, �some people see a midbar, a desert, as a desolate and empty place with no possibility of growth. Others just see a desert as a land that is� �lo zarua, not planted.�
Those who see a midbar do not have the courage to plant, and the land stays a midbar a desert. But I see America only as a land that is lo zaru, not planted yet and that if we plant even in this torah desert of America things (torah) can grow.�
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Rav Dishon concluded by saying, �We see today that America is an eretz zarua, a land that is planted, with baruch hashem, many yeshivos and many mekomei torah.�
These accomplishments occurred only because of the amuna of people like Rav Mendelovitz, zt”l, who believed torah had a place in America and all we had to do was plant it.

(by Rabbi Arye D. Gordon – LA)