Rabbi Eliezer Menachem Man Shach — one of this era’s most revered Torah giants — spices his inspirational talks with anecdotes from the lives of Torah greats, from the Vilna Gaon and the Shaagas Aryeh to our own time. These are stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, inspiring the yeshivah world in every country where its values and dedication to Torah study have taken root.

But these are more than “stories.”

When told by the Ponevezher Rosh Yeshivah, they are classic lessons in love of Torah and service of Hashem. Because the soul of the yeshivah is found not only in pored-over tomes, penetrating analyses, and profound lectures. There is also a tradition, a rich one. A tradition born in the lives of its great exponents, men who not only learned Torah but lived Torah, who not only taught Torah but exemplified Torah, men whose teachings lay not only in their words and writings but in every activity and nuance of their lives.

That tradition is the stuff of the Rosh Yeshivah’s stories. It is a tradition that lives in his person and that he communicates with the passion of his teachings and the integrity of his being. Wise and penetrating, his words should be required reading for every serious ben Torah — and for anyone who craves spiritual nourishment from the wellsprings of the Lithuanian Torah aristocracy.

The stories in this book are taken from recorded talks by Rabbi Shach. They were collected and adapted by his grandson, Rabbi Asher Bergman, with his grandfather’s permission, and were originally published in Hebrew, in Israel, where the book was an instant best-seller. We are proud to bring it and its lessons to the English reader.