Iconic Williamsburg: Hagaon Rav Avraham Tropp, zt”l

Rav Avrohom Chaim was born to his father, the legendary Ga’on, Rav Naftoli Tropp, zt”l, known as the “Granat,”—whose seforim frace the shelves of yeshivos throughout the world, in the toewn of Yanishok, Lita, near Shavel. 

Transmitting Torah 

Rav Avrohom married the daughter of Rav Yaakov Moshe Sapir, of Saratov-Petach Tikvah, who was also from an elite group of the Chofetz Chaim’s talmidim. Following the passing of his father in 1928, Rav Avrohom became the Rosh Yeshiva, and later was joined Rav Mendel Zaks. He transmitted the Torah of his father with tremendous reverence and zeal.  

When the Holocaust came, Rav Avrohom wandered together with the yeshiva, continuing to give shiurim. The family was taken as prisoners of war because they had passports to Palestine. They were sent to Siberia where they spent the war years. The Russians released the family after the war, as they were Polish citizens. They wandered for a number of years until they made it to America. 

Upon the suggestion of Rav Aharon Kotler, the Stoliner yeshiva in Williamsburg invited him to serve as its Rosh Yeshiva, and thus began a tenure that remains a pride to the Stoliner chassidus. 

Reb Refoel Oppenheim considers himself a talmid muvhak of the Rosh Yeshiva, and considers it his zechus to have been meshamesh him. He came to the Yeshiva on the advice of Rav Shneur Kotler, zt”l, and because Rav Tropp was Rosh Yeshiva there. “He was a quiet person by nature, always learning… always immersed in his sefer,” he says.

“And to imagine that this was a Rosh Yeshiva who had said shiur in Radin…he was truly one of the amolige Roshei Yeshiva. His hasmadah was tremendous, and his gadlus b’Torah was great.” Despite his anivus and his unassuming manner, he was considered among the gedolei Roshei Yeshiva in America, and was revered wherever he went.  

In the Stoliner Yeshiva 

Rav Tropp often related to the bachurim in the Yeshiva the words of the Chofetz Chaim. “Der Chofetz Chaim hot mir gezogt az oib ich vel marbitz Torah zein vel ich hobben ah refuah – the Chofetz Chaim told me that if I undertake to be marbitz Torah, I would get well.” 

Dayan Hershel Brody says that his own father learned in Radin and knew the Tropp family, and he related that Harav Aaron Kotler, zt”l, greatly lauded the Rosh Yeshiva’s way of saying Torah.

He once met the Rosh Yeshiva on the Williamsburg bus. He walked over to him and mentioned that he was learning the sugyah of ger kattan, in Kesubos. “On the spot, the Rosh Yeshiva proceeded to repeat his father’s shtickel Torah on this sugyah, with utmost mesikus”. 

The Rosh Yeshiva insisted that the Yeshiva needed a summer home, and the first camp was in White Sulphur Springs near Liberty, NY. This was where Mrs. Chana Goldstone, a daughter of the Rosh Yeshiva, remembers meeting the children of Rav Moshe Berman, the menahel of the Yeshiva. Reb Refael relates: “Here too, he never stopped learning for a moment. Even when we were strolling together, he was rosho v’rubo in learning… 

“Of course we could approach him with anything, but his zehirus for every davar shebikdushah was enormous. He had a peh kadosh, and he weighed every word. Everything he said was Torah, everything was kadosh. 

“The unforgettable Reb Meir Pilchick said many times—and I heard this from many people who heard this from him— that the zechus of the yeshiva’s success was having a Rosh Yeshiva like Reb Avraham Tropp.” 

“Ad hayom hazeh,” says Reb Refael, “I cherish every moment that I merited to be in the presence of this true gadol, and I feel his influence until this day—it was a zechus for me.” 

Rav Avraham moved to Eretz Yisroel in the late 70’s, and was later niftar there.