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F E AT U R E I A World of Kiruv

(Right) Dr. Kolbrener lecturing in the

English Department at Bar Ilan University, Israel.
(Above, in frame) Dr. Kolbrenner's maternal
great-grandfather, Velvel Blumstein.

The Story of BY ESTHER PERKA L

“On the living room mantel above the fireplace, stood a

Dr. William framed, yellowing portrait of a religious man with a salt-

and-pepper beard, tall black yarmulke and kind eyes.
Eyes that radiated truth and serenity, eyes that exuded

Kolbrener, profound depth and inspiration. It was the portrait of my

great-grandfather, Velvel Blumstein, Hy”d, a devout
Gerrer chassid from Govorova, Poland. He was clearly a
pious man, a man who lived and breathed his religious
Professor of English Literature ideals, yet despite our blood relationship, he was as
at Bar-Ilan University foreign to me as the faith he loved and observed.”

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D
R. WILLIAM KOLBRENER, a
third-generation American, was
born in 1961 and raised in
Roslyn, Long Island, in the loving
embrace of a warm, close-knit family that
placed strong emphasis on education,
values and ethics. The Kolbreners were
members of their local Reform temple,
where young William attended Hebrew
school regularly but was constantly irked
by the lack of meaning and connection in
what he learned.
He recalls attending a baseball game
as a youngster and being the object of
anti-Semitic slurs, wondering why his
Jewishness meant more to those hate-
filled gentiles than it did to him. He
remembers learning about the holiday of
Sukkos in September, noticing one of
those wooden huts as he strolled through
the neighborhood and feeling
that it belonged in a museum.
(Left) Dr. Kolbrener
No one he asked could explain
in formal attire for
the purpose or meaning of the
sukkah; in fact, they did not
evince any connection to the
commandments at all.
In his late adolescence, Minister of Culture,
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William stumbled upon a Sefer Zichronot
about various Jewish communities that
were annihilated during the Holocaust. It
was in this memorial book that he
learned of his rich familial history in
Govorova, Poland, and discovered an
article about his great-grandfather and
namesake, Velvel Zev Blumstein.
Suddenly, the face on the living-room
mantel that so resembled his own
acquired character, was transformed into
a living, breathing soul with a vivid
history and qualities to emulate. It was
this article that first sparked William’s
connection to his roots, a connection that
would develop and grow strong in the
years to come.
William graduated high school and
his Oxford Finals,
1985.
(Below) Dr.
Kolbrener in Mali
with its Deputy
left his suburban Long Island hometown
for Manhattan’s Columbia University,
where he delved into language arts and
literature and met Leslie, the woman who
became his wife. As undergraduates, the
couple found themselves exploring
political, philosophical and literary
traditions that served as invaluable tools
on an extended journey that would lead
them back to their heritage.
In 1982, William joined Crossroads, a
mini-Peace Corps outfit that sent him on
a summertime adventure to West Africa
to mark future archaeological digs in
Mali. He recalls his experience in
Timbuktu as similar to that of the Jews
who had sojourned forty years in the
desert, affording him endless hours to
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reflect on who he was and what he could

become. Although this experience did not
culminate in his acceptance of Torah, it
was another step in the right direction, a
golden opportunity to look outside himself
and focus on his past, present and future.
After graduating from Columbia,
Kolbrener enrolled in Oxford University in
England to pursue a master’s degree. He
spent the next two years studying and
working on what would later turn into his
doctoral dissertation on John Milton, the
great English poet. To enhance his grasp of
Milton, Kolbrener found himself studying
religion and acquiring expertise in beliefs
that, ironically, were not his own. He
learned that the focus of Catholicism was
tradition and ritual, whereas
Protestantism was individualistic. Quite
often he mused that if only there were a
faith that combined the two approaches.

Coming Home
Returning to Columbia to work on his
doctorate, Kolbrener befriended Shlomo
Felberbaum, a classics student who
studied part time in Yeshivah Chaim
Berlin and who introduced the Kolbreners
to Orthodox life. Another individual who
indirectly inspired him to learn more
about his faith was an enigmatic
university professor whom he admired.
One Shabbos morning Kolbrener followed
the professor off campus, where he lived,
and watched wide-eyed as he entered a
synagogue. Kolbrener was stunned that a
man of such brilliance and stature was
Above: A poster advertising Dr. Kolbrener’s lecture ‘From Athens to
also an observant Jew. Jerusalem,’ which he gives on Ivy League campuses.
In the months that followed, the
Kolbreners read voraciously and began to and friends at the university. A significant throughout that turbulent year and still
embrace their Judaism. “Some connect majority of Columbia’s English reinforces his approach to students’
through experience while others connect Department — both professors and questions.
through intellect,” Dr. Kolbrener says students — were Jewish, and the In 1991, Kolbrener was awarded a two-
about his gradual progression to full atmosphere was one of pluralism, year fellowship at Jerusalem’s Hebrew
mitzvah observance. “My wife and I were multiculturalism and tolerance. Still, University, which allowed him to complete
both raised in loving, nurturing families. It paradoxically, one who chose to embrace his dissertation and begin intensive Torah
wasn’t the mitzvah tanks or Shabbos meals an ancient heritage with Medieval study. The young Kolbreners, by then
that drew us close but rather the intellect, practices earned scorn. “You’re taking the proud parents of baby Elisheva, moved to
the recognition of Judaism’s innate easy way out,” many of them said. Rechavia and eventually settled in Bayit
meaning and connections.” Kolbrener replied earnestly, “I’m not Vegan. Dr. Kolbrener spent his mornings
As Kolbrener took overt steps toward turning to religion for answers, but to get writing at the university and his
mitzvah observance, he drew skeptical a better sense of what the questions really afternoons studying in Yeshivat Hamivtar
looks and cynical remarks from colleagues are.” This insight sustained him in Efrat. In amusement, he recalls sitting

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connect instinctively to yeshivah-style
study and appreciate the brilliance and
depth of Torah and Talmud.
“At Darchei Noam, they combine a
strong sense of grounding in Yiddishkeit
and the importance of knowledge by
being able to access the mesorah. It was
there that I learned how to learn, how to
connect,” he says.
What began as a planned two-year
stint in Israel became an “accidental
aliyah,” a permanent move to Israel, when
Kolbrener was offered a job at Bar-Ilan
University at the end of his fellowship. He
spent the next five years juggling the
myriad obligations of teaching at the
university, studying Torah in Shappel’s
yeshivah and raising his young family.
In 1997 he joined Yeshivas Midrash
Shmuel, which he dubs the “Institute for
Advanced Jewish Studies.” Under the
direction of Rosh Yeshivah Harav Binyamin
Moskowitz, he discovered a sophisticated
approach to philosophy and theory in
Torah learning. During this period he also
developed a close relationship with Rav
Yosef Kamenetsky and eventually joined
his Batei Wittenburg Kollel for four years,
along with a group of Orthodox university
men.
Along the way, Kolbrener was awed to
with Rabbis Riskin and Brovender,
wondering about the difference between a
Mishnah and a Midrash. “I was a man
amazingly fluent in Western
philosophical and literary languages but
totally illiterate in Jewish tradition, and I
was determined to overcome this
obstacle.”
The next year he moved on to Yeshivas
Darchei Noam (Shappel’s), under the
tutelage of Rabbis Karlinsky and
Hirschfeld. Using the array of reading and
analysis skills he’d honed throughout
graduate school, Dr. Kolbrener was able to
Dr. Kolbrener with his son Shmuel.
discover that many of the scholarly issues
he had explored in advanced seminars in
literary theory and on which he’d written
were even more thoroughly — even
radically — addressed by Chazal.
“There was no brilliant flash of
lightning or awesome incident that
impelled me to become frum. Indeed, Rav
Herschel Cohen, zt”l, once remarked that
we don’t even know what truly inspired
Avraham Avinu to become a believer.
There were many crucial people who
affected me and influenced my choices in
life, among them my good friend Shlomo,
the university professor, Rabbi Efraim
Buchwald of the beginners’ minyan that I
attended in Manhattan and NJOB
[National Jewish Outreach Program on
the Upper West Side]; but the story of how
we became frum is the story of my life and
family in Eretz Yisrael.”
Dr. Kolbrener relates that one aspect of
Judaism that profoundly touched him was
the focus on connections, relationships
and obligations to Hashem and to Klal
Yisrael. Growing up in enlightened
American society, under the banners of
secularism and multiculturalism, he was
accustomed to autonomy, creativity and
the conviction that individuality and
personal advancement are products of
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independence. He was astonished to

discover that in Jewish thought, his
personal creativity and development were
only realized once he was married and a
father, tightly bound to others and no
longer independent.
“In Columbia, my colleagues argued
that I was surrendering my authentic self
to religion, but as I took one step and then
another toward religious life and mitzvah
observance and wholeheartedly invested
in the relationships and people
surrounding me, that’s when I began to
discover aspects of my true self of which I
had never before been aware.”
Another significant catalyst was the
truth he discovered in Torah and the
concept of “Eilu v’eilu divrei Elokim chaim —
[both] these and these are the words of the
living G-d.” Whereas Western culture
compels man to champion either absolute
truth or relativism, Judaism promotes the
concept of eilu v’eilu, a multifaceted
approach to Torah issues and the
acceptance of differences in opinion, such Dr. Kolbrener with Rabbi Aryeh Leib Hyman
at the bris of his son Shmuel.
as that between Beis Shammai and Beis
Hillel. Kolbrener found profoundly
liberating the concept of a tradition of conscious of how they think and why they them by remarking that this was an
absolute truth based on a relationship do things,” he says. instance of din, Divine Judgment, or an
that had begun over three thousand years Every year the Kolbreners host a opportunity to allow their inner strengths
ago, a tradition that incorporates many Chanukah party and a Purim seudah in shine.
different views, perspectives and customs their home for as many university “'Shmuel made the idea of relating to
— all of which are recognized as truth. students as they can cram into the living differences real, not just something
Currently Dr. Kolbrener is a professor of room. These occasions are wonderful theoretical as it had been in graduate
English literature at Bar-Ilan, where he opportunities to reach out to students off school, and led to a revolution in my
strives to inspire his students to explore campus. Still, he says, “I feel that the best appreciating all of Hashem’s creations,”
concepts they may never even have way to give back to my people is by being Dr. Kolbrener says. “The challenge of
contemplated before. In lectures that he myself and doing my job professionally — living with and raising Shmuel is one of
gives abroad, whether on Ivy League being a frum English literature professor living with marked differences. My
campuses, in synagogues, or in adult and addressing my students on their personal background and my wife’s as
education programs, he frequently focuses individual level.” well were based on educational and
on emes, and begins his lectures with the societal achievements — and suddenly we
classic question “What is truth?” His Bringing the Learning Home were raising a child who lacked so many
classes are not designed to prompt The test of transforming years of a of these basic capacities. But we’ve
students to discard their beliefs but to liberal education into a practical reality discovered myriad ways to love and
inspire them to think about how and why became real when the Kolbreners’ son appreciate him.”
they act. Shmuel was born in 2003. Shmuel, the Shmuel’s birth affected the Kolbrener
“The Maharal asserts that one who is sixth of seven Kolbrener children, has family in many ways, and Dr. Kolbrener
born in the West thinks like the Greeks, Down syndrome, and the family was often shares his experiences as a father of
who symbolized chachmah, knowledge. totally unprepared for this blow. There a Down syndrome child with his
We must work very hard to begin thinking were those who advised the couple to give audiences, impressing upon them the
as Jews, which is why my main approach the child up for adoption or foster care; importance of loving and appreciating
in teaching is guiding students to become others tried unsuccessfully to comfort others despite differences.

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Open-Minded Torah
Dr. Kolbrener’s newly released book,
Open-Minded Torah, a collection of forty-
two essays, reflects his approach to life and
his view of connection. The 182-page book
is divided into three sections: “Self,” “Jewish
Community,” and “Time.”
The first section emphasizes that one’s
true self is realized not through isolation or
rejection of others, but through connection
and investment in relationships with
others.
The Jewish community unit focuses on
the concept that every Jew is a unique
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Dr. Kolbrener with his former Rosh
Kollel, Rabbi Yosef Kamentsky.
entity but is still intrinsically connected to
the nation and to our shared history and
relationship going back to Har Sinai. By
opening our hearts and minds to one
another, we can reconnect to our past.
“There are many who ask why I chose
to name my book Open-Minded Torah. The
title is not the oxymoron that many on
both the right and left assume; it offers a
voice in which open-mindedness and
commitment can coexist. I open my book
with a portrayal of Velvel, my great-
grandfather and namesake, who was
murdered by the Nazis in 1944. Velvel was
renowned as the most pious and devout,
but also the most open and tolerant
member of his community. The book turns
to Velvel and his past as a model for a new
Jewish present.
“I would describe Velvel as the prologue
and my son Shmuel as the epilogue of my
book. Shmuel, now eight years old, has led
me to think of pluralism not only as an
abstract ideal but as confronting and
actually living with difference. Raising
Shmuel has also made me aware of the
lamentable gap between the mandates of
Jewish tradition and the way people
actually live. The prologue of [the book]
turns toward the past and Velvel, while the
epilogue is Shmuel and the hope for a less
dogmatic, more accepting Jewish future.”
Finally, the third section is devoted to
moed — time and the Jewish calendar year,
beginning with Rosh Hashanah and
ending with Tishah B’Av. Each period in
the calendar spotlights Judaism’s emphasis
on connection and making abstract
concepts practical, intrinsic parts of one’s
very being.
“I remember staring at a wooden sukkah
as a child and wondering, ‘What is this
thing?’ Yet when religious Jews observe the
mitzvah of sukkah, we literally live inside it.
It is a mitzvah that we fulfill with our bodies
and beings. This understanding of being
engaged in relationships and engaged in
whatever it is that I am doing at the time is
what has carried me to this point in life.
“To me, Har Sinai represents my
relationship with Hashem and my people.
We are commanded to observe the mitzvah
of Talmud Torah, intensive Torah study, and
the halachah states that one who omits
Birkos HaTorah while davening, but recites
Ahavah Rabbah has fulfilled his obligation,
because the love described in Ahavah
Rabbah is sufficient as a statement. Sadly,
we have lost the art of love, but Torah is the
connection that can bring it — and us —
back.” ❚ I
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please call the Oz Nidberu Kiruv Hotline at
1-800-98 KIRUV.
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