The Telshe Yeshiva Dinner — June 22, 2025
Long before I ever walked its hallways, before I ever opened a Gemara there or found my place in the back row of the beis midrash, the land carried a beat.
If you had stood on the hallowed grounds of Telshe seventy years ago, you would have seen something very different. A grand estate. Stables. Lush gardens. And in the center of it all, the hallmark of a boy — small in size, upright in posture, forever in motion.
His name was Henry Kelsey Devereux, and as a child, he had stood as the model for one of the most iconic pieces of American art: The Spirit of ’76. You know it — the three men marching forward: two drummers and a fife player, tattered, determined, holding nothing but rhythm and resolve.
At the time, a cadet at the Brooks Military Academy, but now, Henry was the drummer boy. A real boy. The artist, Archibald Willard, had painted his father, his neighbor, and little Henry.
That boy grew up to be a horseman, a gentleman, and the heir to a sprawling estate in Cleveland.
Wickliffe, to be more precise.
In time, that estate was sold.
The buyers? Telshe Yeshiva.
Nearly fifteen year earlier, two sparks pulled from the fire — udim mutzalim mei’eish, Rav Elya Meir Bloch and Rav Mottel Katz, arrived in Cleveland. As the embodiment of mesiras nefesh for Torah and kiddush Shem Shomayim, they had seen their world burn. Families. Communities. Their yeshiva in Telshe — all torn away in Lita. And yet they arrived in America with untold determination.
They looked around and saw a different kind of boy. Raised on baseball. Independence. The American dream.
And they began to teach him a different rhythm. The rhythm of Torah.
Beginning on East 105th and St. Clair, the yeshivah began to take root. Transplanted roots.
From war-ravaged, blood-soaked Lita.
The yeshiva had now resettled. The rhythm returned. And now, Hashgocha brought them to Wickliffe.
They took the drummer boy’s estate and filled it with a new sound. Not fifes and flags, but Torah. Shakla v’tarya. Boys bent over Rashi, over Tosafos, over Rambam. Learning until something clicked. Until it lit up.
And they built forward.
Telshe Yeshiva. One hundred fifty years. And still beating strong.
I wasn’t sure I’d go. Life moves fast. But I kept thinking of my grandfather, Herbert I. (Chaim Yitzchok) Spero. He had helped build the yeshiva during its American rebirth. Walked through mud in thigh-high boots, quite literally, to support its future. His boots became part of our family’s story and part of Telshe’s as well.
When we became bar mitzvah, the roshei yeshiva came. Every one of them. That didn’t happen often. But they came. Because they remembered. Because they had hakaras hatov.
So how could I hold back?
Recently, a friend crystallized the thought: “A yeshivah deserves to have nachas from its talmidim.”
That line settled in me. This was more than just a visit. It was a return to the mother who raised us. A way to let her see who her children had become.
Because a yeshiva is a mamme.
She takes you in before you even know who you are. She sees you through your struggles in learning and in life, and she never stops holding onto your dream. She sees you through it all.
And when you leave, she remains. Quiet. Strong. Waiting.
I was zoche to learn in the yeshiva in its heyday. Rav Mordechai Gifter. Rav Chaim Stein. Rav Isaac Ausband. Rav Pesach Stein. My rebbi, Rav Shlomo (Shloims) Eisenberger, who stood behind me in every way, came in for the dinner, as well. Rav Shalom Shapiro, the mashgiach and the mainstay of the yeshiva. The Munkatcher Rebbe, an illustrious talmid. And Rav Dovid Goldberg, who now stands at the helm as the rosh yeshiva for the current talmidim — steering forward what they began.
Rav Moshe Mendel Glustein, one of the guests of honor on this night. The tower of Telshe.
My friends who stood beside me once again.
And those who no longer could.
Last night, I walked back through her doors.
A screen had been set up, playing video from today’s beis midrash. Familiar walls. Familiar rhythm.
And then, on the video, Rav Anshel Helman. My rebbi.
He was standing with a bochur. Leaning in. Asking. Listening. Encouraging. The bochur was trying. Unsure, but reaching. Rav Anshel gave him space. He reworded. Asked again. Waited.
Then the shift.
The boy stood up straighter. His eyes widened. A smile began to rise. And then his face lit up.
And Rav Anshel smiled, too.
Other rabbeim. Other boys. Other sugyos.
I sat there watching. Remembering.
I had been that boy. Not once. Over and over. Sitting across from Rav Anshel. Struggling. Listening to his voice guide me through confusion until the sugya stood on its own. Both in life and in learning. Until I looked up, saw his face, and knew I had arrived somewhere.
That moment stayed with me. Carried me.
And now, watching him give it to others, I felt something stir. For the fleetest of moments, I was fifteen again.
The Torah. The caring. The voice of a rebbi. The strength of a mamme.
The drumbeat still played.
It began on a different continent with a blazing vision for greatness and holiness.
It crossed oceans with two broken men holding onto that dream.
Along the way, a painting was created of a boy and a revolution.
It marched through the mud in my grandfather’s boots.
And last night, it pulsed through the veins of the talmidim of Telshe.
The drumbeat of Torah.
Yes, sometimes I wish I could be fifteen again.
But maybe the closest thing is returning to the place that shaped you, standing quietly in the back, and hearing that same beat rise.
Maybe that’s all a mamme ever hopes for.
To know her children came home.
To feel a little nachas.
To see they’re still marching to the beat.
