Eli Stefansky

Last updated

Eli Stefansky (born 1973 or 1974) is an American-Israeli rabbi. He is the founder of Mercaz Daf Yomi in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel, whose daf yomi broadcasts are the most popular shiurim in the world.

Contents

Early life and education

Stefansky was born in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, the oldest of seven children, then grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, where he attended Yeshiva Darchei Torah. In the fifth grade, his family then moved to Bnei Brak, Israel to make aliyah , and Stefansky studied at the Ponevezh Yeshiva under Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz. After three years, the Stefanskys returned to the United States, and Stefansky attended Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin and Yeshiva Gedola of Passaic. Stefansky returned to Israel to study at the Mir Yeshiva. [1] [2]

Stefansky began his career in Chicago as an electrician, plumber, and carpenter to enter into real estate. On the side, he maintained a catering business, working about 100 weddings per year. At one wedding in 2005, a real estate broker in Indianapolis offered Stefansky the option to purchase 100 apartments. This became PrimeQuest. In 2013 at the age of 41, Stefansky moved with his wife and five children to Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. [1] [3]

Career as educator

Stefansky began a daf yomi shiur in Chicago that grew to 45 students. He also started the "8 Minute Daf" video series that grew to 2,000 subscribers in 3 months. [1]

In 2018, Stefansky founded the Mercaz Daf Yomi in Ramat Beit Shemesh, from which he broadcasts daily lectures of the daf yomi. As of 2023, the daily lectures received between 16,000 [2] and 18,000 viewers, making its the most popular shiur in the world. He spends an estimated 14 hours per day to prepare for his lectures. [4] [3] [5] [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beit Shemesh</span> City in Israel

Beit Shemesh is a city located approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of Jerusalem in Israel's Jerusalem District. A center of Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodoxy, Beit Shemesh has a population of 170,683 as of 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vizhnitz (Hasidic dynasty)</span> Ukrainian Hasidic dynasty

Vizhnitz is the name of a Hasidic dynasty founded by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Hager. Vizhnitz is the Yiddish name of Vyzhnytsia, a town in present-day Ukraine.

Daf Yomi is a daily regimen of learning the Oral Torah and its commentaries, in which each of the 2,711 pages of the Babylonian Talmud is covered in sequence. A daf, or blatt in Yiddish, consists of both sides of the page. Under this regimen, the entire Talmud is completed, one day at a time, in a cycle of approximately seven and a half years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siyum HaShas</span> Celebration of the completion of the Daf Yomi

Siyum HaShas is a celebration of the completion of the Daf Yomi program, a roughly seven-and-a-half-year cycle of learning the Oral Torah and its commentaries, in which each of the 2,711 pages of the Babylonian Talmud are covered in sequence – one page per day. The first Daf Yomi cycle began on the first day of Rosh Hashanah 5684 ; the thirteenth cycle concluded on 4 January 2020 and the fourteenth cycle began the following day, to be concluded on 7 June 2027. The Siyum HaShas marks both the end of the previous cycle and the beginning of the next, and is characterized by celebratory speeches, as well as singing and dancing. The next day, the new cycle begins again.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston (Hasidic dynasty)</span> American Hasidic dynasty

Boston is a Hasidic dynasty, originally established in 1915 by Rabbi Pinchas David Horowitz, a scion of the Nikolsburg Hasidic dynasty. Following the custom of European Chassidic Courts, where the Rebbe was called after the name of his city, the Bostoner branch of Hasidic Judaism was named after Boston, Massachusetts. The most senior and well-known of the Bostoner Rebbes in contemporary times was Grand Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, who died in December 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avishai David</span>

Rabbi Avishai Chaim David is the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Torat Shraga (YTS) in Bayit VeGan, Jerusalem, Israel, and is the founding rabbi of Beit Medrash Torani Leumi (BMTL) in Beit Shemesh, which he left in August, 2017. He is currently the rabbi of Kehillas Beis Tefillah Yonah Avraham in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz</span> Israeli Torah leader

Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz was an Israeli Haredi Torah leader and rosh yeshiva in Bnei Brak for over 70 years. He was a maggid shiur at Yeshivas Tiferes Tzion from 1940 to 2011 and rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Ponovezh L’Tzeirim from 1954 to 2009, raising thousands of students. He was a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Degel HaTorah, a member of Mifal HaShas, and nasi (president) of the Acheinu kiruv organization, and played a leading role in the fight for Torah-true education in yeshivas and Talmud Torahs in Israel. In addition to his own Torah works, he published the teachings of his rebbi, Rabbi Shlomo Heiman, in the two-volume Chiddushei Shlomo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nosson Tzvi Finkel (Mir)</span> Dean of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem (1943–2011)

Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel was an American-born Haredi Litvish rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel. During his tenure from 1990 until his death in 2011, the Mir Yeshiva grew into the largest yeshiva in Israel with nearly 6,000 undergraduate students and over 1,600 avreichim. According to one estimate, he taught 25,000 students over his lifetime. He continued to work during the last 28 years of his life, when he had Parkinson's disease, experiencing involuntary spasms and slurred speech. He raised an estimated US$500 million for the Mir during his tenure as rosh yeshiva. He was a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Degel HaTorah. He was known for his Torah erudition and his warmth and concern for his students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hardal</span> Haredi portion of the religious Zionist Jewish community in Israel

Hardal usually refers to the portion of the Religious Zionist Jewish community in Israel which inclines significantly toward Haredi ideology. In their approach to the State of Israel, though, they are very much Zionist, and believe that Israel is Atchalta De'Geula.

<i>Shiur</i> Torah lecture

Shiur is a lecture on any Torah topic – such as Gemara, Mishnah, Halakha, Tanakh (Bible) – usually in a yeshiva, although commonly in other settings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avrohom Gurwicz</span>

Avrohom Gurwicz is an English-born Orthodox rabbi and Talmudic scholar. Since 1982 he has been the rosh yeshivah of Gateshead Talmudical College, a yeshiva in Gateshead, England, where he has been giving the largest shiur in Europe with approximately 400 students attending, for approximately half a century. Additionally, he is the president of Gateshead Community Kollel, established 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mendel Weinbach</span>

Chona Menachem Mendel (Mendel) Weinbach was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, educator, author, and speaker. As the co-founder and dean of Ohr Somayach Institutions, a Jerusalem-based yeshiva for newly-observant Jewish men, he was considered one of the fathers of the modern-day baal teshuva movement.

Abba Mordechai Berman (1919–2005) was a Talmudist and rosh yeshiva (dean) of Yeshivas Iyun HaTalmud.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliyahu Boruch Finkel</span>

Eliyahu Boruch Finkel was an influential maggid shiur (lecturer) at the Mir yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Reuven Elbaz is a Sephardi Haredi rabbi, rosh yeshiva, and a leader of the baal teshuva movement among Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in Israel. He is the founder and head of the Ohr Hachaim network of institutions, which operates educational, humanitarian, prison, and drug rehabilitation programs in 350 branches across Israel. He is also the founder and dean of Yeshivat Ohr Hachaim in Jerusalem, which enrolls more than 500 students. He is a senior member of the Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah of the Shas political party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chaim Malinowitz</span> Haredi rabbi and scholar (1952–2019)

Chaim Zev Malinowitz was a Haredi community rabbi, dayan, and Talmudic scholar. Fluent in all areas of the Talmud, halakha, and hashkafa, he was the general editor of the 73-volume Schottenstein Edition of the Babylonian Talmud published by ArtScroll. After immigrating to Israel, he became the rabbi of Beis Tefillah Yonah Avraham, an English-speaking congregation for Anglophone Israeli immigrants in Ramat Beit Shemesh, which he led for 17 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dirshu</span> Jewish ultra-orthodox Torah study organization

Dirshu is an Orthodox Jewish international organization whose goal is to strengthen and encourage Torah study. Founded in 1997, the organization produces study cycles, sponsors shiurim, furnishes and grades tests, and offers financial incentives to individuals and groups to learn and master Talmud, Halakha, and Mussar texts. It has also published new editions of traditional Jewish texts, and sponsored major gatherings to celebrate the completion of its study cycles. As of 2018, more than 150,000 people have participated in its programs, which have spread to 26 countries on five continents.

Meir Goldwicht is an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University in Washington Heights, Manhattan. He was born in Israel, studied in Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh under his uncle Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Goldvicht, the Rosh Yeshiva, and had close ties to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Rabbi Gedaliah Anemer, also known as Rav Gedaliah Ben Zev HaKohen, was an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and founder of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, where he served as Rosh Yeshiva for 45 years. He was a close disciple of Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch. Rav Anemer was respected nationally as a halachic authority and headed the Rabbinical Council of Greater Washington. He played a pivotal role in establishing kosher infrastructure in Washington, D.C. through his leadership of the Vaad HaKashrus, and is remembered for his profound influence on Maryland Jewry and his unwavering commitment to Orthodox Torah education.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Mernick, Moe (2020-01-01). "Work/Life Solutions with Eli Stefansky". Mishpacha . Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  2. 1 2 Lytle, Baruch (2023-05-24). "Heading Into Shavuos – One Daf At A Time". Jewish Press . Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  3. 1 2 Frankfurter, Yitzchok (2022-07-27). "A Revolution in Torah // A spirited conversation with Reb Eli Stefansky". Ami Magazine . Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  4. Sandler, Eliezer (2022-12-14). "Facing 100 Red Chaim Kanievskys -- Hagaon Harav Eli Stefansky". Boro Park 24. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  5. Teichler, Shmuel (2023-05-12). "Largest Gemara Shiur Ever? Reb Eli Stefansky To Deliver Rare Series Of Live Shiurim In The U.S. To Begin Maseches Gittin". Five Towns Jewish Times . Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  6. "מרגש: איש העסקים המצליח שעזב הכל כדי ללמד את הדף היומי". Kol Chai (in Hebrew). 2024-04-09. Retrieved 25 June 2024.