Fourteen years ago today, the Torah world lost Hagaon Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv zt”l, widely regarded as the Posek Hador for the Litvishe Torah world.

Born in Lithuania in 1910, Rav Elyashiv immigrated to Eretz Yisrael together with his parents and grandparents in 1922, settling in Yerushalayim’s Meah Shearim neighborhood. He received his early Torah education from his father and his grandfather, the Ba’al HaLeshem, and later learned under Harav Zalman Reuven Bengis zt”l of the Edah Charedis and Harav Shimshon Aharon Polonsky zt”l, the Tepliker Rav. He went on to marry Rebbetzin Sheina Chaya, daughter of Harav Aryeh Levin zt”l, the famed “father of the prisoners.” The Rebbetzin was niftar in 1994.

Rav Elyashiv began his rabbinic career around 1948 as rav of Ramleh. Two years later, he was appointed a dayan on Yerushalayim’s District Court, and later served on the Chief Rabbinical Court, stepping down from that post in 1972. In 1989, at the request of Hagaon Harav Elazar Shach zt”l, he joined the leadership of Degel HaTorah. Following the petirah of Hagaon Harav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l in 1995, Rav Elyashiv became the address for psak throughout the Litvishe world, and in 2001, after Rav Shach’s own petirah, he took on the leadership of the litvishe community at large.

Among his 12 children was a daughter, Batsheva a”h, who married Hagaon Harav Chaim Kanievsky zt”l.

Rav Elyashiv was niftar in 2012 at the age of 102. More than 250,000 Yidden from around the world attended his levaya in Yerushalayim.