Rabbi Aaron Batt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. While his parents earned their living in the printing business, they were imbued with a sense of mission and were heavily involved in Jewish education and the leadership of the Jewish community. Rabbi Batt’s father, with the encouragement of many rabbis, including the Lubavitcher Rebbe, undertook a personal project to spread the Mishnah Yomit (the study of a Mishnah a day) in the United States. Rabbi Aaron inherited this spirit of public duty from his father.
Aaron started his education in a general school in Hartford, before moving to the Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland for high school. Afterward he studied at Yeshiva University where he received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1956, and was ordained by his rabbi and mentor Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik in 1958. Following his rabbinical ordination he focused on his chemistry studies, and in 1960 he received an M.Sc. In 1971 he immigrated to Israel together with his family.
In his first year in Israel he worked as a researcher and teacher at the Technion’s Institute of Metals in Haifa. A year later the family moved to Jerusalem, where he served until 1979 as head of the medical devices department at Hadassah Medical School. He subsequently transferred to the Jerusalem College of Technology - Lev Academic Center (Machon Lev). In 1985, he became the deputy director of Yad Herzog, a position he retained for more than twenty years until his retirement.
Throughout his life, his daily work involved far more than his professional responsibilities. He fulfilled the dictum: “Make your Torah fixed and your work temporary.” He would rise every morning at 4:30 to study Torah and prepare his lessons before prayer. He delivered many Torah classes over the course of his life, including regular courses that lasted for more than thirty years. Less well-known, for obvious reasons, were the classes he taught on secret trips beyond the Iron Curtain during the dark years.
On March 6 2008, his 18 year-old grandson Yonadav Chaim Hirshfeld, who was very attached to his grandparents, was among those killed in the Yeshivat Mercaz Harav massacre. Rabbi Batt died on November 5, 2010. He left behind his wife Eilat, his four children, his daughters- and sons-in-law, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and his two sisters and their families.