Upon the death of his father in 1982, Kotler was named co-rosh yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha along with Dovid Schustal, Yeruchem Olshin, and Yisroel Neuman,[3] who are all married to grandchildren of Aharon Kotler. At that time, the yeshiva had an enrollment of approximately 800 students, which has since grown to approximately 6,300.[4]
Kotler's first wife Hinda was the daughter of Yechiel Michel Feinstein and Lifsha, the granddaughter of Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik. When Kotler succeeded his father, who died while Kotler was in the US visiting him, as rosh yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha, Hinda Kotler refused to join her husband in Lakewood or accept a get (Jewish divorce document) without a rabbinical court in Israel hearing the case; she refused to submit to an American rabbinical court.[7][8][9] Kotler was issued a rarely used exemption known as a heter meah rabbanim (permission of 100 rabbis) which allowed him to take a second wife upon depositing the divorce document for the first wife with the rabbinical court.[10] This created a rift within the non-hassidic part Hareidi world, with some claiming that the heter meah rabbanim was invalid.[11] Several months later he married his second wife, Chana Leah Tikotzky.
