Rav dessler biography of martin luther

A Rosh Yeshiva in America recounted that he once addressed one of the great men of Mussar, the famous Mashgiach of the yeshiva world of Poland and Lithuania, to ask him to come to America and encourage his yeshiva students. The first and only man who traveled far, very far from the Torah centers of Europe, and who succeeded in implanting in the hearts of youngsters a love for Torah and Mussar, was Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, the Gaon of Mussar in our generation.

Just as Rabbi Israel Salanter the father of the Mussar movement had left Russia and settled in Germany and France, the student of his student, Rabbi Dessler, went to England and devoted all his energies to the youth of London, Manchester, and Gateshead. Rabbi Reuven Dov was a wealthy man who gave great amounts of money for Tzeddakah and Torah.

Rav dessler biography of martin luther: I have even heard

He was, for a long period of time, the main financial support of the famous Kelm Talmud Torah. In view of his exceptional talents, his father sent him from his earliest years to study in the Kelm Talmud Torah, which at that time was renowned for Torah and Mussar. The young Eliyahu Eliezer was the youngest in his class. He remained there for 18 years and earned a reputation for excellence among its thousands of students.

He was extremely diligent in study, sitting in a corner where he studied Torah with extraordinary concentration. Your donation to My Jewish Learning fuels endless journeys of Jewish discovery. With your help, My Jewish Learning can continue to provide nonstop opportunities for learning, connection and growth. Dessler belongs firmly in the Musar tradition he was a great-grandson of lsrael Salanter, the founder of the Musar movement ; most of his thought being based on the ideas of this movement.

But he also acquired an extensive knowledge of kabbalah and Hasidism and, to a lesser extent, of modern psychological theories, often referring in his lectures to Freudian theories, for example.

Rav dessler biography of martin luther: Rav Dessler understands this visualization

In this respect he was a highly original Jewish theologian whose views were respected even by thinkers with no allegiance to his form of traditional Judaism. The purpose of Judaism, for Dessler, is to equip the Jew to enjoy the nearness of God in life everlasting, which, he taught, can be achieved only through the rigorous, unselfish study and practice of the Torah.

Great attention is paid, in his thinking, to the subconscious mind, which Dessler comes close to identifying with the "evil inclination" of rabbinic thought. God has endowed man with the instincts of self-preservation and self-regard, without which human life would lack its driving force, but it is through the discipline afforded by the Torah alone that these instincts are prevented from becoming entirely self-serving and ultimately destructive.

During those years, Kelm continued its legendary output. Along with the Bolshevik seizure of power in came the devaluation of the ruble to the point that it was no longer worth the paper it was written on. Rav Reuven Dov and his brother Reb Gedaliah lost everything they had. Driven by the nationalization of businesses and the increasing hostility toward religious life in Homel, Rav Reuven Dov returned to Kelm.

As the senior surviving student of the Alter, he was tasked with the administration of the Talmud Torah, which was reorganizing itself following the four years of upheaval. With the return of his parents to Kelm, Rav Dessler celebrated his marriage to Bluma Ziv, the daughter of the previous director of the Talmud Torah, Rav Nochum Velvel Ziv —who was the son of the Alter of Kelm the family name was changed from Braude to Ziv after false accusations were made against them by opponents of the Talmud Torah.

Thus, in marriage, Rav Dessler had managed to unite the families of the great founder of the mussar movement and one of his prime students. Shortly after his marriage, Rav Dessler, whose erudition was recognized by his uncle Rav Chaim Ozer while they sheltered together during the war in Homel, was offered a position on the Vilna Beis Din, but ultimately he decided to turn it down.

He began his short tenure as a businessman in the Latvian city of Riga with optimism, but soon met the harsh realities of economic hardship. Inleaving behind his wife and two young children, Rav Dessler accompanied his ailing father to London to seek medical treatment. While in London, Rav Dessler made the fateful decision to remain, even as his father returned to Kelm.

London of was everything that Kelm was not — a city with a population of more thanJews, and yet not a single yeshivah. With the exception of a few of its rabbinic leaders, there was hardly a suitable study partner for Rav Dessler. The behavior of local Jews was something that shocked the Kelm-reared tzaddik. InRav Dessler traveled to America, thinking perhaps the ground there would be more fertile for spiritual growth.

What transpired while he was in America is unknown, but after just a couple of months, he returned to England. Upon the recommendation of Dayan Shmuel Yitzchok Hillman —, father-in-law of Rav Yitzchak Isaac Herzog Rav Dessler was recommended as a tutor for the children of wealthy families in the Mayfair section of London. Most memorable were his sessions with the future Rabbi Solomon David Sassoon —a scion of the famed Iraqi family, whose wealth and influence spanned the globe.

Rav Herzog would later recommend young Rabbi Sassoon to serve as Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel, a suggestion that Rabbi Sassoon rebuffed. Rav Dessler also served as a shul rav, a position he never enjoyed but tolerated because it gave him a platform to educate the children of his mispallelim. However, in hindsight, he described this period of loneliness as a chapter of growth.

Rav dessler biography of martin luther: ” At age sixteen he

Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Latvian rabbi. GomelRussian Empire. Biography [ edit ]. Lithuania [ edit ]. London [ edit ]. Gateshead [ edit ]. Ponevezh [ edit ]. Death [ edit ]. Philosophy [ edit ]. Positions: Hasmonean Sadducean Pharisee Boethusian. People: Aristobulus of Alexandria Philo of Alexandria.

Michtav me-Eliyahu [ edit ]. Influences [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. The Hebrew date 25 Tevet is also apparent in a clear photo of the gravestone. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN