03:19:11


[Login]   
[Book List]  
 
Bidding Information
Lot #    18497
Auction End Date    7/10/2007 11:35:41 AM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Letter by R. Baruch Dov (Ber) Leibovitch
Title (Hebrew)    מכתב מה'ר ברוך דוב לייבאוויץ מקאמעניץ
Author    [Ms.]
City    Kamenitz-Litovsk
Publication Date    1938
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    [1] p., 295:222 mm., creased and split on folds, light age staining, ink on stationary, Ashkenazic script, signed and dated.
          
Detailed
Description		    R. Baruch Dov (Ber) Leibovitch (1866–1939), Lithuanian talmudic scholar and rosh yeshivah. Born in Slutsk, at the age of 14 he delivered a discourse at the local synagogue, astounding his listeners with his erudition. A year later, when accepted to the Volozhin yeshivah, he had already mastered two orders of the Talmud. Soon recognized as an illui ("prodigy"), he was given special attention by his teacher, R. Hayyim Soloveichik. He married the daughter of R. Abraham Zimmerman, the rabbi of Halusk. R. Leibowitz later succeeded his father-in-law in this position, and many talented pupils soon gathered around him, making Halusk a new center for talmudic study. R. Leibowitz' personality and system of learning greatly influenced his students, many of whom later occupied important positions in the rabbinate and yeshivot. His method of exposition was essentially based on that of R. Hayyim Soloveichik. In 1904, R. Leibowitz was appointed head of the Keneset Bet Yizhak Yeshivah in Slobodka which had been organized in 1897 as a memorial to Kovno's R. Isaac Elchanan Spektor. Under his tutelage, the new school gradually earned an outstanding reputation and attracted students from all over the Jewish world. Following the advent of World War I, he was compelled to leave Slobodka and moved his yeshiva to Minsk and afterward to Kremenchug. After the war it was relocated in Vilna, and in 1926 he transferred the school to Kamenetz, near Brest-Litovsk, where it continued to attract hundreds of students for the next 13 years. In 1939, shortly before his death, he fled with his school to a suburb of Vilna, in the hope of escaping from the Nazis and the Communists.

His Birkat Shemu'el (4 vols., 1939–62) is regarded as a classic among talmudic scholars. It represents, however, only a small fraction of his learning and teachings, treasured by his numerous disciples who recorded everything they heard from their revered master. His students and family reopened the Kamenetz Yeshiva in Jerusalem in 1942.

          
Reference
Description		    O.Z. Rand (ed.), Toledot Anshei Shem (1950), 73; I. Edelstein, Rabbi Baruch Dov Leibovitch (Heb.; 1957); O. Feuchtwanger, Righteous Lives (1965), 115–8; S.J. Zevin, Ishim ve-Shitot (19663), 295–307; A. Rothkoff, in: Jewish Life (July–Aug., 1969), 41–46; EJ
        
Associated Images
1 Image (Click thumbnail to view full size image):
  Order   Image   Caption
  1   Click to view full size  
  
  
Listing Classification
Period
20th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Russia-Poland:    Checked
  
Subject
History:    Checked
  
Characteristic
  
Manuscript Type
Letters:    Checked
  
Kind of Judaica