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Mikhtav me-Eliyahu, R. Elijah Eliezer Dessler, London 1955

מכתב מאלי' ע"ח ה"ר שמואל רוזובסקי - Manuscript

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Details
  • Lot Number 46997
  • Title (English) Mikhtav me-Eliyahu
  • Title (Hebrew) מכתב מאלי' ע"ח ה"ר שמואל רוזובסקי
  • Note The R. Shmuel Rozovsky copy
  • Author R. Elijah Eliezer Dessler
  • City London
  • Publisher החינוך
  • Publication Date 1955
  • Estimated Price - Low 200
  • Estimated Price - High 500

  • Item # 1333420
  • End Date
  • Start Date
Description

Physical Description

First edition, 30, 335 pp., quarto, 245:145 mm, age staining, inscribed on fly. A good copy bound in the orignal boards, spine torn.

The copy of R. Shmuel Rozovsky (1913–1979) was known as a Talmudic lecturer at the Ponevezh Yeshiva located in Bnei Berak,and was counted amongst the great rabbis of his generation. He was known worldwide for his clarity in explaining complex Talmud topics. He was born in Grodno to the town's Chief Rabbi, R. Michel Dovid Rozovsky and Sarah Pearl, daughter of R. Avraham Gelburd (the previous Rabbi of Grodno). At a very young age, he began studying under R. Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz in the Yeshiva of R. Shimon Shkop, and eventually became considered one of the principal students of R. Shimon Shkop.

In 1935, after the death of R. Shmuel's father, R. Shmuel had to flee to Erez Israel to escape being drafted into the Russian army. There he studied in the Lomzha Yeshivah in Petach Tikvah. In Erez Israel, R. Shmuel married his wife, the daughter of R. Tzvi Pesach Frank, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. R. Shmuel eventually began to lecture in the Lomzha Yeshiva in Petach Tivkva alongside R. Moshe Shmuel Shapiro and R. Elazar Menachem Shach. In 1944, he was asked by R. Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman to head the newly opened Ponovezh Yeshivah in Bnei Berak. Eventually, R. Dovid Povarsky and R. Elazar Shach also joined as co-Roshei Yeshiva there. While being treated medically in a hospital in Boston, R. Shmuel was said to have specifically asked for an audience with R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Despite his strong emphasis on Talmudic skills, R. Shmuel also stressed personal perfection and Mussar as well as the need to study other facets of Torah including Chumash with the commentaries of Rashi and Nachmanides.

 

Detail Description

R. Elijah Eliezer Dessler (1891–1954), noted rabbinical scholar, educator, and one of the personalities of the Musar movement. Dessler was born in Homel, Russia. His father, Reuben Baer, had been a pupil and subsequently one of the directors of the bet ha-talmud in the small town of Kelme (Lithuania), founded by Simhah Zissel Ziv, the outstanding disciple of Israel Lipkin (Salanter), founder of the Musar movement. Reuben Baer's home, however, was in Homel where he engaged in business, and there Dessler passed his early youth. At the Kelme bet ha-talmud, he pursued talmudic studies and his teachers included Zevi Hirsch Broda and Nahum Velvel Ziv, leading exponents of Musar. On the outbreak of World War I he returned to Homel, studying at the yeshivah established there by refugees from the Lithuanian yeshivot and administered by his father. In Homel he came close also to hasidic circles and was influenced by their ideas. In 1919 he married the daughter of Nahum Velvel Ziv, and went to Riga where he engaged unsuccessfully in business. In 1929 he settled in London where he became the rabbi of a synagogue, first in East London and then in North-East London, and became the supervisor of a large talmud torah. He exercised a profound influence on the teaching of Musar, not only because of the profundity of his ideas but on account of his personal ethical conduct. In 1941 he accepted an invitation to become director of a kolel for advanced Talmud study in Gateshead, England, where he also lectured on Musar. He served in an honorary capacity, earning his livelihood by giving private lessons. The kolel added to the prestige and development of the Gateshead yeshivah and his influence extended beyond England to other countries, through its graduates who served as heads of yeshivot. In 1947 Dessler accepted the invitation of Rabbi Joseph Kahaneman to become the spiritual supervisor of Ponevezh yeshivah in Bene-Berak, Israel, and there he remained until his death. His teachings were a harmonious combination of the doctrine of Musar, particularly as taught in Kelme, with the concepts of Jewish religious philosophy, Kabbalah, and Hasidism. Some of his ideas were published by his pupils, in part from his own manuscripts and in part from notes taken from his lectures, Mikhtav me-Eliyahu (3 vols., 1955–64). The work contains attempts at a confrontation between Jewish and general philosophy, arising from the problems raised by those of his pupils who had studied philosophy.

 

Reference

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