Rabbi Yisroel Lipkin, better known as "Rav Yisroel Salanter", (November 3, 1810, Zhagory - February 2, 1883, Königsberg) was the father of the Mussar movement in Orthodox Judaism and a famed Rosh yeshiva and Talmudist. The epithet Salanter was added to his name due since most of his schooling took place in Salant (now the Lithuanian town of Salantai), where he came under the influence of Rabbi Yosef Zundel of Salant.
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Biography
Rabbi Lipkin was born in Zagare, Lithuania on November 3, 1810, the son of Rabbi Zev Wolf, the Rabbi of that town and later Av Beth Din of Goldingen and Telz, and his wife Leah. As a boy, he studied with Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Braude of Salant.
After his 1823 marriage to Esther Fega Eisenstein (died August 1871, Vilnius), Rabbi Lipkin settled in Salant, where he continued his studies under Rabbi Hirsch Broda and Rabbi Yosef Zundel of Salant, himself a disciple of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin. Rabbi Zundel exerted a deep influence on the development of Rabbi Lipkin's character; he had stressed religious self-improvement (mussar), which Rabbi Lipkin developed into a complete method and popularized.
He was a tremendous Torah scholar. Around 1842, Rabbi Lipkin was appointed rosh yeshiva of the Rabbi Meile yeshiva (Tomchai Torah) in Vilna. However, there was a minor scandal revolving around his appointment, and he willingly left the post to its previous inhabitant, moving instead to Zarechya, an exurb of Vilna. While there, he established a new yeshiva where he lectured for about three years.
At Rabbi Lipkin's suggestion, the religious ethical works of Moshe Chaim Luzzatto and Solomon ibn Gabirol were reprinted and popularized in Vilna.
In 1848, the Czarist government created the Vilna Rabbinical School and Teachers' Seminary. Rabbi Lipkin was identified as a candidate to teach at or run the school. However, he feared that the school would be used to produce rabbinical "puppets" of the government and refused the position.[citation needed] Fearing backlash, he left Vilna and moved to Kovno, Lithuania, where he established another yeshiva.
He retained charge until 1857, when he left Lithuania and moved to Prussia to recover from depression. He remained in the house of philanthropists, the Hirsch brothers of Halberstadt, until his health improved, and then in 1861 began the publication of the Hebrew journal "Tevunah", devoted to rabbinical law and religious ethics. However, this was discontinued after three months as the journal failed to garner enough subscriptions to cover its costs.
Rabbi Lipkin lived for periods in Memel, Königsberg and Berlin. He devoted the last decades of his life to strengthening Orthodox Jewish life in Germany and Prussia. He also played a large role in thwarting an attempt to open a rabbinic seminary in Russia. Toward the end of his life Rabbi Lipkin was called to Paris to organize a community among the many Russian Jewish immigrants, and he remained there for two years.
Rabbi Lipkin is also known as one of the first people to try to translate the Talmud into another language. However, he died before he could finish this immense project, Rabbi Lipkin died on Friday February 2 (25th Shevat) 1883 in Königsberg, then part of Germany. For many years, the exact location of his grave was unknown. Following a lengthy investigation, in 2001 the grave was located in Königsberg.
Personality and character
Rabbi Lipkin was unique and his views were not always in the mainstream. When the Ukase, making military service obligatory, appeared, he wrote an appeal to the rabbis and community leaders urging them to keep lists of recruits, so as to leave no pretext for the contention that the Jews shirked such service. He was considered one of the most eminent Orthodox rabbis of the nineteenth century because of his broad Talmudic scholarship, and his deep piety.
Famous disciples
Among Rabbi Lipkin's most famous students were:
- Rabbi Naftali Amsterdam (נפתלי אמסטרדאם)
- Rabbi Yitzchok Blazer
- Rabbi Eliezer Gordon
- Rabbi Jacob Joseph
- Rabbi Yerucham Perlman
- Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv
Published works
Many of his articles from the journal "Tevunah" were collected and published in Imrei Binah (1878). His Iggeres HaMussar ("Ethical Letter") was first published in 1858 and then repeatedly thereafter. Many of his letters were published in Ohr Yisrael ("The Light of Israel") in 1890 (Edited by Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer). His disciples collected many of his discourses and published them in Even Yisrael (1853) and Eitz Peri (1880).
References
- This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia article "Lipkin / Israel Lipkin" by Herman Rosenthal and J. G. Lipman, a publication now in the public domain.
Bibliography
- Finkelman S. The story of Reb Yisrael Salanter; the legendary founder of the mussar movement. New York, New York: Mesorah Publications, . ISBN 0-89906-798-0.
- Etkes, Immanuel. Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Mussar Movement. Jewish Publication Society. ISBN 0827604386.
External links
- Biography on www.ou.com
- Biography on Eli Segal's page
- An examination of the life and accomplishments of Reb Yisroel Salanter
- Iggeret ha-Mussar, the Letter of Ethics - Rabbi Salanter's most well-known work (PDF)
- Rabbi Isroel Salanter, the Haskalah and the "Theory of Secularization": An Analysis from a Folkloristic Point of View
- Family Tree
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