Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel

Early years

Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel zt"l, the Alter of Slabodka, was born in 1849 (5609) in Raseiniai, which Yiddish speakers called Rasein, in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Reb Moshe Finkel, was a prominent figure in the community. Rasein had one of the oldest Jewish communities in Lithuania and was known as the Jerusalem of Zamut.

He lost both parents while still young, and a relative from Vilna took him in. The official records of his birth were lost. As a young bachur he became renowned as a lamdan (a sharp Torah scholar), an iluy (a prodigy) and a deep thinker.

Reb Meir Bashis, the son-in-law of Rav Eliezer Guterman, rav of Kelm, chose him as a husband for his daughter Gittel, and supported the couple for several years so that he could learn without interruption.

Torah and leadership

While still a young man, Rav Nosson Tzvi gave a derashah in Rasein. The town's rav, Rav Alexander Moshe Lapidus (1819 to 1906), a close talmid of Rav Yisroel Salanter, saw his great potential. He suggested that the young man go to Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv, the Alter of Kelm, a giant of mussar, and wrote to Rav Simcha Zissel asking him to help shape such a promising talmid. Rav Nosson Tzvi became his talmid muvhak (primary student), and Rav Simcha Zissel placed him in charge of his Talmud Torah in Kelm.

In the 1860s or 1870s he formed a relationship with Reb Ovadiah Lachman, a wealthy inventor from Berlin who supported Rav Yisroel Salanter, was a close friend of Rav Yitzchok Blazer, and was one of the founders of the Telz yeshiva in 1875. His inventions included wings for ships to keep them from capsizing and a new type of alarm. When the newspaper HaMeilitz falsely claimed that Reb Ovadiah and Rav Blazer had quarreled, Reb Ovadiah answered with a sharp letter. He became the financial backbone of the Alter's mussar projects.

With his help, in 5637 (1877), Rav Nosson Tzvi, then 28 years old, founded a kollel of ten men in Slabodka and afterward a learning program for bachurim. When Rav Yitzchok Elchanan Spektor of Kovno founded Kollel Perushim, he joined its leadership and brought the mussar approach to its members. He also served as mashgiach of the Ohr Chaim yeshiva in Slabodka, the forerunner of the great Slabodka yeshiva, which he founded in the 1880s. In February 1892 the Russian government closed the Volozhin yeshiva, and other yeshivos, among them Mir, Telz, the Kovno Kollel and the Alter's new yeshiva, grew in enrollment. The early Kovno Kollel had 170 members, most of them supported by Reb Ovadiah Lachman.

Hundreds of bachurim soon came to Slabodka, which became known as a bastion of Torah and mussar. His motto was Gadlus HaAdam, the greatness of man. He worked on the character of his talmidim, using seforim such as those of Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, so that they would aspire to be great in learning and in personal conduct. He spent ten of every twelve months with his talmidim and returned to his wife only for Yom Tov. He had agents all over Europe who watched for teenagers gifted in learning and leadership and brought them to Slabodka.

Though he was a private man, he personally oversaw the whole student body. He watched how his talmidim behaved outside the beis medrash, weighed their strengths and weaknesses, and decided who would share a room. Some he chose as his personal assistants. He insisted on neatness and cleanliness, because he did not want the image of the poor, ragged yeshiva bachur to be attached to his graduates, and some even accused them of being dandies. He sent teams of trained talmidim to places that needed a boost in Torah and mitzvah observance.

In his youth he was known for his powerful speaking. After he mastered mussar, he gave over his thoughts quietly and without charismatic appeal. He wanted mussar and Torah thought to stay purely intellectual, not moving people through emotion, and he wanted his talmidim to grow into their own personalities. His shmuessen nevertheless inspired thousands.

In 5657 (1897) a sharp debate about the place of mussar split the yeshiva, and most of the students left. About seventy of the three hundred stayed with him. He named the new yeshiva Knesses Yisroel, after his rebbe Rav Yisroel Salanter, while the other group named theirs Knesses Beis Yitzchok. Within a short time Knesses Yisroel grew to hundreds of talmidim again. He engaged two leading roshei yeshiva who had learned in Volozhin, Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein and Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, the author of Even HaEzel and later the father-in-law of Rav Aharon Kotler.

His chief opponents in the yeshiva world were Rav Chaim Soloveitchik and the Brisk yeshivos, who firmly opposed any change in the time-tested ways of yeshiva learning. They held that pure Gemara study would produce greatness in both scholarship and character, and to this day those yeshivos do not teach mussar as a separate course. Rav Nosson Tzvi believed that this may have been true in earlier generations, but that in the modern age too many new ideologies, such as Socialism and Zionism, and the lure of atheism in the universities, were replacing traditional Judaism for young people. He was determined to show that what he offered was more appealing than anything the outside world could give.

His reach extended far beyond Slabodka. In 1897 he founded the yeshiva in Slutzk and appointed Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer as its rosh yeshiva. When the rav of Slutzk asked him for help in launching a yeshiva there, he sent ten of his best talmidim, and he did the same for Mir and for Telz. He helped bring about the appointment of Rav Eliezer Gordon as rosh yeshiva of Telz. In 1909 a yeshiva opened in Stutchin under his talmid Rav Yehuda Leib Chasman, and the yeshiva in Lodz was the first outpost of mussar in Poland. After World War I the yeshiva in Kletzk developed under his talmid Rav Aharon Kotler. He also helped Rav Shimon Shkop build yeshivos by sending him his own students.

Teachings and seforim

His discourses are collected in the sefer Or HaTzofun. Some of his sayings, recorded by his talmidim, appear below.

Later years and passing

When World War I broke out, most yeshivos relocated or divided, and the bachurim had to leave. Rav Eliezer Menachem Shach was the last to leave Slabodka, in 1914. The Alter did not return until 1920. By then Kovno and its suburb Slabodka were part of the new Republic of Lithuania, no longer under Russia, and the city had moved from the old Lithuanian style toward German Orthodoxy and Torah im Derech Eretz.

Slabodka students had been exempt from the draft under an arrangement made by Rav Avrohom Grodzinsky. But as Lithuania built its army, the government gave the yeshiva an ultimatum: either let the older students be drafted, or introduce secular studies. The hanhalah (leadership) decided to divide the yeshiva. The younger students, under draft age, would stay in Slabodka, and the older ones would go to Eretz Yisroel.

The Alter sent Rav Avrohom Grodzinsky and Rav Yechezkel Sarna to examine the situation in Eretz Yisroel. The original plan, before the crisis, had been to send ten students to Yerushalayim to wear local dress and blend in. Now the whole group needed a new home, and they chose Chevron. Rav Yitzchok Isaac Sher and Rav Avrohom Grodzinsky would head the yeshiva in Slabodka, while the Alter and his son Rav Moshe Finkel would be in Eretz Yisroel. Money was raised, with Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein doing enormous work in America, and exit and entry visas were obtained only after great effort.

In the summer of 5685 (1925) he fulfilled a long-standing personal vow and ascended to Eretz Yisroel with many talmidim, and the yeshiva was re-established in Chevron. He continued to build talmidim. In his last years he grew steadily weaker.

Rav Nosson Tzvi passed away on 29 Shevat 5687 (1927) and was buried on Har HaZeisim in Yerushalayim. He was spared the tragedy of the Chevron massacre of 1929, after which the Knesses Yisroel yeshiva moved to Yerushalayim. Today it is Yeshivas Chevron, with about a thousand students.

Legacy

His talmidim went on to found and lead yeshivos around the world and brought Torah to tens of thousands of students. His own son, Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel (Rav Lazer Yudel), led the Mir yeshiva in Poland and later in Eretz Yisroel, and Rav Yeruchem Levovitz of Mir was his talmid. Rav Aharon Kotler headed the yeshiva in Kletzk, and the Alter is quoted as saying that the whole Slabodka yeshiva would have been worth it just for the influence it had on Rav Aharon. Rav Aharon is also associated with Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey, now the largest yeshiva in the world.

Others among his talmidim include Rav Reuvain Grozovsky of Beis Medrash Elyon in Monsey; Rav Yitzchok Hutner of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, who studied under him in Europe and in Chevron; Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas; Rav Dovid Leibowitz of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim; Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman of Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore; Rav Yechezkel Sarna, head of the Chevron yeshiva in Yerushalayim; Rav Yitzchok Isaac Sher, his son-in-law, who headed the Slabodka yeshiva in Bnei Brak; Rav Eliezer Menachem Shach of Ponevezh, a talmid of Slabodka and Kletzk; Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, head of the Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin; Rav Avigdor Miller; Rav Meir Chodosh of the Chevron yeshiva; and many more.