Rav Shmuel Salant

Early years

Rav Shmuel Salant zt"l, the Ashkenazi Rav of Yerushalayim, came into the world on January 2, 1816, in Volknik, a town close to Bialystok that was then under Russian rule. His father, Rav Tzvi Hirsch, served as Rav of Volknik and also of Trakai, near Vilna. His mother, Risa, daughter of Rav Shimon, made aliyah late in life. She passed away on 5 Tishrei 1857 and was laid to rest on Har Hazeisim, in what is now called the Sefardic section. Shmuel learned first with his father, who passed away while the boy was still young.

His relatives sent the gifted boy to Keidan to study with Rav Tzemach Shapiro, also called Rav Tzemach Drubiyaner, who in time rose to be among the leaders of Vilna. At the age of ten Shmuel was engaged to Fruma Shapiro, daughter of Rav Shimon Merkel Shapiro, the chief Rav of Birz and a brother of his teacher. They married after his bar mitzvah and had a daughter. Afterward he traveled with a group of Torah scholars to the Lithuanian city of Salant to learn under Rav Tzvi Hirsch Broda. For reasons that are not known, the marriage ended in divorce after three years.

Rav Yosef Zundel of Salant held the young man in great esteem as an exceptional prodigy and tzaddik. In 1834 his daughter Tova (1816–1869), an outstanding and pious woman, offered Shmuel her hand in marriage. After the chasuna he took his father-in-law's name, Salant, and moved to Volozhin, where he was appointed to give shiurim in the yeshivah.

Rav Yosef Zundel, a talmid of Rav Chaim of Volozhin and the spiritual mentor of Rav Yisroel Salanter, had traveled after Rav Chaim's passing in 1821 to learn with Rav Akiva Eiger in Posen. In 1837 he went up to Yerushalayim, where he refused public support and made his living in the vinegar business. The Ashkenazi community there was tiny and had no beis din of its own, so he opened an informal beis din in his courtyard.

Torah and leadership

In 1840 Rav Shmuel's lungs had been damaged, and the doctors advised a warm climate. He set out for Eretz Yisroel with his rebbetzin and their son, Binyomin Beinish. While passing through Constantinople he formed a friendship with Sir Moses Montefiore, who was then traveling to speak in defense of the Yidden who had been falsely accused in the Damascus Blood Libel. Montefiore later visited Eretz Yisroel seven times, held Rav Shmuel in deep respect, and worked with him on many projects for the new Ashkenazi community.

Rav Shmuel reached Yerushalayim in 1841 and rejoined his father-in-law and about 500 Ashkenazim who had come in 1838. Some 5,000 Yidden lived in Eretz Yisroel then, mainly in Yerushalayim, Tzfas, Teveria and Chevron, and many of the Torah learners lived on donations from abroad, the system known as chalukah. He moved into a small, windowless apartment of two rooms in the courtyard of the Churva (the ruins of the shul of Rav Yehudah Hachassid), which was both his home and his workplace for the next fifty years. There he received the great sages and leaders of the time, as well as the steady stream of ordinary people who came for advice.

The Ashkenazi community had grown and needed a strong Torah leader at the head of an established beis din. In the same courtyard Rav Shmuel set up a permanent Ashkenazi beis din, with his brother-in-law Rav Uri Shabbetai and Rav Binyomin Dovid of Vilna sitting with him. It was the first established Ashkenazi beis din in Yerushalayim in centuries. He kept the minhagim of the Vilna Gaon, was a distinguished scholar of Gemara, and served as Ashkenazi Rav of Yerushalayim until his passing. In 1871 he also succeeded Rav Meir Auerbach as the chief Rav of the Ashkenazim.

As Rav he also oversaw the Kollel Ashkenazim and its distribution of funds. From 1848 to 1851 he served as a meshulach, visiting the main cities of Lithuania and Poland to raise money for the impoverished Yidden of the Old Yishuv. It is astounding that a man of his stature went from door to door collecting, but it reflects the terrible hardship of those times. In 1850, while in Vilna, he met the committee that allocated funds for Eretz Yisroel and proposed a yeshivah for advanced learning. The plan was approved, and on his return he opened it in the Menachem Tzion shul and began giving daily shiurim. By 1855 it had grown greatly. Named Etz Chaim, with Rav Shmuel and Rav Yeshaya Berdaky at its head, it had almost a thousand talmidim by the turn of the twentieth century.

In 1860 poverty and hardship gripped the whole land, and the old communities, which no longer had any source of support, sank into dire need. Hundreds died of hunger, especially small children. That year Rav Meir Auerbach (1815–1878), Rav of Kalisch, arrived from Poland, and Rav Shmuel asked him to take his place in Yerushalayim during his absence, as he journeyed to Germany, Amsterdam and London for the sake of the community. While in Germany he met Rav Seligmann Baer Bamberger (1807–1878), the Rav of Wurzburg, to discuss how to manage the kollelim. The funds he raised were divided equally between Sefardim and Ashkenazim.

In that same year Rav Shmuel founded Tzedokas Rav Meir Baal Haneis Salant, with Rav Yosef Zundel, to support all the poor of Eretz Yisroel, Sefardi and Ashkenazi alike. Charity collected around the world in the name of Rav Meir Baal Haneis was placed under its sole authority and distributed by Rav Shmuel, with the backing of the great rabbonim everywhere. He also helped raise donations for the Beis Yaakov shul in the Old City. The foundation stone was set in 1856 with Rav Shmuel and other dignitaries looking on, among them Baron Alphonse James de Rothschild, and the shul was named for the Baron's father, James (Yaakov). It remained the main shul of Yerushalayim until the 1948 war, when Jordanian soldiers reduced it to rubble.

On his return from Europe in 1860, Rav Meir Auerbach wished to give the position back to Rav Shmuel. Rav Shmuel, seeing the value of Rav Auerbach's help, persuaded him to stay on as assistant Rav, because the community's finances took nearly all his own time. Rav Auerbach stayed and played a central role in the community and on the board of the Rav Meir Baal Haneis fund. In 1866, when cholera struck Yerushalayim and the Ashkenazi groups were in disarray, the two Rabbonim founded an umbrella body, the Vaad Haklali, which became the central institution for the city's material and spiritual needs. When Rav Auerbach passed away in 1878, the whole burden returned to Rav Shmuel.

Rav Shmuel was known for moderation and tolerance toward every kind of Yid, and for his ability to bring people together. He had a close and respectful relationship with his Sefardic counterpart, Chacham Bashi Rav Yaakov Shaul Elyashar, and the two worked in harmony on the community's needs. He helped found Bikur Cholim Hospital and urged families to settle in new neighborhoods beyond the walls of the Old City. During his years as Rav the Jewish population of Yerushalayim grew from 5,000 to 30,000. Many of his pesokim and chiddushim are known through the extensive writings of his talmid, Rav Yechiel Michel Tukichinsky.

Later years and passing

In 1888 Rav Shmuel's eyesight began to fail, and some years later he became blind. It did not stop his wide activity for the needs of the community. In 1900 he asked for an assistant, and Rav Eliyahu Dovid Rabinowitz-Teumim, the Aderes, who had just come from Russia, was chosen immediately. The Aderes, born near Kovno in 1845, had served as Rav of Ponevezh from 1873 and, twenty years later, as Rav of Mir. He worked at Rav Shmuel's side in the Rav Meir Baal Haneis fund for five years and passed away in 1905, at the age of sixty, before Rav Shmuel.

Rav Shmuel was niftar on Monday, 29 Av 5669 (August 16, 1909). The next day he was laid to rest on Har Hazeisim, in the Perushim section, next to his father-in-law Rav Yosef Zundel Salant. Buried in that same area are many of Yerushalayim's great leaders, his friends and colleagues, among them the Aderes, Rav Chaim Berlin, Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin, Rav Yitzchok Blazer, Rav Meir Auerbach, Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld and Rav Eliyahu Kletzkin.

Rav Yechiel Michel Tukichinsky related that although levayos in Yerushalayim are usually held on the day or night of the petirah, Rav Shmuel's was an exception. He passed away at night, and the rabbonim delayed the levayah until daybreak, fearing that the huge crowds at a nighttime levayah for such a gadol of Eretz Yisroel would cause injuries or worse. The next day a long column in the New York Times reported his passing together with a biography.

Before he passed away, Rav Shmuel wrote his last will and pledged that all who continue to support the Rav Meir Baal Haneis charity will merit heavenly blessing and mercy.

Legacy

More than a hundred years after his petirah, Rav Shmuel is remembered for his greatness in Torah, his firm emunah and bitachon, his selflessness for all of Klal Yisroel, and a life devoted entirely to the Ribbono Shel Olam and to his fellow Yidden.

The charity he led continues to this day. Many men and women tell of miraculous help in times of personal need and crisis after giving tzedakah to this fund.