Rav Yisroel Meir HaKohen Kagan of Radin
The Chofetz Chaim, author of the sefer on guarding one’s tongue and of the Mishnah Berurah, who founded the Radin Yeshiva and guided Klal Yisroel with humility.
Biography
Early years
Rav Yisroel Meir HaKohen Kagan of Radin zt"l, known to the world as the Chofetz Chaim after the title of his first sefer, was born on 11 Shevat 5599 (1839) in Dzyatlava, known as Zhetel, in the Grodno region of the Russian Empire. His father was Rav Aryeh Leib Kagan. His parents taught him until he was about nine or ten, and then he went to Vilna to continue his studies in the great yeshivah there, where his brilliance quickly became known.
He grew in piety as well as in wisdom, and as he matured, his selfless devotion to others and an honesty that never bent became a model for his generation. He married at seventeen and went on learning in extreme poverty, spending every waking moment absorbed in holy seforim.
Torah and leadership
The Chofetz Chaim refused to take a pulpit rabbinate. He settled in Radin and opened a modest grocery, which his wife ran, insisting that he go on learning. He kept the books and made sure that the weights and measures were exact, the merchandise good and the prices fair, so that no customer was cheated or overcharged. He spent his days learning Torah and sharing it with ordinary people.
As his reputation grew, students came from all over Europe, and by 1869 his house had become known as the Radin Yeshiva. Although he never accepted the position of rav of Radin, he was in practice its spiritual and practical leader. When some townspeople unfairly blamed their rav for the poor state of the mikveh, the Chofetz Chaim personally promised the money and oversaw the construction of a new one. When fires destroyed first one half of the Jewish section of Radin and, in the following year, the other half, he organized emergency relief, fundraising and the rebuilding of the town.
He was also very active in Jewish causes. He travelled widely, even in his nineties, to strengthen the observance of mitzvos, and he was one of the founders of Agudas Yisroel, which became the religious organization of European Jewry and later of the world. He understood that Torah Jewry had to update its methods, because organized effort could succeed where individuals alone could not, and he saw this as a religious duty. He taught that when Torah values are attacked as never before, even small deeds in their defense are rewarded many times over in Heaven. He supported many yeshivos through the financial hardships of the years between the wars. Despite his saintliness, he was a practical man, and he once observed that a single fool can cause more harm than ten wicked men.
Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky of Vilna sought his wise advice, and in the difficult years after the First World War the two consulted constantly on every major issue, their names appearing side by side on scores of proclamations. Though the Chofetz Chaim was nearly thirty years older, he considered Rav Chaim Ozer the gadol hador and deferred to him. In the 1920’s there was pressure on Rav Chaim Ozer to go to America to collect money for the European yeshivos, which were close to financial ruin, but he answered that his health would not permit it. The Chofetz Chaim settled the matter by saying that the well-being of Rav Chaim Ozer was the well-being of Klal Yisroel, and that they dared not risk it.
The Chofetz Chaim’s policy was to avoid answering the attacks of the maskilim and the yevsekes (Jewish Communists), since a reply would only give them recognition. But when the Vilna rabbinate became a battleground, he broke with that policy. The government required Vilna to have a chief rabbi, to be elected by the whole Jewish population, which included many secular voters. Agudath Israel doubted that Rav Chaim Ozer could win a majority, and so it joined a coalition of Mizrachi, Socialists and Reformers in electing a Rabbi Rubinstein as a figurehead, on the understanding that he would not act without Rav Chaim Ozer’s approval. After the election, his secular supporters used it to treat him as the real chief rabbi, and Rav Chaim Ozer found the ground cut from under him in his own city. Rav Chaim Ozer himself stayed serene, but his followers, under the leadership of the Chazon Ish, with the Chofetz Chaim as their guide, set out to protect the dignity of Torah. The Chofetz Chaim issued a sharp letter condemning those behind the move and rejected attempts at compromise. When the secular press in Vilna accused him of lashon hara, he answered that when Torah values are being torn down, the Torah itself allows them to be defended.
Teachings and seforim
In the winters of 5630 and 5631 (1870 and 1871), the Chofetz Chaim wrote the sefer Chofetz Chaim, a compilation of the laws of lashon hara, and in 5632 he went about gathering pre-publication orders from the public and endorsements from leading rabbanim. He still hoped to remain anonymous and presented himself as the publisher and not the author. Many rabbanim were doubtful about the first person to attack so systematically a sin that Chazal call almost universal. Some even arranged for students or colleagues to draw him into conversation, hoping to catch him in lashon hara. These tests only revealed the author’s greatness, and the endorsements followed. Great leaders of the generation, such as Rav Yisrael Salanter, saw that this was one of those rare people who would leave a mark on a nation.
His son, Rav Aryeh Leib, thought that the sefer grew out of a bitter dispute in Radin in his father’s youth. The town split into factions, its rav was forced to leave, and he died a few years after taking a new position, which many blamed on the anguish of the dispute. The Chofetz Chaim never discussed it, saying only that he had taken it upon himself not to speak of it.
He wrote only in response to a concrete need. Russian conscription drew many Jewish boys into the army for no fewer than six years, far from any Torah influence, and for them he wrote Machneh Yisrael, which gave plain answers to basic questions of halachah and special tefillos to say before battle, and became a link to Yiddishkeit for many soldiers. Reports of the collapse of religious life among Jewish immigrants in America led him to write Nidchei Yisrael, with practical halachic answers and words of encouragement. Because of the immigrants’ emergency conditions, many of its rulings were lenient, and he hoped that it would not be distributed in Eastern Europe. When some copies were seen there and he was criticized, he regretted it, but considered it unimportant next to his goal of helping the uprooted Jews in America.
Seeing that the laws of kindness were neglected, he did for gemilas chessed as he had for shmiras halashon. He codified its laws and urged Jews to form groups to study and practice them. After his slim classic Ahavas Chessed, hundreds of free loan funds, hostels for the homeless and bikur cholim groups were founded, and many of them asked him for a letter of blessing to bind into the first page of their ledger. When a poor laborer asked how someone living hand to mouth could fulfill the mitzvah of lending, the Chofetz Chaim told him to put aside a few pennies a week until he had built up a fund of several rubles to lend to fellow workers who were short of cash. For women he wrote pamphlets in Hebrew and Yiddish on family purity and modesty, and for men he wrote booklets urging Torah study in the home, as well as seforim on kashrus. He did not write his seforim to be bought but to be used, and his lecture tours were aimed above all at getting people to form groups to study them. In later years he hired field representatives and instructed them to promote the message by personal example and persuasive talks.
He also took responsibility for reviving the study of Kodshim, the order of the Gemara on the Beis HaMikdash and the korbanos, which for centuries had been left out of the curriculum of the great Torah centers. He firmly believed that Mashiach and the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash were close at hand. “We believe that Mashiach can come today,” he would say. “Are the Kohanim ready to bring the korbanos? Do the scholars know enough to teach them?” He published Toras Kohanim, a collection of the teachings of the Tannaim on Sefer Vayikra, with a corrected text and an original commentary, and Likutei Halachos, modeled on the Alfasi, gathering the halachic sections of the Gemara dealing with Kodshim, also with an original commentary. Today the study of Kodshim is a mark of distinction in nearly all yeshivos.
His masterpiece was the Mishnah Berurah (1894–1907), his commentary on Orach Chaim, the part of the Shulchan Aruch that covers the daily and festival laws, such as tefillah, tefillin, berachos, Shabbos and Yom Tov. It took twenty-five years to complete and fills six volumes. The Chofetz Chaim saw a serious gap, since no recent commentary on Orach Chaim existed that summed up the centuries of commentary and responsa and gave authoritative decisions where opinions differed. He urged others to take on the task, and when no one would, he accepted it himself. The Mishnah Berurah is found in virtually every Jewish home, and it is accepted almost universally for deciding halachah.
Later years and passing
The Chofetz Chaim passed away on 24 Elul 5693 (1933) in Radin, at a great old age. His life exemplified the verses in Tehillim 34, “Who is the man who desires life? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.”
Rav Mendel Zaks, his son-in-law, served as rosh yeshivah of Radin.
Legacy
The Chofetz Chaim’s greatest legacy is the more than twenty seforim he published. Thanks to his writings, there is a growing awareness of the harm of lashon hara and the seriousness of speaking it. Scholars honored him, yet it was the ordinary Jews who loved him most deeply, because he felt himself part of their lives and troubles. Even his seforim were written to be used by ordinary people, and in many cases by ordinary women. He never took a penny that people offered him out of a feeling that his greatness entitled him to gifts.
Stories
After Hashem, Even From Afar
In 1923 the Chofetz Chaim travelled to Vienna for the Agudas Yisroel convention, and there he spent time with Rav Avraham Mordechai Alter, the Gerrer Rebbe. In their conversation the Chofetz Chaim spoke about a verse from that week’s parsha, “Acharei Hashem Elokeichem teileichu,” “After Hashem your G-d shall you follow” (Devarim 13:5). He pointed out that the Torah has two words for “after.” “Acharei” suggests following from far away, and “achar” means close behind. Why does the verse use the one that suggests distance, when a person should draw as close to Hashem as he can?
His answer was that sometimes a person becomes depressed and feels that he is standing at the edge of a cliff, as far from Hashem as one can be, sure that Hashem will not help him now. He should know that this feeling is the work of the yetzer hara. Hashem is a Jew’s Father at every moment, welcomes His children when they return, and rescues them from every trouble. Even a person who is “acharei,” far away, must not give up on following Hashem. This is the thought in the prayers of the Yamim Noraim, which call fortunate the one who never forgets Hashem and who finds his strength in Him.
The Gerrer Rebbe replied, “Now I will try to explain the verse in the way of the chassidim. Precisely when a person feels far from Hashem, he can follow Him best, as Tehillim says, ‘Hashem is close to the brokenhearted.’”
The Preacher and the Tefillin
The Chofetz Chaim did not believe in fire-and-brimstone preaching. He held that a spoonful of honey works better than a gallon of vinegar. A traveling preacher once complained to him that however much he thundered and rebuked, his listeners ignored his call to repent.
The Chofetz Chaim asked him who had said that the way to fulfill the mitzvah of rebuke is by shouting and storming. Tefillin is a mitzvah as well, he pointed out, and does the preacher yell while he puts them on?
Kessel Kosher
In 1923 the Chofetz Chaim decided that the community should provide kosher meals for Jewish soldiers. He named the project Kessel Kosher, the Kosher Kettle, and went to Vilna to ask Rav Chaim Ozer to back it. Rav Chaim Ozer declined, giving a number of weighty reasons why the timing was wrong.
The Chofetz Chaim shrugged. People think of me as a G-d-fearing man, he said, so when I reach the next world they will want to know why I did nothing about kosher food for the Jewish draftees. I will tell them that I was neither lazy nor indifferent, that I made the difficult journey to Vilna in my weakness, at an age beyond eighty, and that the Rav of Vilna, the gadol hador, ruled that I was mistaken. Who has a clearer view than the gadol hador of what is proper and what is not?
Rav Chaim Ozer saw that he had met his match. He arranged a public gathering in the main synagogue of Vilna, with the Chofetz Chaim as the speaker, and that is where Kessel Kosher began.
The Journey to Vilna That Never Took Place
Near the end of his life, already past ninety, the Chofetz Chaim stayed in a summer cottage near Radin. His student Rav Avrohom Hillel Goldberg, later the rav of Kfar Pinnes in Eretz Yisroel, remembered how deeply the persecution of Russian Jewry pained him. To the Chofetz Chaim it was as though an entire limb had been severed from the body of Klal Yisroel, cut off from the Torah and mitzvos that give it life.
He said that only one hope remained, that Mashiach would come soon. The Redemption will surely arrive in time, but we are meant to bring it closer by showing how much we want it. How many religious Jews who declare Ani Maamin every day, he asked, really yearn for Mashiach? Why had no one cried out to Hashem for help? Silence was not the answer now. In Egypt, the Torah tells us, Bnei Yisroel’s plea rose up only once they cried out, and the same was needed today. He announced that he would travel to Vilna, to Reb Chaim Ozer, since nothing could be accomplished without him.
His family and students were alarmed. At that age he could barely stay out of his armchair for a single day, and the trip might cost him his life. They begged him to drop the idea, but he would not be dissuaded, because such a goal was worth self-sacrifice. They argued that Reb Chaim Ozer dealt in halachah and practical action, and that such ideas were not his sphere. The Chofetz Chaim only smiled, as if asking what they really knew about Reb Chaim Ozer. Sadly, the journey never happened.
Every Penny Counts
The Chofetz Chaim’s care to keep the strictest standards in his dealings with money became legendary. Many of the stories told about him are said to have first-hand witnesses.
It is told that he had his son reprint hundreds of sections of the Mishnah Berurah in which pages had been misplaced by mistake. Once, shortly before Shabbos, he hurried through the Jewish quarter of Warsaw looking for printers who had gone home early, so that he could hand them their week’s wages. When a non-Jewish railway worker loaded parcels of his books on a train free of charge, he tore up enough postage stamps to make up what the government had lost. And on his first speaking tour for the sefer Chofetz Chaim, he took orders but not deposits, because he might not be able to deliver to everyone who paid in advance, and then he would be guilty of wrongly holding their money.
Guarding His Hands
Rav Kalman Farber studied under the Chofetz Chaim for ten years. He recalled that whenever the Chofetz Chaim wanted to drive off a fly or another pest, he held a corner of his tallis or his handkerchief and never used his bare hands, and he never touched his own face with them either.
For many years Rav Farber could not explain this, since the face is a part of the body that is normally uncovered. Later he read the memoirs of the Chofetz Chaim’s son, Rav Aryeh Leib, about the time the family fled with the yeshivah from Poland to Russia. When it was time to daven Minchah, they entered a shul. Rav Aryeh Leib washed his hands as the Shulchan Aruch requires, but his father began to daven immediately. Later he asked why, and his father told him that he kept his hands guarded at every moment.
Then Rav Farber understood. The Chofetz Chaim took care that his hands stayed pure at all times, so he touched nothing, and when he had to chase a fly he used a covering. Just as he watched over his tongue, he watched over his hands, his eyes and everything else.
The Bochurim Who Played the Horse
A wagon driver named Avrumke, who owned a horse, took the Chofetz Chaim to the yeshivah at set times. In Eastern Europe in those days, getting around town meant a horse and wagon. Now and then the Chofetz Chaim would send word to the bochurim that he wished to visit the yeshivah in the middle of the day, and Avrumke and his horse were nowhere to be found.
A padded wagon built for his comfort stood outside the Chofetz Chaim’s own house. On those days, one bochur would stand in for the horse, another would sit up front as driver with his back turned, and the others would settle the Chofetz Chaim in his seat in such a way that he could not see who was pulling or who was driving.
That is how they covered the roughly 200 paces between his house and the yeshivah. Once there, a few bochurim would form a wall between him and the “horse” and “driver” while they helped him inside, so he never guessed what had happened. Certain bochurim were put in charge of the entire scheme.
They Are Watching
Many years later in Eretz Yisroel, Rav Kalman Farber walked into a shul in the Kiryat Shalom section of Tel Aviv one Shabbos between Minchah and Maariv. A group of elderly men sat at a table, listening to an old man tell of his experiences with the Chofetz Chaim. It was Avrumke, the wagon driver.
Avrumke was telling how, one day, he was taking the Chofetz Chaim to the train station when they passed an orchard. A branch loaded with apples reached out over the road, so he climbed down from the wagon to pick a few. Suddenly a voice behind him called out that they were watching. He leaped back onto the wagon and raced off, looking around on all sides, but there was not a soul in sight. He asked the Rebbe what he had meant, since no one was there. The Chofetz Chaim replied that of course someone was watching, and that the watching was from Above.
Avrumke told another story. Once, during a ride, the Chofetz Chaim invited him to learn a perek of mishnayos together. They learned this way: the Chofetz Chaim recited the mishnah from memory, word for word, and Avrumke repeated it after him. After a while the Chofetz Chaim said that this was how they had learned a whole perek.
Rav Farber added that the Chofetz Chaim treated simple people with such ease that they felt he was one of their own. When Rav Farber went home to his parents’ little village for bein hazmanim, they would ask how Reb Yisroel Meir was doing. Even so, their admiration was great, and the villagers would gather around him, eager for any story, saying or hanhagah of the Chofetz Chaim.
Twelve Chairs
The Chofetz Chaim’s home had no chairs at all, only a few long benches of rough-cut wood and one simple table that could be extended at each end. Then his son-in-law, Rav Mendel Zaks, became rosh yeshivah of Radin, and a difficulty arose. Rav Mendel lived upstairs, and bochurim came to discuss learning with him, but not all of them felt comfortable squeezed onto benches beside their friends. They wanted a little privacy with the rosh yeshivah. So twelve chairs were ordered, and they were set out in the kitchen, downstairs in the Chofetz Chaim’s own quarters, and upstairs.
When the Chofetz Chaim came back and noticed the new furniture, he was shocked. His family told him the reason, but he still could not take it in. One chair he could understand, for the head of the household, and a second for the lady of the house, and a third if a guest happened to come. But twelve? He reminded them of the teaching that Hashem’s Name is not complete and His throne is not complete. If the Ribono Shel Olam does not yet have one whole chair, how could there be twelve in this house?
Rav Farber added that everything the Chofetz Chaim said came from complete sincerity, with no exaggeration at all.
The Bribe That Saves
Rav Farber described the simple faith of the Chofetz Chaim. He addressed Hashem as one would a king standing before him, as a son speaks to his father, and he regarded nothing as chance. In his eyes every event had a spiritual root and a lesson to offer.
While the Chofetz Chaim was in flight with the yeshivah from Poland to Russia, a Jew approached him for a berachah. The Chofetz Chaim laid his hand on the man and began asking questions. Where was he from? Minsk. What was his work? He traded in animal hides. And business? Baruch Hashem, it was going very well.
The Chofetz Chaim could not see how a Jew could do well under the harsh rule of Czar Nikolai, and he said so. The man explained that his customers were the royal ministers. The Chofetz Chaim called them murderers and asked how he dealt with them. By bribery, the man replied. Without it, they would inspect each hide, find every defect, and perhaps refuse to buy at all. With a bribe, they took the whole lot without much checking.
The Chofetz Chaim exclaimed that this is just how it works for us. A person davens and does mitzvos, and the prosecuting angels step forward. One tefillah was not what it should have been, some learning was spoiled by drowsiness or idle talk, and everything seems flawed. What does Hakodosh Boruch Hu do for such a Jew? He summons the good angels to speak for him. They plead that he is worn down by suffering, with a sick wife, a son taken into the Polish army and troubles at home, and that he gives tzedakah to the lonely and the destitute. Then Hakodosh Boruch Hu rescues him from every accuser. That is our bribe, he said: the tzedakah we give and the chessed we do are what save us.
A Berachah Will Not Make a Ben Yeshivah
One man travelled to the Chofetz Chaim from the farthest corner of Poland, seeking a berachah for his son, whom he hoped to raise as a true ben Torah. The Chofetz Chaim called this a truly wonderful aspiration and asked what the father himself had done to bring it about.
The man answered that a berachah was exactly what he had come for. The Chofetz Chaim was displeased. Did he really imagine, he asked, that a berachah could produce a ben yeshivah? In this generation, he said, chinuch calls for mesiras nefesh and not for blessings, and with blessings alone one gets nowhere.
The Man Who Kept Calling Out
The Chofetz Chaim once told his talmidim about a man he had seen on the street with a wagon piled high with apples, calling to passersby to buy. No one went near him. When the Chofetz Chaim passed by again two hours later, the man was still in the same spot, still calling, and still had no customers.
He approached and asked why the man kept shouting when no one was buying. The man replied that he did call out all day, but that when he reached home in the evening and tallied his earnings, he found, baruch Hashem, that he had enough to live on.
The Chofetz Chaim asked his talmidim whether they understood. A person has to cry out, he said. If we call to Hashem a first time, a second and a third, and then keep on calling, Hakodosh Boruch Hu will answer, without a doubt. Surely we are no less worthy than that Jew, and all that is required is to cry out and plead for Hashem’s reply.
Genuine Ruach HaKodesh
Rav Farber recalled that whenever the Chofetz Chaim spoke of yeshivah students, he would ask, “When will we get true gedolim? Rabbonim we have plenty, but who will bring us genuine gedolim?” He wanted and demanded that bnei Torah become true gedolei Torah, and even from the older students he asked for more and more.
Rav Aharon Kotler once told Rav Elchonon Wasserman about a conversation he had had with the Chofetz Chaim. Out of nowhere the Chofetz Chaim remarked that anyone who starts a maseches should always complete it and never abandon it halfway. Afterward Rav Aharon reflected and saw that this described him exactly. Time and again he had started a maseches, learned a bit and put it down. How could the Chofetz Chaim have known?
Rav Elchonon replied that the very same thing had happened to him. While they were talking about something else, the Chofetz Chaim had broken in to say that a maseches, once begun, must be finished. The two agreed that this was true ruach hakodesh.
Teachings
Loving Your Days
The Chofetz Chaim often explained the verse from Tehillim that speaks of the person who desires life and loves days in which to see good. Anyone who truly loves his days must see to it that they are good ones. In Olam HaBa our days come back to meet us, and everything is laid out before us, so that we see just how we used them: the days wasted without learning, the forbidden words, the sights we should have turned away from. Whoever wants life and wants good days must therefore make his days good, so that the days themselves will work in his favor. He also had a well-known saying: people fret over whether they will have enough to live on, but he wondered whether they would have enough to take with them when they die.
On Tehillim 34:13, as remembered by Rav Kalman Farber
Why Theft Prosecutes First
Chazal say that in the World to Come theft jumps first and is the main prosecutor. Why theft, of all sins? The Chofetz Chaim answered with a parable. A merchant with a store went bankrupt, and the suppliers who had given him goods came demanding payment. He told them he had nothing left. As long as the merchant argues with his creditors, nothing happens. But if one creditor is bold and brazen, he demands his money, and when he sees that the merchant cannot pay, he does not keep negotiating. He simply grabs goods from the shelves. As soon as he starts, all the other creditors follow, until the merchant is stripped of everything. So too, when a person arrives in Olam HaBa, all the sins he committed meet him, but none can harm him yet. Theft jumps forward and begins to accuse, because the angel created by a sin shares the nature of the sin, and theft is done with force and chutzpah. It shouts and gives no peace, and once it starts, all the other sins begin shouting as well.
Bereishis Rabbah 80, as taught by the Chofetz Chaim and remembered by Rav Kalman Farber
The Essence of Teshuvah
The Chofetz Chaim used to ask what people imagine a baal teshuvah to be, and whether he must dress in sackcloth. He does not. Think of a witness at a chuppah, who has to be fit to testify. The rav tells him that he must do teshuvah, and the Jew simply steps aside and says that he regrets the past and asks for Heavenly help in the future. That is all teshuvah is, with no clever devices and no show for the eyes of others. Someone who knows that he is weak in one respect must labor to repair it, and nothing beyond that.
As remembered by Rav Kalman Farber
An Allowance of Steps and Words
In those days paralysis struck many people, and the Chofetz Chaim spoke to his talmidim about its meaning. Why, he asked, had this illness become so widespread? It is a strange affliction. A man has a mouth, lips and a throat, yet cannot utter a word. He has legs and feet, yet cannot take a single step. The Chofetz Chaim explained that everyone is given a kind of allowance. Someone may be given a million steps for his whole life, and once they are spent he keeps his feet but can walk no further. Each step is recorded and counted, so we should guard our steps, stay away from places of wrongdoing and not squander what we were given. In the same way, Hakodosh Boruch Hu grants each person a fixed number of words. When they run out, he keeps his organs of speech but can no longer pronounce a word. So we should guard our speech, since each word is written down and deducted from the total. The eyes, the hands and the rest of the body work the same way. Rav Farber said that the Chofetz Chaim spoke with such conviction that no listener could stay unmoved.
As remembered by Rav Kalman Farber
Holes in the Head
The Chofetz Chaim was once asked how famous talmidei chachomim and rabbonim could have been drawn in by Zionism, and he answered with a parable. Chazal say that the nations are intelligent, so how could they have bowed to idols of wood and stone? Rashi on Devarim 4:19 explains that Hashem let the nations slide into foolishness so that they would lose their share in Olam HaBa. Two planks can be clamped together only if both are smooth. If one has a bump, one can saw it off, or make a hole in the other plank for it to fit into. Once joined, both look smooth and whole from outside, but in truth neither is normal, since both had to be altered to fit. Idolatry is like a plank with a bump, but Hashem smooths the idolaters with words, as if they had a hole in the brain into which the bump fits so well that the strange thing looks normal. The same, he said, is true of the question he was asked. Rav Shimshon Pincus, who received this saying through Rav Lis from Rav S. Greineman, as spoken by the Chofetz Chaim, and who noted that it appears in the Chofetz Chaim’s own work on the Torah, added that heads can have many kinds of holes. Some make a person flawed without touching his essence, but sometimes the hole is in a place that makes him unfit in his very essence. People who seem healthy, who daven and learn, may walk around with holes or gaps in their heads, in the form of problematic ideas or character traits. This opens the way to a personal accounting, since a person can be fine in many areas and a “nothing” in others because of the holes in his head.
Rashi on Devarim 4:19; as taught by Rav Shaul Lerner and Rav Shimshon Pincus
Seforim
- Chofetz Chaim: His first sefer (1873), organizing the laws of lashon hara.
- Shmiras HaLashon: A work on the importance of guarding one’s tongue, built on the words of Chazal.
- Mishnah Berurah: His commentary on Orach Chaim of the Shulchan Aruch, published 1894–1907, accepted almost universally for deciding halachah.
- Machneh Yisrael: A guide to Jewish observance for Jewish soldiers in the army, with special tefillos for before battle.
- Nidchei Yisrael: Halachic answers and encouragement for Jewish immigrants to America.
- Ahavas Chessed: The laws of gemilas chessed and kindness.
- Toras Kohanim: A compilation of the Tannaitic interpretations of Sefer Vayikra, with a corrected text and an original commentary.
- Likutei Halachos: A compilation of halachic sections of the Gemara on Kodshim, modeled on the Alfasi, with an original commentary.
- Pamphlets and booklets: Works in Hebrew and Yiddish on family purity, modesty, kashrus and Torah study at home.
Family & talmidim
Talmidim: Rav Kalman Farber, Rav Avrohom Hillel Goldberg
Children: Rav Aryeh Leib, A daughter, wife of Rav Mendel Zaks (his son-in-law)
Also on 24 Elul
All hilulos on 24 Elul ›Historical sources
- The Jewish Observer (Rabbi Nosson Scherman; also ArtScroll/Mesorah Judaiscope Series)
- Musaf Shabbos Kodesh, Pesach 5756 (A. Ben-Yitzhar)
- Otzrosaihem Shel Tzaddikim
- Chareidi.org (Rabbi Shaul Lerner and Rav Shimshon Pincus)