Nosson Zvi (Nota Hirsh) Finkel (1849-1927), was born in Lithuania and died in the British Mandate of Palestine. He was an influential leader of Orthodox Judaism in Eastern Europe and founder of the Slabodka Yeshiva, in the town of Slabodka (a suburb of Kaunas). He is better known by the Yiddish appellation der Alter ("the Elder"). Many of his pupils were to become major leaders of Orthodox Judaism in the USA and Israel. 1849 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Map of the territory under the British Mandate of Palestine. ... Orthodox Judaism is the stream of Judaism which adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics first canonized in the Talmud (The Oral Law) and later codified in the Shulkhan Arukh (Code of Jewish Law). It is governed by these works and the Rabbinical commentary... The definition of continental subregions in use by the United Nations. ... Slabodka yeshiva (Knesset Yisrael), was known colloquially as the mother of yeshivas (rabbinical seminaries). ... Slabodka yeshiva (Knesset Yisrael), was known colloquially as the mother of yeshivas (rabbinical seminaries). ... Location Ethnographic region AukÅ¡taitija County Kaunas County Municipality Kaunas city municipality Elderate Number of elderates 11 Coordinates General information Capital of Kaunas County Kaunas city municipality Kaunas district municipality Population (rank) 361,274 in 2005 (2nd) First mentioned 1361 Granted city rights 1408 Kaunas ( (help· info), approximate English transcription... Yiddish (ייִדיש, Jiddisch) is a Germanic language spoken by about four million Jews throughout the world. ...

The Alter of Slabodka

Old public photo-etching of the Alter (or Sabba) of Slabodka, Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Old public photo-etching of the Alter (or Sabba) of Slabodka, Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ...

Early years

Nota Hirsh was orphaned at an early age, and not much is known about his formative years. At a young age, he went to study at the Kelm Talmud Torah under Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv The Alter of Kelm.

Philosophical approach

Despite his influence, he was an intensely private person. Yet, he personally oversaw the complete student body of the yeshiva. Yeshiva or yeshivah (Hebrew: ישיבה pl. ...

His motto was summed up in the words Gadlut HaAdam ("Greatness of Man"). He stressed the need for mussar (ethics), using works such as those of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, polishing the character traits of his students so that they would aspire to become gedolim - "great ones" in all areas of both scholarship, and personal ethics . Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (also Moses Chaim, Moses Hayyim, also Luzzato) (1707-1746), also known by the Hebrew acronym as the RAMCHAL (also RAMHAL), was a prominent Italian Jewish rabbi, mystic, and philosopher best remembered today for his ethical treatise Mesillat Yesharim (Path of the Just). ... Ethics (from Greek ἦθος meaning custom) is the branch of axiology, one of the four major branches of philosophy, which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to distinguish that which is right from that which is wrong. ...

He spent ten out of every twelve months with his students full time, only returning to his wife for the Jewish holidays. He had special agents that would keep an eye out all over Europe for teenagers with an aptitude for both scholarship and leadership, recruiting them and bringing them back to Slobodka. He attained unusual success, and his students subsequently reflected that he was a master of the human psyche and knew just which psychological buttons to press to give direction to his students' lives.

He would monitor the extra-curricular behavior of students judging their character faults and strengths. He was responsible for deciding which boys would share rooms together, weighing the strengths of one against the other. Some were chosen to be his personal assistants. He stressed the importance of outer appearance and the need for neatness and cleanliness. He did not want the image of the poor, tattered, down-trodden yeshiva bochur (yeshiva student) to be associated with the alumni of his institution. The rabbinical and Talmudical graduates of the Slobodka Yeshiva tried to live up to a higher code of dress and deportment, to the point of being accused of being dandies. Tractate Brachos, folio 2a The Talmud (תלמוד) is a record of rabbinic discussions of Jewish law, ethics, customs, and stories, which are authoritative in Jewish tradition. ...

He would send teams of his trained prized pupils to places that needed a boost in religious observance and learning of Torah. His own son, Eliezer Yehudah (Lazer Yudel) Finkel eventually became the head of the far older Mir yeshiva, eventually leading it all the way to Jerusalem where it is today the largest post-high school yeshiva in the world with thousands of students. Torah () is a Hebrew word meaning teaching, instruction, or law. It is the central and most important document of Judaism revered by Jews through the ages. ...

Opposition

His main opponents in the "yeshiva world" were the members and alumni of the Brisk yeshiva of Lithuania headed by the Soloveitchik family, who (unlike their kin Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik who eventually moved to the United States) were adamantly opposed to any changes in what they believed to be the time-tested ways of yeshiva education. To this day, their yeshivot, based mainly in Jerusalem today, do not teach mussar (ethics) as a separate curriculum, but focus on pure Talmud study. Brisk yeshivas commonly known as Brisk (a name used by many Yiddish-speaking Jews to refer to the town of Brest-Litovsk, located in what is now Belarus). ... Joseph Ber (Yosef Dov) Soloveitchik (Hebrew: ) () was an American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist and modern Jewish philosopher. ... Yeshiva or yeshivah (Hebrew: ישיבה pl. ... Tractate Brachos, folio 2a The Talmud (תלמוד) is a record of rabbinic discussions of Jewish law, ethics, customs, and stories, which are authoritative in Jewish tradition. ...

Rabbi Finkel's opponents argued that the pure focus on the Talmud would automatically create greatness in both scholarship and ethics. But Rabbi Finkel believed that, while this might have been true in previous generations, the modern age was different. In his view, too many new enticing secular ideologies, such as Socialism and Zionism and the very real lure of atheism in universities, were becoming a replacement for traditional Judaism for many young Jews. He was determined to prove that what he had to offer was more appealing than anything the outside world could offer. Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to social control. ... Poster promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s: Toward a New Life (in Romanian),The Promised Land (in Hungarian), in small (down) text is written First Palestinian sound movie 1844 Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews by Mordecai Noah, page one. ... Atheism, in its broadest sense, is the absence of theism (the belief in the existence of deities). ... Representation of a university class, 1350s. ... This article describes the Jewish religion; for a consideration of ethnic, historic, and cultural aspects of the Jewish identity refer to the article Jew. ...

Land of Israel

Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel staged one of the most dramatic moves in the history of yeshivot. In the 1920s he decided to create a branch of his yeshiva in the Land of Israel, together with the dean Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, setting it up in Hebron and sending waves of hand-picked students there, culminating with his own permanent aliyah, "going up", to the Holy Land two years before his passing. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Social issues of the 1920s. ... Satellite image of the Land of Israel in January 2003, including portions of the State of Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon. ... Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein is a Talmudist and the Rosh Yeshiva of the Slabodka Yeshiva. ... Hebron (Arabic al-Ḫalīl; Hebrew , Standard Hebrew Ḥevron, Tiberian Hebrew Ḥeḇrôn: derived from the word friend; ) is a town in the Southern Judea region of the West Bank. ...

In the region of Palestine he founded his own institution in the town of Hebron called Knesses Yisroel - "Gathering of Israel", which moved to Jerusalem following the massacre of Jews during the 1929 Palestine riots in which many of the yeshiva students perished. Palestine (Hebrew: Palestina, also ארץ ישראל, Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), a Hebrew term for the same area; Arabic: ‎ Filastīn or Falastīn) is one of many historical names for the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the banks of the Jordan River, plus various adjoining lands to the east and... Hebron (Arabic al-Ḫalīl; Hebrew , Standard Hebrew Ḥevron, Tiberian Hebrew Ḥeḇrôn: derived from the word friend; ) is a town in the Southern Judea region of the West Bank. ... Jerusalem (Hebrew: Yerushalayim; Arabic: al-Quds; Greek Ιεροσόλυμα; Latin: Hierosolyma) is an ancient Middle Eastern city on the watershed between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea at an elevation of 650-840 metres (about 2000-2500 feet). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Influence

During his lifetime, he molded many who would eventually become the heads (Roshei Yeshiva) of most of the so-called Lithuanian-style Yeshivot that were established in the United States and Israel during the 20th century, and which continue to grow dramatically in the 21st century. Some of the more famous ones are: Rosh yeshiva (Hebrew: ראש ישיבה) (pl. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... The 21st century is the present century of the Gregorian calendar. ...

• Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel (son of the Alter) of Mir yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel
• Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin of Brooklyn, New York
• Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Brooklyn, New York
• Rabbi Aaron Kotler, of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey
• Rabbi Dovid Leibowitz of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim: Rabbinical Seminary of America in Queens
• Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman of Yeshiva Ner Yisrael: Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Maryland
• Rabbi Yechezkel Sarna, head of Chevron Yeshiva, Jerusalem, Israel
• Rabbi Isaac Sherr, head of the Slabodka yeshiva of Bnei Brak, Israel
• Rabbi Elazar Shach of Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Israel

The Alter did not personally author any books or essays, but some of his ethical discourses were published under the name Ohr HaTzafun - "The Hidden Light", (also meaning "The Light of the Hidden (One)"). The word Ha-Tz[a]-F[u]-N also being the four initials of his name, but not in order ("Hirsh-Tzvi-Finkel-Nota"). The title alludes to the hidden and mysterious nature of its subject, as he used to sign his name as Hatzafun. Mir yeshiva (or Mirrer yeshiva) (Hebrew: ), commonly known as the Mir, is the name of two major Haredi yeshivas, one in Jerusalem, Israel, and the other, in Brooklyn, New York. ... Jerusalem (Hebrew: Yerushalayim; Arabic: al-Quds; Greek Ιεροσόλυμα; Latin: Hierosolyma) is an ancient Middle Eastern city on the watershed between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea at an elevation of 650-840 metres (about 2000-2500 feet). ... Yitzchok (Isaac) Hutner (1906 - 1980) was an Orthodox rabbi born in Warsaw, Poland, to a family with both Ger Hasidim and non-Hasidic Lithuanian Jews in their origins. ... Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin (also known as Mesivta Rabbi Chaim Berlin) (MYRCB) or as Chaim Berlin, is a major Orthodox Judaism all-male yeshiva located in Brooklyn, New York. ... For other meanings, see Brooklyn (disambiguation). ... Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rosh Yeshiva of yeshiva Torah Vodaath in the 1960s. ... Yeshiva Torah Vodaas (or Mesivta Torah Vodaas) is a Haredi yeshiva located in Brooklyn, New York, founded by Binyamin Wilhelm, author of Nidchei Yisroel (a guide for new Jewish immigrants). ... For other meanings, see Brooklyn (disambiguation). ... Aharon (or Ahron, Aaron, Aron) Kotler (1890s - 1962) was a prominent leader of Orthodox Judaism in Lithuania, and later the United States of America. ... Lakewood is a census-designated place located in Ocean County, New Jersey. ... Dovid Leibowitz (1889-1941) was a leading rabbi and disciple of prewar Europes Slabodka Yeshiva in Lithuania who went on to found the Rabbinical Seminary of America as its first Rosh yeshiva (dean) in Brooklyn, New York. ... Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim: Rabbinical Seminary of America (RSA) or Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yisrael Meir Ha-Kohen, or Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva and often referred to as just Chofetz Chaim (חָפֵץ חַיִּים) is a major Orthodox Judaism yeshiva in the United States based in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, New York with many branches... Queens is geographically the largest of the five boroughs of New York City in the United States, and the most ethnically diverse county in the U.S. It is coterminous with Queens County in the State of New York and is located on western Long Island. ... Yeshiva Ner Yisrael: Ner Israel Rabbinical College also known as NIRC and known colloquially as Ner, is a yeshiva in Baltimore, Maryland founded in 1933 by Rabbi Yakov Yitzchok Ruderman who was a key disciple of Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel of the famous Slabodka yeshiva in Lithuania, Europe. ... Flag Seal Nickname: Monument City, Charm City, Mob Town, B-more Motto: Get In On It (formerly The City That Reads and The Greatest City in America; BELIEVE is not the official motto but rather a specific campaign) Location Location of Baltimore in Maryland Coordinates , Government Country State County United... R Yechezkel Sarna Rabbi Yechezkel Sarna (1890 - 1969) was the successor to Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka, as the spiritual mentor of the Yeshiva. ... Slabodka yeshiva (Knesset Yisrael), was known colloquially as the mother of yeshivas (rabbinical seminaries). ... Slabodka yeshiva (Knesset Yisrael), was known colloquially as the mother of yeshivas (rabbinical seminaries). ... Mentioned as one of the cities in the portion of the Tribe of Dan (Yehoshua 19:45), Bnei Brak is famous in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 32b) as the seat of Rabbi Akivas court, and in the Pesach Haggada as the site of the all-night Pesach Seder of Rabbi... Elazar Menachem Man Shach (אלעזר מנחם מן שך) (or Rav Leizer Shach, at times his name is written as Eliezer Schach in English publications) (January 22, 1898 - November 2, 2001), was a leading Haredi rabbi in modern Israel. ... Ponevezh yeshiva (ישיבת פוניבז) (or Ponevitch) is one of the most famous Haredi Talmudical yeshivas with roots among the Lithuanian Jews. ...

External links

• Spending time in Slobodka
• Learning from the Alter
• 1929 Palestine riots Slabodka victims