Yahrzeit/Hillula of Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horowitz - the Alter of Novardok

Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horowitz, known as the Alter (Saba) of Novardok (1847–1919), was a student of Rav Yisrael Salanter, the founder of the Mussar movement. Horowitz also studied under such rabbis as Yitzchak Blazer and Simcha Zissel Ziv, and spent some time in Brisk studying with Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik.

He founded the Novardok Yeshiva in the city of Novogrudok. In addition, he established a network of yeshivas in Dvinsk, Minsk, Warsaw, Berdichev, Lida, and Zeitel.

Some of his teachings were recorded in the book "Madregat HaAdam" (The Rise of Man).

The most fundamental and important theme in his book is bitachon (trust in G-d). Horowitz signed his name "BB" (Baal Bitachon - master of trust).

The Saba of Novardok was born in 1847 in Plungyan, Lithuania. His father was Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Ziv (later Horowitz), a dayan and rabbi in Plungyan, and later rabbi of Kurtuvyan. Yosef Yozel had three brothers and four sisters. He received his basic education under his father's guidance. He joined the Kelm Yeshiva while still very young.

At the age of sixteen, he was already giving a shiur (lesson) in the synagogue of Kurtuvyan.

At eighteen, Horowitz married the eldest daughter of Rabbi Yaakov Stein, the owner of a textile shop in Shvekshne.

Since Stein died shortly before the wedding, after the wedding the young man had to take over managing his father-in-law's business, as well as supporting Stein's widow and eight children.

Meeting Rabbi Yisrael Salanter

Because of his business obligations, he often traveled to Memel, where at the age of 27 he met Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, who was at that time the rabbi of Memel. After attending several of Salanter's classes and meeting with him, Horowitz decided to close his business, leave Shvekshne, and devote all his time to studying Torah in Kovno.

This met with some resistance from his father, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Horowitz, and from Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, who were concerned about his wife's reaction to this decision. However, he assured them: "She has always understood me, and she will understand this time as well."

Seclusion in Kovno

On the advice of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, Horowitz joined the Kovno Kollel Perushim, where he studied under Rabbis Yitzchak Blazer, Naftali Amsterdam, and Avraham Shenker, disciples of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter's mussar teachings.

Eventually, Horowitz brought his wife and children to Kovno, where his wife gave birth to two more children and died in childbirth.

After his wife's death, Horowitz divided his children among relatives and secluded himself in the home of a Kovno tinsmith named Rabbi Shlomo.

He remained in this room for a year and a half without appearing in public. To ensure his seclusion, he blocked off the entrance to his quarters with a brick wall, in which there were two small windows through which he communicated with his host when necessary. He was served dairy dishes through one window and meat through the other.

In 1881/1882, the maskilim published a series of articles mocking Horowitz's seclusion. Later they threw a bundle of counterfeit bills into his yard and then reported to the police that his hideaway was a base for producing counterfeit money. That day, Horowitz's mother came to visit him and burned the bundle. Shortly afterward, the police broke into his room and tore down the wall. Although they found nothing suspicious, they forbade him from living in seclusion.

Soon after he emerged from seclusion, his mentors urged him to remarry.

One evening, Horowitz was passing by Rabbi Shlomo's house and heard someone crying.

The next day, he asked Rabbi Shlomo what had happened. Rabbi Shlomo told him that the man who was supposed to marry his daughter Chaya Rivka had broken off the engagement. Horowitz told Rabbi Shlomo that he would marry Chaya Rivka, but only on condition that he be allowed to isolate himself all week, returning to his family only for Shabbat and Yom Tov. They agreed to this condition. Rabbi Gershon Chirinsky, a timber merchant who owned estates around Zeitel, built a place of seclusion in the forest, where Horowitz secluded himself for 12 years, visiting his family only on Shabbat.

When his father died in 1890 and Kurtuvyan offered him the position of head of the community, which he would have inherited from his father, he did not accept it, because he had a sister who had been left an orphan, and he gave up the rabbinical position in favor of his future son-in-law.

In 1893/1894, Horowitz began visiting Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv in Kelm. Rabbi Simcha Zissel convinced Horowitz to make efforts to counter the influence of the Haskalah movement.

Once again, Horowitz left his seclusion and established a network of kollels in 20 Polish and Russian towns, including Shavli, Dvinsk, Minsk, Warsaw, Berdichev, Novardok, Odessa, Lida, and Zeitel. After a kollel was established, he encouraged his students to found neighboring yeshivas. The institutions were funded by Rabbi Lachman and headed by Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer.

The yeshiva in Berdichev had two hundred students.

When Horowitz heard students arguing over a difficult lesson or discussion, he would not leave until the matter was resolved (Rabbi Dov Katz wrote about this in his book "Tnuat HaMussar" ("The Mussar Movement"), p. 199).

Horowitz also founded a large yeshiva in Novardok, where graduates of many of the yeshivas he had established came to study. This yeshiva had more than 300 students.

When World War I broke out, Horowitz decided to move the yeshiva abroad. He did not allow the yeshiva to remain in Novardok. In 1914/1915, Horowitz traveled to Ukraine in search of new premises for the yeshiva. Before leaving, he told his students that if the Germans approached Novardok, they should flee toward Ukraine. Horowitz found premises for the yeshiva in Gomel. Meanwhile, the Germans took control of the Novardok area, and the yeshiva students fled to Gomel.

In Gomel, they lived in the home of Rabbi Yaakov Katz. It soon became so crowded that they had to move to a nearby beit midrash, and then to various synagogues in the city. By the end of the summer of 1915, 80 students had reached Gomel, and the yeshiva was restored.

In 1917/1918, wartime circumstances forced Horowitz to move the yeshiva from Gomel to Kiev, where he established four more yeshivas.

During Sukkot 1919, the Volunteer Army carried out a pogrom in Kiev, killing hundreds of Jews.

Many Jews in the area sought refuge in Horowitz's house, believing they would be spared on account of his merit. On Simchat Torah the situation worsened, but Horowitz instructed his students to hold the Hakafot as usual. The rioters fired at the windows of his house. Everyone fell to the floor except Horowitz, who remained standing at the head of the table with a kiddush cup in his hand.

Death and Burial

After Sukkot, a typhoid fever epidemic broke out in Kiev, claiming the lives of thousands of its residents.

Soon Horowitz's house filled with the sick, whom he personally visited.

In Kislev he contracted the disease and never recovered from it. Nevertheless, he continued to attend to the needs of the sick. He passed away on December 9, 1919.

The Jews of Kiev and its surroundings flocked to his funeral. The last to eulogize him was his student, Rabbi Dovid Budnik. Forty-three years later, his students transported his coffin to Israel, and in the summer of 1963 he was reburied at Har HaMenuchot Cemetery in Jerusalem.

May the merit of the tzadik protect the people of Israel!