Grave

The Brisker Rebbe

Rabbi Chaim HaLevi ben Yosef Dov Soloveitchik – the renowned rabbi of Brisk (Brest-Litovsk), 1853-1918. Yahrzeit - 21 Av Burial place - Cmentarz żydowski, Warsaw, Poland An outstanding Talmudist, one of the greatest teachers and champions of Torah in Eastern Europe. Son of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik (1820-1892), who was also the Rav of Brisk and the Gaon of his generation. Like his father, he taught for several years at the famous Volozhin Yeshiva. He became renowned as a brilliant analytical scholar who did much to spread Talmudic knowledge among the Jewish people and raised a number of outstanding students who went on to help develop the yeshivas of the Holy Land. His manuscripts and the lessons recorded by his students formed the well-known collection “Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim HaLevi.” Rabbi Chaim's son, Rav Yitzchak Ze'ev Soloveitchik (1889-1959), continued his father's work, devoting his life to teaching Torah – first in Brisk, and later in Jerusalem. His home was always full of people who came to him for advice, and some simply stayed there for several days at a time. The doors of his house were never locked, and the stove in the kitchen was never allowed to go out. Many stories are told about this quality of the Brisker Rav. In every one of them, he appears as a man concerned with concrete help rather than talk about it. Stories of the Tzadikim With the outbreak of the First World War, Brisk, a front-line city, filled with thousands of Jewish refugees forced to leave their shtetls and towns. People were left without shelter, without a penny, without even a crust of bread. The townspeople, led by their rabbi, helped the unfortunate refugees, but their strength was running out. A large meeting of rabbis was held to decide on raising funds in America. One of the learned men present declared that the spiritual needs of the refugees must also be considered: “We are collecting bread for them. But has anyone thought about whether they even have a pair of tefillin?” Rav Chaim Soloveitchik cut short this dramatic speech: “You are welcome to go to the synagogue tomorrow morning and give your own tefillin to anyone who wants them. But just try to feed people with two pieces of bread.” (from the website https://r5gor.livejournal.com/52487.html)