Shaped by Kelm

During those years, Kelm continued its legendary output. Never growing beyond 25 to 30 “students,” Kelm still managed to produce the mashgiach of nearly every single Lithuanian yeshivah. Rav Avraham Grodzinski (1882–1944) in Slabodka (along with rosh yeshivah Rav Isaac Sher, who also delivered shmuessen [1875–1952]), Rav Moshe Rosenstein (1881–1941) of Lomza, Rav Abba Grosbard (1895–1946) of Ponevezh, Rav Yosef Leib Nenedik (d. 1943) of Kletzk, Rav Yechezkel Levenstein (1885–1974) of Mir and later Ponevezh, and Rav Shlomo Harkavi (1890–1942) of Grodno were all Kelm talmidim during the period that Rav Dessler learned there. Rav Elya Lopian (1876–1970) was an older contemporary of Rav Dessler’s in Kelm, where he led the adjacent yeshivah ketanah before preceding Rav Dessler to England.

Along with the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 came the devaluation of the ruble to the point that it was no longer worth the paper it was written on. Rav Reuven Dov and his brother Reb Gedaliah lost everything they had. Driven by the nationalization of businesses and the increasing hostility toward religious life in Homel, Rav Reuven Dov returned to Kelm.

As the senior surviving student of the Alter, he was tasked with the administration of the Talmud Torah, which was reorganizing itself following the four years of upheaval. In this task, he would soon be joined by the Alter’s grandchildren and Rav Eliyahu Dessler’s eventual brothers-in-law, Rav Daniel Movshowitz (1880–1941) and Rav Gershon Miadnik (d. 1941).

With the return of his parents to Kelm, Rav Dessler celebrated his marriage to Bluma Ziv, the daughter of the previous director of the Talmud Torah, Rav Nochum Velvel Ziv (1859–1916), who was the son of the Alter of Kelm (the family name was changed from Braude to Ziv after false accusations were made against them by opponents of the Talmud Torah). Thus, in marriage, Rav Dessler had managed to unite the families of the great founder of the mussar movement and one of his prime students.

Shortly after his marriage, Rav Dessler, whose erudition was recognized by his uncle Rav Chaim Ozer while they sheltered together during the war in Homel, was offered a position on the Vilna Beis Din, but ultimately he decided to turn it down. This was very much in line with the Kelm school of thought, which eschewed the idea of earning one’s livelihood from learning or teaching the Torah, and perhaps Rav Dessler believed that dayanus fell into this same category.

Rav Dessler, in a move dictated by necessity and a sense of duty, ventured into the world of business to alleviate his family’s financial burdens. He began his short tenure as a businessman in the Latvian city of Riga with optimism, but soon met the harsh realities of economic hardship. Returning to Kelm with less than he had set out with, he faced not only his own disappointment but the growing concern over his father’s failing health.

In 1928, leaving behind his wife and two young children, Rav Dessler accompanied his ailing father to London to seek medical treatment. While in London, Rav Dessler made the fateful decision to remain, even as his father returned to Kelm. While he never discussed his motivations behind this surprising decision, it would ultimately save his family from the fate that the rest of Kelm’s Jews met at the hands of the Nazis and set into motion a journey that would alter the history of the Torah world.

The Rabbi’s Role

London of 1928 was everything that Kelm was not — a city with a population of more than 200,000 Jews, and yet not a single yeshivah. With the exception of a few of its rabbinic leaders, there was hardly a suitable study partner for Rav Dessler. The behavior of local Jews was something that shocked the Kelm-reared tzaddik.

In 1929, Rav Dessler traveled to America, thinking perhaps the ground there would be more fertile for spiritual growth. What transpired while he was in America is unknown, but after just a couple of months, he returned to England.

Upon the recommendation of Dayan Shmuel Yitzchok Hillman (1868–1953, father-in-law of Rav Yitzchak Isaac Herzog) Rav Dessler was recommended as a tutor for the children of wealthy families in the Mayfair section of London. Most memorable were his sessions with the future Rabbi Solomon David Sassoon (1915–1985), a scion of the famed Iraqi family, whose wealth and influence spanned the globe. Under Rav Dessler’s tutelage, the young prodigy finished Shas in five years. Many of the chiddushim published in Chiddushei Harav Hagaon Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler al HaShas are based on Rabbi Sassoon’s notes from those sessions. (Rav Herzog would later recommend young Rabbi Sassoon to serve as Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel, a suggestion that Rabbi Sassoon rebuffed.) Another one of his young charges was Rabbi Aryeh Carmell, who would remain a devoted student for life, and eventually help assemble Rav Dessler’s classic work, Michtav Me’Eliyahu.

Rav Dessler also served as a shul rav, a position he never enjoyed but tolerated because it gave him a platform to educate the children of his mispallelim. In addition, it can be said that Rav Dessler’s years in the rabbinate saw him fulfill what Rav Chaim Brisker had described as a rabbi’s primary role: “to stand up to affronts against the lonely and abandoned, safeguard the honor of the poor, and save the exploited from their oppressors.”

The years prior to his family’s arrival in 1931 were difficult ones. However, in hindsight, he described this period of loneliness as a chapter of growth. He was one of the few who stepped into London’s gaping spiritual void, and he was slowly thrust into communal leadership roles. He engaged with the Jewish community, offering guidance and support amidst the growing shadows of war and uncertainty. His home would become a beacon for discussion, learning, and solace, drawing individuals from all walks of life.

In addition to various tutoring positions, Rav Dessler became involved with the Gateshead Yeshivah, imparting his deep knowledge and unique approach to students eager for his insights. In 1941, the decade-old yeshivah invited Rav Dessler to assume leadership of its newly formed kollel, an institute that was then a novelty in Western Europe. The impact of this institution led Rav Yechezkel Abramsky to famously compare Rav Dessler’s impact on Great Britain with Rav Aharon Kotler’s impact on the United States.

Moral Compass

In late 1946, following the passing of Rav Abba Grossbard, the Ponevezher Rav began to pursue Rav Dessler to join his growing yeshivah’s hanhalah as mashgiach ruchani. After a pilot visit in 1947, he agreed to accept the position, first traveling to America to visit his son Rav Nochum Velvel (1921–2011), who had recently married Miriam Finger and was leading the newly founded Hebrew Academy of Cleveland, as well as making another trip in 1948 for the wedding of his daughter Henya to Rav Yehoshua Geldzahler (1926–2015), a leading student of Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz.

For his many followers in England, his departure to Ponevezh was a painful goodbye — for he had become much more than a rav or a rosh kollel to the masses. For scores of people, he was their personal rebbi, a rare moral compass in a vast, immoral, and often cruel world. This reverence is evident in an obituary in London’s Jewish Chronicle, which quoted Rav Immanuel Jakobovits, then chief rabbi of Ireland, at length:

The death of Rabbi Dessler will evoke the deepest personal grief among his innumerable disciples who are now dispersed in many parts of the world. A scholar and thinker of the first rank, he combined the finest attributes of dynamic leadership with a character of rare nobility and an intellect of exceptional penetration and originality.

For years during the war, he traveled every week from Chesham to North and North-West London, Letchworth, Manchester, and Gateshead to conduct regular study groups, often preparing his fascinating and profoundly thoughtful talks in the berth of a railway sleeping carriage. All who came under the spell of his ethical and philosophical presentation of Judaism will cherish his teachings as among the most formative influences upon their outlook and religious orientation.

But his magnum opus was the cluster of unique educational institutions at Gateshead, which were all inspired by his boundless energy and masterly planning, and which have restored to England an intensity of Jewish religious revival and creativeness never before known in these isles, or indeed in the Western world, since the Spanish and Franco-German Golden Age of Jewish life. The future historian of Anglo-Jewry may well accord to Rabbi Dessler pride of place among its most powerful and distinguished religious pioneers, a position comparable in some respects to that occupied in Eastern Europe by Rabbi Israel Salanter — his close relative in blood and thought — and in Germany by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.

Rav Dessler’s ability to communicate was legendary, and in many ways, it formed an important part of his legacy. His insightful and thought-provoking letters and essays later formed the core of his seminal work, Michtav Me’Eliyahu. With time his writings, infused with the ethical rigor of mussar and the spiritual depth of chassidus, began to attract a wider audience, cementing his status as a leading Jewish thinker.

In 1949, he relocated to Israel, where he spent the last four years of his life as the Ponevezher Mashgiach. During those years, he greatly influenced many students, including Rav Chaim Friedlander, Rav Gershon and Rav Yaakov Edelstein, Rav Dov Landau, Rav Moshe Shapira (who resided in his home during the last two years of his life) and Rav Yissachar Meir — to name just a few. During this time, Rav Dessler was also involved in the founding of P’eylim, building off the outreach activities he’d engaged in back in England. In this way, his impact spread even further.

It was the Chazon Ish who perhaps best described the rarity of Rav Dessler. When approached by a rosh yeshivah who told him that his yeshivah needed a mashgiach like Rav Dessler, he replied, “Many places need a Rav Dessler, but not many Rav Desslers are born.”

Creative Synthesis

Many qualities and achievements mark Rav Dessler as a unique and compelling figure. While known as one of the great mussar personalities, in many ways, he traveled a path that was seemingly divergent from his mussar roots.

Born into a world where the lines between the mussar of Lithuania and the mystical fervor of chassidus were sharply drawn, Rav Dessler’s inquisitive mind and expansive soul did not allow him to remain confined within the intellectual boundaries of his camp. Instead, his writings and teachings reflect a harmonious blend of mussar’s ethical rigor with chassidus’s mystical depths, a synthesis almost unprecedented among his contemporaries.

His introduction to chassidic thought was multifaceted and began at a young age. In his youth, his family’s regular attendance at the Chabad shtibel of Homel allowed him a close encounter with Rabbi Mordechai Yoel, a scholar well-versed in the teachings of the Baal HaTanya. This relationship marked the beginning of Rav Dessler’s lifelong engagement with chassidic philosophy.

At 17, Rav Dessler was given the opportunity to study the mystical traditions of the Torah under the guidance of the renowned Kabbalist Rav Shlomo Elyashiv (1841-1926). Despite declining the offer, he later reflected on this decision with a sense of missed opportunity. Years later, while residing in England, Rav Dessler hosted the great Chabad Torah scholar Rav Yitzchak Horowitz (1890–1942), known as Reb Itche Der Masmid, in his home. This period was marked by intensive study and discussion of the Tanya, deepening Rav Dessler’s understanding and appreciation of chassidus.

Rav Dessler’s relationship with chassidus represents a fascinating departure from mussar norms. While the mussar movement was established in part as an intellectual and spiritual counter to chassidic influence, Rav Dessler saw no fundamental conflict between the two. He famously asserted that the deepest concepts of chassidic works were in harmony with the teachings of the Vilna Gaon and Rav Chaim of Volozhin, and loved to point out commonalities between the works.

Elsewhere in his magnum opus, Rav Dessler concluded that the Baal HaTanya’s and Vilna Gaon’s views on tzimtzum — the mystical concept of Divine self-contraction — are nearly identical, with a surprisingly deep congruence.

In his biography of Rav Dessler, Yonoson Rosenblum describes how Rav Dessler drew from a remarkably wide range of chassidic thinkers. He showed his talmidim that Rav Chaim of Volozhin and the Tzemach Tzedek offer the same explanation of the verse, “All of Israel saw the thunderclaps and the sound of the shofar” (Shemos 20:15): At Sinai, the… people perceived the spiritual universe with the clarity usually associated with sight, not hearing.

Rav Dessler was particularly influenced by the teachings of Rav Tzaddok HaKohein of Lublin, someone his students were hardly familiar with — until they began to hear their rebbi quote from Rav Tzaddok’s seforim during almost every discourse he delivered.

The presence of both chassidic and kabbalistic texts in his Michtav Me’Eliyahu is a tangible testament to his broad approach. Here, one finds the influences of the Ari, the Maharal (Rav Moshe Shapira would later cite Rav Dessler’s influence in opening up the world of the Maharal to him when he was a young student in Ponevezh), and later chassidic masters interwoven with classical mussar teachings. This synthesis was not the product of his formal education, but rather the result of his personal journey and study.

The great writer and student of Radin, Reb Dovid Zaretsky, described the excitement Rav Dessler created with this all-encompassing approach:

He revealed things that no ear had heard among the talmidim in yeshivos… combining mussar with the fire of chassidus to create something entirely new…. He wanted to empty all the treasure houses filled with hidden treasures of Jewish thought. Anyone who heard even one talk knew that he was listening to someone who was presenting a different approach in very deep waters.

In a hesped delivered in Gateshead on Rav Dessler’s 50th yahrtzeit, Rav Moshe Shapira shared an episode that speaks volumes:

A well-known mashgiach once reproached him sharply for his departure from the classic content of mussar. Rav Dessler stood there silently with his shoulders slightly bent, his hands clasped together, and leaning toward the one offering the reproof, in the manner of Kelm for receiving tochachah. Yet despite his high personal regard for the one offering the criticism, Rav Dessler was not swayed. He replied that there was no one left capable of listening to old-fashioned mussar.

“What should I do?” he once asked rhetorically. “If I give them mussar as they once did, they’ll just run away.”

Rav Dessler’s embrace of chassidus did not signify a departure from mussar; rather, it was an expansion of it. He remained deeply connected to the teachings of his ancestors, yet saw no contradiction in incorporating the insights of chassidic masters into his worldview. Perhaps it was because he descended from the founders of the mussar movement that he felt comfortable broadening its horizons for a world that was thirsty for this sort of change.

Seventy years after his passing, it might be said that his ability to hold these two worlds in tandem reflects a broader theme in Jewish thought: the capacity for synthesis and integration, for finding unity in diversity. It was this path that he blazed, and many giants after him have followed.

Kelm for Eternity

In Kelm mussar tradition, self-negation also extends to posthumous remembrance. This was evident in Rav Dessler’s children’s decision to refrain from erecting a tombstone for him at the Bnei Brak cemetery, following the Kelm tradition that Rav Dessler seemingly maintained when he did not erect a matzeivah for his wife, who had passed away two years prior. The same tradition was followed for his father, Reb Reuven Dov, whose grave was not marked with a tombstone following his passing in London in 1935.

But the public voiced an outcry over Rav Dessler’s missing gravestone. Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, who was then traveling to Eretz Yisrael for the first time to attend the 1956 Knessiah Gedolah, consulted with the Steipler, who clarified the issue. Citing the responsa of the Chida, he ruled that while the deceased may influence a tombstone’s inscription, he or she has no say in the actual erection of a tombstone.

The Dessler family followed the ruling and a very basic matzeivah was erected for Rav Dessler and his rebbetzin. (In 1960 a matzeivah was erected over Reb Reuven Dov’s grave in London.) The original Kelm tradition may stem from Rav Yisrael Salanter’s initial lack of a gravestone above his burial place in Koenigsberg.

Mussar by Example

When Rav Dessler arrived in the United States in 1948 to celebrate Reb Nochum Velvel’s wedding, he asked his son who had been assisting him during his time in the country. Reb Nochum Velvel listed several people, including Rav Leizer Silver, who felt privileged to assist the great-nephew of his dear rebbi, Rav Chaim Ozer. Said Rav Dessler, “We must thank him!”

Reb Nochum Velvel picked up the phone to dial Rav Leizer, but his father quickly stopped him. “We must go convey our gratitude in person!” he insisted. Rav Nochum Velvel explained to his father that Cincinnati was quite a distance from Cleveland, but he could not change his father’s mind, and together they boarded an overnight train to Cincinnati.

When Rav Leizer saw the two Desslers waiting outside his home in the morning, he invited them to join him after Shacharis for breakfast. As they were eating, Rav Leizer inquired how he could be of assistance to them. Rav Dessler politely thanked him for the offer and said that he had come not to ask for a favor, but rather for the sole purpose of expressing his gratitude for all he’d done for his son.

Rav Leizer was used to this sort of talk and immediately replied, “Thank you, but what really brings you to Cincinnati?” Rav Dessler repeated once again that he really just wanted to thank him for helping his son. “But Rav Dessler, is there anything I can do for you?” Once again, Rav Dessler shook his head.

Rabbi Silver replied in astonishment: “Now I understand what the study of mussar is all about!”

The published works and vast knowledge of Yonoson Rosenblum, Rav Dovid Cohen, Rabbi Nosson Kamenetsky, Reb Dovid Zaretsky, Rabbi Dovid Kamenetsky, and Esther Solomon were utilized in the preparation of this tribute.

This Friday, 24 Teves marks the 70th yahrtzeit of Rav Dessler

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 993)