The forgotten legacy of Rav Chaim Brisker's chassidish son-in-law

Photos: Eli Cobin, Mishpacha archives, additional image sourcing by Dovi Safier

Few people know that in addition to three illustrious sons, Rav Chaim Brisker had a daughter for whom he chose a chassidishe bochur, a gaon and tzaddik named Rav Tzvi Hirsch Glickson. And even fewer know that 81 years after he and his children were murdered, his Torah lives on, salvaged by a star talmid who held onto those precious, unknown notebooks throughout years and continents

I recently embarked on an informal research project, asking local yeshivah boys, older kollel avreichim, and even respected marbitzei Torah if they could list the children of the famed Rav Chaim Brisker, considered the father of all modern- day yeshivos worldwide. As I expected, all my respondents listed Rav Chaim’s three sons: Rav Yisrael Gershon, Rav Moshe, and Rav Yitzchak Zev, the Brisker Rav. Without exception, no one mentioned Rav Chaim’s fourth child, a daughter named Sara Rasha, and her esteemed husband Rav Tzvi Hirsch Glickson. To my great surprise, even official historic websites skipped over this important detail.

Compounding the mystery is the high regard in which this gaon and tzaddik was held by all who knew him personally. One of the last eyewitnesses alive today who met Rav Tzvi Hirsch and was amazed by his tzidkus and toil in Torah is the revered posek Rav Moshe Sternbuch. In fact, Rav Sternbuch frequently mentions Rav Tzvi Hirsch in his shmuessen as a prime example of how total immersion in Torah was a reality not so long ago. Most recently, Rav Sternbuch spoke before thousands of yungeleit at a siyum held at the Mir in Yerushalayim, about the time Rav Tzvi Hirsch stayed in the Sternbuch home in England. He described his extraordinary hasmadah and tzidkus as a model for all bnei Torah to strive toward.

The impetus behind my quest to learn more about this forgotten gadol came on a recent, hectic Erev Shabbos, when I found a dear friend and neighbor standing at the doorway with a brand new sefer in his hands. Rav Yehuda Bulman, a respected rav in Neve Yaakov and a popular lecturer and mechanech in several seminaries, had brought me a sefer. In a few hurried words, he shared that his father-in-law, Reb Yitzchak Friedland, had just achieved his lifelong goal of publishing his father’s handwritten shiurim with the Torah of Rav Tzvi Hirsch Glickson Hy”d, the only son-in-law of Rav Chaim Brisker and a devoted talmid, who perished during the war together with his entire family.

This brief Erev Shabbos encounter led me on a fascinating journey in an attempt to trace the life story of this forgotten gadol. I learned of the incredible tale of the shidduch between the founder of the Lithuanian, analytical derech halimud and a very young chassidish bochur, barely 18 years old. Even more astounding was the fact that decades later, this same bochur went on to establish a litvish-style yeshivah in the heart of predominantly chassidic Warsaw between the two World Wars, attracting hundreds of students in a relatively short period.