אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
כ״א חֶשְׁוָן תשפ״ז
Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l's primary rebbe was Rav Yitzchak Isaac Sher zt"l, Aizik Sher in the biographies. The Alter of Slabodka's son-in-law. Later rosh yeshiva of the European Slabodka.
Rav Miller zt"l is reported, tape after tape and in the prefaces to his books, to have said that everything unsourced in him should be taken as the teachings of Rav Isaac Sher.
Neither this post nor the biographies it draws on have been reviewed by Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l nor the Toras Avigdor organization.
Who he was
Born 1875 in Halusk. Petira 10 Shevat 5712, 6 February 1952, in Bnei Brak, after a heart attack. Son of Rav Yosef Chaim Sher.
After cheder he learned under Rav Baruch Ber Leibowitz in Halusk, then in Volozhin under Rav Refael Shapira, and also in Plotzk. He heard the Alter of Slabodka speak in Halusk and followed him to Yeshiva Knesses Yisrael. There he learned b'chavrusa with Rav Avrohom Grodzinski. Still a student, he was made head of the Vaad Hamussar. The Alter sent talmidim to him for guidance (Sofer).
In 5663 (1902/03) he married the Alter's youngest daughter, Mariasha Guttel, and moved to Kelme. He also learned briefly in the Mir under his brother-in-law Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel.
The biographies put him close in Kelme to Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv, the Alter of Kelm, and say Rav Simcha Zissel shaped him. Rav Simcha Zissel died in 1898. The marriage and the move, as those books order them, come later. Kelme formed him. How the years sit next to each other is still an open question.
He was already heading the Slabodka that remained in Lithuania after Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein and most of the yeshiva left for Hebron in the mid 1920s. Formal appointment as rosh yeshiva of the European division: 5688 (1927/28), with Rav Grodzinski as mashgiach. He carried the yeshiva's finances as well, traveling to America several times. He held the post, in Lithuania and then in Bnei Brak, until his petira.
Gadlus ha'adam
Slabodka taught gadlus ha'adam. Look for the greatness in a person, and what is blocking it. A man's work is to find the good in himself and raise it.
The same niggun
In 5671 (1910/11) the Alter appointed him rebbi. For the first time in Slabodka, one man taught Gemara and gave mussar.
Sofer: the Alter made the appointment to uproot the idea that a deep lamdan and a man of mussar are two different people.
He used the same niggun in the Gemara shiur and in the mussar shiur. He called his mussar work Shiurei Mussar.
A Yiddishe tochter
Tradition tells: a young woman rushed past him on the narrow path to the yeshiva. No apology. The bochur with him called her a chatzufah. Rav Sher zt"l saw a Yiddishe tochter late for work.
What have you done
Tradition tells that when Rav Miller zt"l was leaving Slabodka, Rav Sher zt"l asked him his ruchniyus goals. Rav Miller zt"l pointed to an avreich who knew the Ketzos by heart. Rav Sher zt"l asked if he had done anything toward that.
The yetzer hara
Din Online reports that he would repeatedly say: a person should not think about his sins. Hashem created us with a yetzer hara. It is natural. Everyone has a yetzer hara. The only issue is how to cope with it, and that is something we must learn.
His sefarim
In the kollel years he transcribed chiddushim in halacha and mussar. Some were gathered in Beis Yisrael, an anthology he compiled. He headed the Beis Yisroel Kollel from 5680 in Sofer (1919/20). Wikipedia dates it 1921. Its members were outstanding Slabodka graduates, among them Rav Dovid Leibowitz and Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky.
He prepared the Alter's mussar talks for publication in Shiurei Mussar (Kovno, 1921), published journals under that title with the Alter's discussions, and after the Alter's petira he and Rav Grodzinski published part of the Alter's writings in Or Hatzafon.
A later compendium of his own parsha talks circulates as Leket Sichos Mussar, a different title from the lifetime Shiurei Mussar. In Eretz Yisrael he published Avraham Avinu, mussar readings of the figures of Tanach through gadlus ha'adam.
After 1924
The Alter built the system and chose the men. Tikochinski writes that after 1924 Rav Sher zt"l led his yeshiva his own way, as Grodzinski did.
He took Kelme seriousness from those years. He taught Slabodka gadlus ha'adam.
Rav Avrohom Grodzinski was chavrusa from youth, mashgiach for decades, and partner in publishing the Alter.
5671. Mussar had been fought inside the yeshiva. Uprisings against mussar study are recorded for 1897 and 1904. From then on, one man gave both shiurim.
1932, America. He came to raise funds in the Depression. The fundraising was poor. Rav Miller zt"l, then twenty-four, attached himself to him at Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchonon and followed him to Slabodka, arriving erev Shavuos. One secondary source gives that arrival as 1933. Most give the 1932 trip. The six years in Slabodka are constant across sources. Rav Sher zt"l later said, in the obituary tradition, that he collected little silver on that trip and brought back gold: Rav Miller zt"l and the others who came with him. Rav Miller zt"l absorbed gadlus ha'odom and tikkun hamiddos there, influenced most by Rav Sher zt"l and Rav Grodzinski.
War and rebuild. In the first World War he had already held the yeshiva together in exile in Minsk and Kremenchug, keeping up the talmidim's morale and emunah. Before the second he was at a spa in Switzerland for his health, still there when the war began, spared the destruction of the yeshiva's rabbanim and talmidim in Lithuania. Rav Grodzinski survived three years in the Kovno Ghetto and was murdered there on 22 Tammuz 1944, burned alive when the Nazis set fire to the ghetto hospital. Rav Sher zt"l reached Eretz Yisrael, lived a period in Yerushalayim giving mussar shiurim, and in 1947, at the advice of the Chazon Ish, reestablished the European branch of Slabodka in Bnei Brak with his son-in-law Rav Mordechai Shulman, his successor. The cornerstone was laid in Shevat 5707. He sat on the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah.
Rav Miller zt"l took from him the learning, the middos, and the responsibility for other Jews.
The fight in the town
In the mid 1920s Slabodka split over Rav Yosef Zusmanowitz, the town rav. Rav Sher zt"l and Rav Boruch Horowitz, heading the yeshiva that remained, opposed his taking any role in the yeshiva, in part because the town rav had little love for its mussar concentration. Outsiders viewed the fight badly, especially for men meant to represent mussar.
How does gadlus ha'adam look from inside a fight over who may sit in the yeshiva?
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