In a few weeks it will be five years since the death of Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian, the great, revered Mussar leader. He was ninety-four years of age at the time of his death, and during his long life had been the spiritual guide of many thousands. His influence was not confined to the Yeshivoth—in Kelm in Lithuania, in London, and in the Land of Israel—in which he taught, nor to the Yeshiva world generally. On numerous occasions he addressed a much wider public.
He was a brilliant orator. A master of vivid description and dramatic presentation. His talks were treasure houses with many chambers. He quoted from the Bible, Talmud and Midrash, from the various commentaries on the Bible, from our philosophic and moralistic literature, early and late Mefarshim and Poskim, sayings and tales about the great of our nation. He illuminated the words of our sages with fine explanations, psychological observations and historic insights.
He was a man of Mussar in all his thoughts and movements.
He was a great Talmudist and an exceptional expositor. A master in the great art of elucidating to students difficult Talmudic passages and intricate dissertations of the commentators.
Great was his love for his students. He was deeply concerned not only with their spiritual well-being but also about their material welfare.
While I write these lines, scenes from the Yeshiva pass through my mind.
Morning. He opens his shiur with a heartwarming bon mot, in accordance with a saying of our sages (Shabbat 30b). He looks around. A student is absent from class. “Noo,!” he is learning Massekhet Niddah (“Nit do”, not here), he says with a smile. The students laugh and take with gusto to their studies.
Afternoon. It is a hot day. The students are fatigued. Reb Elye is full of encouragement. “It is hot. Let us bathe in the sea of the Talmud,” he exclaims.
Reb Elye “counted” the days. Every day was precious; every day was to be filled with Torah and mitzvoth. However, there were two seasons in the year when he counted the days with still greater care. The days of sefira which lead up to the festival of the giving of the Torah, he counted with love, “just as one who expects his most intimate friend on a certain day counts the days and even the hours” (Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, part 3). The days of Ellul, which lead to the Days of awe, Reb Elye counted with trembling. In the evenings he would sit down by himself in a corner and read aloud from a Sefer Mussar. He read for himself, but his powerful voice reverberated through the hall…and reechoed in the hearts of his students…
Several years ago, “Lev Eliyahu,” a collection of his Mussar talks was published. The book became a best seller in the Yeshiva world. So far it has had four printings. Recently the book was rendered into English by Rabbi B. D. Klien, a son-in-law of Rabbi Elye, and published in Jerusalem by Rabbi Kalman Pinski, another son-in-law.
Rabbi Pinski, a well-known Talmudic scholar, is the head of Kollel Aliyoth Eliyahu in Jerusalem. The Kollel was founded in memory of Reb Elye and its aim is to train mashpiim for yeshivoth.
A native of Poland, Rabbi Pinski studied in Bialystok and in Pinsk and was instrumental in the founding of a Yeshiva in Bilgoray and in a locality near Warsaw. In 1938 he went to Switzerland where he taught at the Yeshiva of Montreux. Several weeks before the outbreak of World War II he arrived in Britain. He was a Maggid Shiur at the Gateshead Yeshiva and helped the Kollel in that city. In 1952 he settled in Israel. He taught at the Yeshiva of Zichron Yaakov and later at the Yeshiva of Kamenitz in Jerusalem.
A short time ago Rabbi Pinski arrived for a visit to this country on a mission on behalf of Kollel Aliyoth Eliyahu which he heads. I met him last week and he told me of the progress of the Kollel and of the fine men who are studying there. Some of his students have already been accepted as mashgichim in yeshivoth. However the Kollel has not yet a home of its own and on his present visit Rabbi Pinski will seek funds for the erection of a new building.
Quite a number of former students of Reb Elye Lopian live in this country and in Canada. Some of them occupy rabbinical posts, others are in business and are greatly active in communal affairs. The dean of Reb Elye’s students in the U.S. Is Rabbi Chaim Stein, the famous Rosh Yeshiva of Telz, who had been a student of Reb Elye in Kelm. Of those who had been his students in London only a few can be mentioned here: Rabbi Jacob Bulka, Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbi Joseph Gruenblatt, Rabbi Mordechai Joseph Leiner, Rabbis Abraham and Eliya Heftler—all in New York; Rabbi Hershel Brazil—Boston; the brothers Benjamin and Uri Wiedermann, Pinkas Schimmel—New York; George Jacobovits—Montreal. On his arrival here Rabbi Pinski was accorded a warm welcome by Reb Elye’s former students and it is hoped that he will succeed in his urgent mission on behalf of the institute which carries the name and perpetuates the ideals of the revered Mussar leader.
By Tovia Preschel
Jewish Press
July 4, 1975