Tradition & Change: Rav Reines & the Lida Yeshiva

[Music] both of those projects initiatives got off the ground because of the garage for the 11 team members in west germany out of the 24 who were killed were americans who had come to learn in heaven i say one million jewish children who were made to become losers [Music] it is never too little it is never too late and it is never enough jewish history sound bites bringing alive the world of our glorious past here is our host live from jerusalem jewish historian and tour guide yehuda gabor welcome everyone to jewish history sound bites this is yehudi governor with another episode of jewish history sound bites and on our malava malka episode tonight we have the yard site tonight of ravitra kyakov the famed rabbi of the town of lidda and he was a rosh shiva he was the founder of the mizrahi there's a lot to talk about him um we'll try to focus more on his yeshiva we spoke a little bit about his his uh his um political uh ideas in our rabbis and zionist series so we'll focus more on his rabbinic career and his early life and his yeshiva a lot of an interesting story here so we um just want to put out there that um again before we start that there are episodes that are available for sponsorship so just be in touch with me uh in regards to sponsorship as well um if we uh talk about the situation of the jews in especially in eastern europe and the russian empire at the end of the 19th century they were faced with a with a new situation and almost an impossible situation the modern times had brought new ideas and trends of modernity and the enlightenment and the ascola and all kinds of things that was just causing a major upheaval everything together technological advances that really posed a completely new situation to jewish leaders to rabbinical leaders to how to deal with the the new reality of modern times um with all the factors that had brought it to that new reality and there was really three different possibilities about what to do and we can really um say it over with a muscle i once heard from ruby wine or barrel wine that you have a doctor and a disease and the new disease that no one has ever seen or discovered and no one knows any treatment for and the doctor is faced with what to do with the patient with this brand new disease where he knows that none of the treatments none of the medicine none of the amazing vast medical knowledge that he has in none of the medicines he knows about nothing that modern science has can treat this new disease so he has three choices what to do with this patient who's gonna just get sicker and perhaps even pass away if he doesn't do anything so option number one is to do nothing because since since the doctor can't help him so he's not to just uh pretend to treat him he can't do anything there's nothing to do so that's it and the second option is to do all the regular things that he does prescribe all the regular medicines that he that he prescribes that he does for other diseases for other sicknesses that he knows will not help for this new manifestation for this new expression this new disease but and he knows it won't work but he's doing it anyway because i have to do something for my patient i can't just let him die in front of my eyes and the third option is to try some experimental medicine knowing that that it might make things worse it might not do anything might not have any effect might actually make him better perhaps it's experimental we don't know what it's going to do that's really the three choices that the doctor has and that's the three choices that were made by jewish and rabbinical leaders at that time both in eastern western europe about what to do about the new situation of modern times that it presented the challenge the unique challenges that it presented some most we would say most uh opted for the first two either not to do anything or to do the same thing knowing it won't work and there were some who tried some some courageously some any attempt to do something new despite the risks people like rashawn chandrafel hirsch and in germany people like herbie stroll cilantro with the muslim movement star schneer in the 20th century to a certain extent there were hasidic leaders like the piazza rebel who within hasidis tried to come up with innovative ideas it's also an interesting topic one of the ones who [Music] more than almost anyone else who was willing to risk and try new ideas was raverinus orbitz aquarius despite the risks involved and despite very often opposition he grew up in carlene and carlene's you know suburb of pins was a very hasidic town but also very lit fishtan was in the middle of lithuania a little white russia belarus and his last name rhinos comes from the the woman's name rhina in the possessive sense rhinos so he had an ancestor i think is his grandmother great grandmother perhaps um whose name was rina and she helped her husband she supported her husband in his study of torah and therefore she her husband her family was all belonged to her it was in her merit it was in her support so the family name became rhinos and that's uh that's what remained um down to his generation so he went to study in velozin uh at a very young age which was common in those days it was about 15 16 years old and he learned in village and for a couple of years he then went on to learn in in aisha which was also a a center of torah a city of taiwan where there was a kibbutz where there was a lot of people in the basement aisha would learn together was like an informal yeshiva but it was quite famous throughout lithuania as a center of the was later on affiliated with there also either way so he was um close with the netsif in velajin and he eventually went back to carlene he gets married he has smirk to become a rabbi and then he becomes the rabbi one of the one of the first places he became as a rabbi is in schweinstein a small little statue in fact i once met a uh survivor who grew up in schweinstein and i asked him uh what is what can he tell me what can what does he remember about chincyan and he goes on to describe he's actually a very accomplished individual historian he'd written books he was he had served in the palmach israeli army and a very very impressive individual that accomplished much in his life as a partisan during the war anyway so he um he told me that after all that after all he did living in tel aviv in his 90s at the time when i spoke to him uh he he described the uh the quaint life of the shtetl the uh how everyone knew each other and everyone cared for each other and again you know we have a tendency to either get waxed nostalgic about the shtetl and the style of shalom aleichem or to emphasize how hard everything was in the shtetl everyone was poor and everyone was illiterate and it was terrible and it was so it's probably somewhere in the middle it's not black and white but this was his memories and this is the way he was describing it about this really beautiful um haimish certain type of lifestyle and he said he misses it that was the cutest thing about it he told me he still misses schwinn see until today either way so he uh served rhinos his first attempt at opening yeshiva was in schweinstein and he he was faced with with the problems and the struggles of the both the rabbinate and education in for the next generation um on one hand he saw that the the youth of his day they desired a secular education many of them that was the modern times and the only way to get it was to go to the gymnasium was to go outside of the regular framework because jewish education didn't normative jewish education did not offer such a such a uh an alternative on the other hand he saw the issues that was facing the rabbinate at the time number one there was the long time issue in the russian empire of the crown rabbis the ravitam that since the rabbis had to know russian they had to be certified by the russian governments every single almost every single rabbi in the russian empire was not an official legal rabbi the the towns the townspeople had to hire them on their own there was the official government recognized rabbi was just an official a bureaucrat he was not a rabbi at all he just register registered the births and the deaths and the marriages in the community and the russian government considered him the rabbi but he was usually he was not he was just uh you know an office bureaucrat so this here the town had to support two rabbis the real rabbi and the crown rabbi it was a it was a major issue and it was also an expense an added expense and it caused all type of sorts of other problems he felt that also the rabbit needed a refreshing in modern times to be able to relate to the new generation to be able to relate to the youth to be able to be um more relevant and more influential than the than the uh than they were so his idea this would essentially solve both problems would be to start a yeshiva that would combine secular studies the secular studies that would be emphasized would be the ones that were needed they would they would study the russian language so that they that the rabbanim who are produced in this yeshiva and it was yeshiva that was geared towards producing rabbis like most of the yeshivas at the time and he so they would know russian they would know basic uh secular studies and it would also somewhat satiate the appetite of the youth to have that exposure and it would be within the framework of yeshiva would protect them from the outside influences they wouldn't have to go to the gymnasium and they would be able to become real rabbis and this would this would solve all the uh all the issues um there was tremendous opposition to this this plan to this idea and he proposed it to other abundant meeting in saint petersburg and you know to bring secular studies into the yeshiva was a very controversial issue he also faced opposition from other venues from the haskalah from the muskellum leading leaders of the enlightenment they saw this yeshiva as this as a threat because now they would not go to the gymnasium they would not go to the you know this would this would keep the youth inside the yeshiva this would keep the youth inside traditional judaism uh then they would this would be a problem so they also were not happy with it so he got it from both sides and the russian government got involved and he wasn't licensed like all the other issues at the time but they made an issue for him because this this yeshiva made it onto the radar because of the all the opposition especially because of the of the latter the masculine they did not want yeshiva like that to exist so they i think they might have even even gotten the russian government involved either way it was interesting is that the forum that he had published until that time were actually popular with the uh masculine skull he had a very new and unique derek his style of learning his style of thinking the way he learned the way he taught was with a lot of use of of modern methodology like logic and mathematics and he incorporated a lot of that into his study of gemara and his forum are full of it and the way he would give over torah and his yeshiva to tell me them was very much in that style so he and that and that and that was like a certain uh modern outlook in education and modern outlook and writing and uh and uh that evidently was popular but the yeshiva was forced to close down so the the um he eventually leaves fincian and he becomes the rabbi in lidda lee there's a much bigger town lately there was a town ten thousand jews it's a it's a very central area near raden and jetel navarre branovich the area all in belarus so we've been there quite a few times on tours and now of course there's no tours now we're doing uh virtual tours and lectures that you could also be in touch with me about but when we once upon a time when we did tours that so if you've been hopefully again soon um there was uh he he he became this he becomes the rub of this larger much larger city and there he faces quite a few challenges the city most of the town burned down he had a son who passed away very young also very tragic he lost all of his farm his library in in this fire and he actually went to england to fundraise in 1891 one of the first rabbis or russia yeshiva to travel abroad to you know not exactly the united states but it's all the way to england in 1891 to fundraise and while he was there he was taken up as a rabbi in manchester for a very short period of time just a couple of months i think was two or three months and it didn't work out and he was able to fundraise a little bit so he goes back to lidda and he comes back to he decides eventually to open a yeshiva now this time was attempt number two to open the yeshiva that would have secular studies the name of this yeshiva would be toro vadas and the reason it would be called terror vadas because it's tara but it's also das it's also going to incorporate secular studies with the same goals that he had in mind as as as previously you know the yeshiva teruvadas in the united states was named for it because it had closed down during world war one which we'll get to he passed away in 1915 during world war one and and the yeshiva didn't really survive the war so it kind of closed down during the during world war one and the yeshiva tara vidas in in america it was named for yeshiva because it also incorporated secular studies as well but i think we spoke about that in a long time ago in the uh series that we had on the history of yeshiva terri so you could check that out as well so he opens up the issue this year it grows and actually this time was successful at its peak an incredible 300 students in the yeshiva you also had a coil connected to the yeshiva senior division lower division and and they brought in the great resheshiva who was very young at the time the maichita eli or shalema polyache who was the reshishim for almost the entire time of the yeshiva's existence and um also a very prestigious individual rebellio burkowski who was a masjid previously in neighboring navardik in the nevada yeshiva who was very close also with the the arkhashohan and later on he moves on to uh to become their leader he's someone who eventually moved to uh territorial he was involved with the first yeshiva in tel aviv a whole old story also also an impressive uh individual so either way to lead the yeshiva he he had a he had first of all he had this unique derek which i mentioned and then he had secular studies russian and then certain sciences and then even within the within the within uh the terrorist objects he added unique what was unique for the time like tanakh he had a certain amount of the urum that were given in the yeshiva would be in the hebrew language she was also the first yeshiva he was a trailblazer in this yeshiva in many many respects he wanted to train these future rabbis in public speaking they should know how to write they should know how to speak they should know hebrew they should know tanakh they should also know like i said secular studies so it was like a real real holistic approach to education and the shiva which was completely revolutionary at the time again it engendered a tremendous amount of controversy uh many anyone against it and pleaded with him it was nearby and radha to close it to not do it to not go ahead with it and was very opposed to the yeshiva and uh and and in fact when there was a boy i don't know if it happened once or happened several times but it became a legend in ratan that if a boy was expelled by the administration of radha and from the yeshiva there then all he had to do and i think this happened at least on one occasion that to go to the inform him that the yeshiva administration hadn't had expelled him from the yeshiva and to say you know what since i was expelled from radden so i'll just go over to lido right nearby and i'll go to that yeshiva and immediately the said oh you're going to go to lead us to stay i'll make sure that you get back into the yeshiva we shouldn't question shalom have someone going to the lead the yeshiva where he's going to be exposed to being a yeshiva with secular studies leader was the nearby town because it had a train station it was the closest train station to rotten so it was very uh closely affiliated so that's that's um that was the issue i said grew and in fact he was not the only torah institution that he was involved first of all when he opened the yeshiva in schweinstein the first round the one way he got funding for the issue originally was from the famous german donor lachman was an incredible individual but what he supported the torah that he supported in eastern europe and interesting personality and what his whole story was and how much he supported which institutions he supported the mainland a lot of the muslims he also supported srinician in those early years and it was during those early years when uh ravinus was in sinciana later on in his early years in lidda that he was involved in the founding of the what became the kovnikov there's a lot of people who were involved in the founding of the county kyle it was one of the initiators of the idea of the covenant coil and that was also together with avadya lachman which should also fit into rhinos's general goals of trying to fix the rabbinate in russia so if we would have in a prestigious coil which would accept the best and brightest from all over russia that would definitely also enhance the stature of the tamil and the future rabbis in in russia now he was despite all the controversy that he generated he was a very tremendous talmud and very well respected amongst the rabbinate even by those who opposed his ideas he talked about someone it's interesting it seems that even that first round of the yeshiva schmidt sean it seems that his rebbe then it's uh supported the idea that he should that he should start that yeshiva um so it did come with a certain element of of support from the leaders of the day but uh it it had had a lot more controversy than then support his his ideas that one and later on in lidda what he's also famous for and usually that's the only thing they speak about when he's there's been a lot spoken about him and has been a lot written about him usually the focus is on on his founding of the mizrahi ravinus he joined the zionist movement when it began and he extracted a promise from uh from herzl seems from herzl itself one one source i saw said it was from which came a little later but that uh that that that he would the the the uh the the promise that he was able to um [Music] extract with that jewish traditional education and would stay in the hands of the religious would stay in the hands of the rabbis and on that condition he joined the zionist movement which was a promise that was never kept but um he believed in the program the zionist program not for any messianic reasons messianic zionism came later but it was because he as a leading rabbi in the russian empire this is something that we covered in the rabbis and the zionist series he saw the tremendous problems facing russian jewry at the time the poverty the programs the immigration to the united states which was leading to secularization and eventually assimilation he couldn't keep shabbos so let's create a jewish religious society in the land of israel where it will be easier and will be away from the tsar we won't have the secularization of the united states and this will kind of solve all the problems which is why he voted for the uganda planet the at the 1903 sixth zionist uh congress was because you know if we can't get to the land of israel so at least we'll have a temporary solution in uganda but at least we'll get away from the czar and we won't have to have the secularization in america so i was he was very practical and pragmatic and also a leader he cared for the uh you know not living in the clouds but he cared for the needs of his people he did not like politics he hated politics he was uh more wanted to be a rabbinical leader in a rush yeshiva so he when when the mizrahi became officially a political movement and became more and more involved in politics especially after he sustained oh the mizrahi's program was defeated by the eastern european zionist by a series of zionist congresses and and ashokensburg and all his cohorts when they promoted the kultura a culture that the the zionism has to not just be about political zionism has to be a revamping the jewish people culturally and spiritually and we have to create the new jew and get rid of all the baggage of the exile so they defeated the entire mizrahi program and promoted the culture program and tarbut and he was disillusioned from that a bit and he also did not like the whole political party situation in 1909 he actually left his active involvement in the mizrah and left it to the next generation review the late fishman and mayor barillon and the historian and others so he he was uh less involved at the end of his life during world war one the yeshiva goes into exile like most other yeshivas he did not go into exile with them he passed away in relatively the early part of the war and is buried in lido we lost his uh his his gravesite when the cemetery was destroyed during the second world war but the yeshiva kind of collapsed he was the he was the force of the yeshiva he was the charisma he was a very tremendous personality and his son tried to continue it for another few years but it didn't quite work out so the yeshiva kind of fell apart at that point so this was a little bit about ravinus this is the hoodie gabor with jewish history soundbytes you can reach me at yehuda yehudigebra.com for questions comments sources tours trips lectures sponsorships you can subscribe to jewish history soundbites and podbean follow us on twitter at jsonbites and i hope you enjoy