Book Review w Rabbi Dalfin: Secrets of Slabodka in Ktzur Chalmish by Bentzion Klibansky

welcome to our series of book reviews starting this to enjoy the beauty of various different books and publications both in hebrew and in english for our viewing audience so the book i want to talk about today is kitsur khalamish by bensian klebinsky in english they gave the title to the book the golden age of the lithuanian yeshivat in eastern europe the publisher is marcus zalman shazar and they do a wonderful job in putting out quality academic works and in this book ben sianklebinski really opens up for us the inside view of what was happening in the lithuanian yeshivas pre-holocaust i've used this book quite a bit in the my work citing it and i want to show a few examples of how it can be beneficial for us regardless of our involvement be it hasidic lit fish spheric modern orthodox it makes no difference scholarship is important for everyone so klabinsky talks about the inner makings of the yeshiva slabatka today slabatka is yeshiva in jerusalem but years ago it was in a city called little city village town called slabotka in lithuania the rajashiva there was ramosa mordechai epstein also known as moisha mottel epstein the motion mark lapstein but the mainstay of the yeshiva was the famous person called the alter of slabotka the old one of zlabotker of late there was a rash shiva in mir and yerushalayim called her nasty finkel he's a name after the original nasa and three think this nussen sweet finkel of slabotka was a powerhouse in giving based on musser he being the talmud of musser he embraced and he wanted to have musa become a mainstay in all it for yoshi with vishal yeshivas now you have to understand he had opposition who who for example was opposed to his desire it was rabb khaiyan brisker abhayam salavaichik and we know the great relationship between the rebel shah by himself felt that muslim you learn on your own you don't take time from the yeshiva curriculum to study musser others followed in abraham's way including the borough bear labor woods bear who was a talmud moved a a prodigies disciple of raphael and this is one of the reasons why rep bear left slobotke and opened up his own yeshiva called knesset's base yitzhak because he was against musser studying muslim curriculum and redness and sweet finkel who he worked for to begin with was very pro that so they remained friends and in fact students from from slovakia went to hear shiurim in in by robotic bear but he had to go his own way once we're mentioning that it's interesting when a baroque bear was here i believe in 1924 he told them the son of the malach levine the son of uh levine aka the malach he told them that he now sees why musser is very important and he should have had it in his yeshiva that was in 1924 and if he had another chance he would implement musa in his yeshiva so the nussen sv finkel used musser to get to his students amongst students weren't only ones who came from litvisher homes plenty came from khasidisha backgrounds i'll give you one example and i wrote about this in my upcoming book hasidim and gadolin volume 2. take rabbyakov yakov rudimentary rudiment yeshiva he grew up in alabachia home his father and his grand father were laboratories from his mother's side he goes at about 16 years old he goes to slobodka he's completely enamored with the altar and the rest of his life he says that the altar of zlabotka basically created in him the change from being a hustler to being a lit [ __ ] he didn't do it by bashing khasid in nathan kaminetsky's nelson kaminetsky who wrote the book the making of a goddess he he he writes and he told me this once on the phone that his father was indifferent to hasidim and qasidhis and he got that from the outer of slabotka so he didn't bash hasidim he just didn't find any purpose so it meant nothing to the students and yet muslim was a mainstay klabinsky in his book goes into details enumerating examples of this so what you get between the text and the extensive footnotes in klubinsky's book is a very very honest picture of the of the of the inner makings of a shiva like slobodka and so too he speaks about tells and other litvisha yeshivas that we are uh we hear about and know about and today you could say that in a way they're not the same they were in europe some think they are but that's a fallacy when you read this book you realize it's a fallacy therefore a book like from the shazaar center named after repchner zalman rubashov aka shazaar who not only was a lebanese hosted and came from above but it's actually a descendant of the balatanya the altarebe the first lubavitch and in his honor they made this merkaz salman for high quality intellectual book books and publications we're fortunate to have this to give us a true picture more of a true picture of what was actually happening in these yeshivas so this is about this book kitsur hal-mish and if you have questions or comments please write them to me at info at rabbi dolphin spell d-a-l-f-i-n-dot-com and i'll try to address them to the best of my ability meanwhile have a great day and we should merit to see mashiach asap and aksiva hasima taiva to each and every one of you