Eliezer Gordon
Encyclopedia
Rosh yeshiva
Rosh yeshiva, , , is the title given to the dean of a Talmudical academy . It is made up of the Hebrew words rosh — meaning head, and yeshiva — a school of religious Jewish education...
of Telz
Telšiai
Telšiai , is a city in Lithuania with about 35,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of Telšiai County and Samogitia region, and it is located on Lake Mastis.-Names:...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
.
Early years
Gordon was born in 1841 in the village of Chernyany (or Čarniany), BelarusBelarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
, near Vilna
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
. His father, Avrohom Shmuel Gordon, was a student of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin
Chaim Volozhin
Chaim Volozhin was an Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and ethicist. Popularly known as "Reb Chaim Volozhiner" or simply as "Reb Chaim", he was born in Volozhin when it was a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
. As a youngster, he studied in the Zaretza Yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
in Vilna. From there, he transferred to the Yeshiva of Rabbi Yisroel Salanter at the Kovno kollel
Kovno kollel
The Kovno Kollel also known as Kollel Perushim of Kovno or Kollel Knesses Beis Yitzchok, was a kollel located in Kaunas, Lithuania. It was founded in 1877 by Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin Salanter when he was 67....
yeshiva in Kovno. Among the yeshiva's outstanding students at the time were Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer
Yitzchak Blazer
Yitzchak Blazer , also known as Reb Itzelle Peterburger, was one of the early leaders of the Musar movement, a Jewish ethical movement based in Lithuania. He was a student of the founder of the movement, Yisrael Salanter, and was responsible for publishing many of Salanter's letters in Or Yisrael...
, Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv
Simcha Zissel Ziv
Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv Broida , also known as the Alter of Kelm , was one of the foremost students of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and one of the early leaders of the Musar movement...
, Rabbi Naftali Amsterdam, Rabbi Yerucham Perlman and Rabbi Jacob Joseph
Jacob Joseph
Jacob Joseph served as chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, a federation of Eastern European Jewish synagogues...
.
Rabbi Salanter realized that Rabbi Gordon had great potential and appointed him as a maggid shiur
Maggid shiur
The term Maggid Shiur literarly translates from Hebrew to mean "sayer of Shiur".This term is used to refer to the Rabbi that lectures in a Yeshiva or Kollel.A Maggid Shiur is generally a Rabbi who lectures on advanced and in-depth Talmudic studies....
in the yeshiva at a young age. After his father-in-law's death, Rabbi Gordon succeeded the latter as Rabbi of Kovno — but he only stayed for three months. On Tuesday, 24 March (6th Nissan) 1874, Gordon took over the position of Chief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
at Kelm
Kelme
Kelmė is a city in central Lithuania. It has a population of around 11,000 and is the administrative center of the Kelmė district municipality.-History:Prior to World War II, Kelmė was home to a famous Rabbinical College, the Kelm Talmud Torah....
, where he remained for nine years and founded a Yeshiva. From there, he headed to Slabodka, where he served as Rabbi for about six months. He finally relocated to Telz in 1884, to serve as Rabbi.
Telz
In 1875, Rabbis Meir AtlasMeir Atlas
Meir Atlas was the rabbi of numerous communities in pre-World War II Europe and one of the founders of the Telz Yeshiva. He was an outstanding halachic authority who authored many responsa and was one of the foremost Lithuanian rabbis of his time....
, Zvi Yaakov Oppenheim
Zvi Yaakov Oppenheim
Zvi Yaakov Oppenheim was Chief Rabbi of Kelm, Lithuania, and one of the founders of the Telz Yeshiva.Rabbi Oppenheim was born in 1854 in the small village of Yakubowe . He showed extraordinary talents from his earliest youth and at age nine could already study a page of Talmud with commentaries on...
and Shlomo Zalman Abel
Shlomo Zalman Abel
Shlomo Zalman Halevi Abel was one of the founders of the Telz Yeshiva and author of Beis Shlomo.Abel was born on Wednesday March 11, 1857 at Novomyesto-Sugint in Lithuania....
had founded the Telz Yeshiva. As Rabbi of the town, Rabbi Gordon was also appointed head of the fledgling institution. He instituted numerous innovative ideas in the yeshiva which have since become accepted as standard practice in many contemporary yeshivas.
- Hitherto, yeshivas grouped all their students into one general shiur (class). Rabbi Gordon, however, divided the yeshiva into different shiurim commensurate with a student's age and intellectual level.
- Rabbi Gordon also promoted a new approach to curriculum in the yeshiva, based primarily on logic and the understanding of the TalmudTalmudThe Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
. While other yeshivas primarily analyzed the later commentaries on the TalmudAcharonimAcharonim is a term used in Jewish law and history, to signify the leading rabbis and poskim living from roughly the 16th century to the present....
, such as the Pnei Yehoshua, Maharsha and Maharam Schiff, Rabbi Gordon directed students to probe the earlier works of the RishonimRishonim"Rishon" redirects here. For the preon model in particle physics, see Harari Rishon Model. For the Israeli town, see Rishon LeZion.Rishonim were the leading Rabbis and Poskim who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the Shulkhan Arukh and...
, such as RambanNahmanidesNahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym Ramban, , was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator.-Name:"Nahmanides" is a Greek-influenced formation meaning "son of Naḥman"...
, Rashba and Ritva. Nonetheless, he also included the works of certain Acharonim into the curriculum, such as the Ketzos Hachoshen, Nesivos Hamishpat and Rabbi Akiva Eiger's works. - A a student of Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, Rabbi Gordon favored the study of musar (ethical) literatureMusar literatureMusar literature is the term used for didactic Jewish ethical literature which describes virtues and vices and the path towards perfection in a methodical way.- Definition of Musar literature :...
in the yeshiva, however not as mandatory study for all students. Rabbi Gordon appointed a special teacher of ethics (mashgiachMashgiach ruchaniMashgiach ruchani or mashgiach for short, means a spiritual supervisor or guide. It is a title which usually refers to a rabbi who has an official position within a yeshiva and is responsible for the non-academic areas of yeshiva students' lives.The position of mashgiach ruchani arose with the...
) to supervise the students spiritual development and to shape their characters. The yeshiva's first musar mashgiach was Rabbi Ben Zion Kranitz, a student of Rabbi Simcha Zissel ZivSimcha Zissel ZivRabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv Broida , also known as the Alter of Kelm , was one of the foremost students of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and one of the early leaders of the Musar movement...
of Kelm. Rabbi Kranitz was very mild mannered, and did not force his students to accept the musar movement approach. In 1897, however, Rabbi Gordon engaged a new musar mashgiach - the dynamic Rabbi Leib Chasman, who instituted a very strict musar regime in the yeshiva. Many of the students opposed this approach, which caused so much dissent among the student body that he eventually left the Yeshiva.
Rabbi Gordon also felt that important to the success of the yeshiva was employing the highest standard of teachers. Under Rabbi Gordon's leadership, the yeshiva hired Rabbi Shimon Shkop
Shimon Shkop
Shimon Yehuda Hakohen Shkop was a rosh yeshiva in the Yeshiva Shaar Hatorah and in the Telshe yeshiva and a renowned Talmudic scholar. He was born in Torez in 1860. At the age of twelve he went to study in the Mir yeshiva, and at fifteen he went to Volozhin yeshiva where he studied six years...
, Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch and Rabbi Chaim Rabinowitz
Chaim Rabinowitz
Chaim Shalom Tuvia Rabinowitz was an Orthodox Lithuanian rabbi and rosh yeshiva of the Telshe yeshiva...
("Reb Chaim Telzer"). Rabbi Gordon tried, unsuccessfully to hire Rabbi Yitzchok Yaakov Rabinowitz ("Reb Itzele Ponovezher") to teach at the yeshiva. Rabbi Gordon himself delivered the highest-level shiur.
Death
In 1908, a fire broke out in Telz, destroying all of the wooden homes in the town, including the yeshiva. In 1910, Rabbi Gordon, who was nearly 70, traveled to Berlin and London along with his wife and younger friend Rabbi Aharon Walkin - the Teshuvos Zekan Aharon of PinskPinsk
Pinsk , a town in Belarus, in the Polesia region, traversed by the river Pripyat, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers. The region was known as the Marsh of Pinsk. It is a fertile agricultural center. It lies south-west of Minsk. The population is about 130,000...
- to raise funds for rebuilding the homes and the yeshiva. It was winter, and Rabbi Gordon's doctors warned him that England's weather was dangerous to his health, especially since he had suffered a heart attack a few years earlier. Nonetheless, Rabbi Gordon could not be deterred.
While in London, Rabbi Gordon suffered a fatal heart attack. His funeral attracted one of the largest crowds London had ever seen; 50,000 mourners at its height.
Dayan Shmuel Yitzchok Hillman of Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
and several leading European Rabbis (who where in London at the time) such as Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein
Moshe Mordechai Epstein
Moshe Mordechai Epstein was Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Knesseth Yisrael in Slabodka, Lithuania and is recognized as having been one of the leading Talmudists of the twentieth century.-Childhood:...
of Slabodka, Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky (the Ridvaz) of Slutzk and Rabbi Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim
Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim
Elijah David Rabinowitz-Teomim , also known by his acronym ADeReT, was a Lithuanian rabbi in the 19th century who served as the leader of the Jewish community of Panevėžys, as the Rosh Yeshiva of Mir, led the Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem, and published many brilliant original arguments in Torah...
(the Aderet) delivered tearful eulogies in Yiddish. Eulogies were also delivered in English by Dayan Moses Hyamson
Moses Hyamson
Rabbi Dr. Moses Hyamson was an Orthodox rabbi, former head Dayan of the London Beth Din and between 1911 and 1913, acting Chief Rabbi of the British Empire...
of the London Beth Din
Beth din
A beth din, bet din, beit din or beis din is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system in the Biblical Land of Israel...
and Dr Moses Gaster
Moses Gaster
Moses Gaster was a Romanian-born Jewish-British scholar, the Hakham of the Spanish and Portuguese congregation, London, and a Hebrew linguist. He was also the son-in-law of Michael Friedländer, principal of Jews' College. The surname Gaster is taken from Spanish Castro, indicating his Sephardic...
, Haham of the Spanish and Portuguese community. Rabbi Gordon was buried in the Edmonton Federation Cemetery.