Early Years
Revel was born in Pren, a neighboring town of Kovno (today: Kaunas) Lithuania, then part of Russia, a son of the community's Rabbi Nachum Shraga Revel. His father was his first teacher, and when Nachum Revel died in 1896 he was buried next to his close friend Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor - indicative of his knowledge and stature.
He briefly studied in Telz yeshiva, attending the lectures of its Rosh yeshiva Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch. He was also taught by the renowned Rabbi Yitzchok Blazer and learned in the Kovno kollel. Revel received semicha at the age of 16, but it is not known from whom. Thereafter, the young scholar earned a Russian high school diploma, apparently through independent study. He also became involved in the Russian revolutionary movement, and following the unsuccessful revolution of 1905, was arrested and imprisoned. Upon his release the following year, he emigrated to the United States.
Read more about this topic: Bernard Revel
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“In that second it dawned on me that I had been living here for eight years with a strange man and had borne him three children.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)