Elchonon Wasserman - Biography

Biography

Rabbi Wasserman was born in Birz, Lithuania to Rabbi Naftali Beinish, a shopkeeper. In 1890, the family moved to Boisk, Latvia, and Wasserman, then 15 years old, studied in the Telshe Yeshiva in Telz, Poland under Rabbi Eliezer Gordon and Rabbi Shimon Shkop. In the summer of 1897, Wasserman met Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik at a health resort and "became deeply attached to him and his way of learning." He left Telz and traveled to Brisk (now in Belarus), where he learned under Soloveitchik for two years, thereafter considering him his primary rebbe (teacher and mentor).

Wasserman was married in 1899 to Michla, the daughter of Rabbi Meir Atlas, rabbi of Salant. Wasserman lived in his father-in-law's house for many years and rejected offers of rabbinical posts (including a prestigious rabbinate in Moscow) being afforded the opportunity to learn Torah at home. He did however decide to teach, and together with Rabbi Yoel Baranchik, he started a mesivta in Amtshilov, Russia in 1903 and earned himself a reputation as an outstanding teacher. Prior to 1907, Wasserman heard that another local rabbi wanted to head the mesivta in Amtshilov and he left to avoid an argument, returning to learn in his father-in-law's house. From 1907 to 1910, he studied in the Kollel Kodshim in the Raduń Yeshiva in Radin, Russia, headed by the Chofetz Chaim. While at the kollel, Wasserman studied with Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, who would later become the rosh yeshiva of the Ponevezh Yeshiva, for eighteen hours a day.

In 1910, with the encouragement of the Chofetz Chaim, Wasserman was appointed rosh yeshiva of the mesivta in Brisk, leading its expansion until it was disbanded in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I; with its closing, Wasserman returned to the Chofetz Chaim in Radin. When the warfront reached Radin, however, the yeshiva there was closed and Wasserman fled to Russia with the Chofetz Chaim.

In 1914, the yeshiva was exiled to Smilovichi (near Minsk) and Wasserman was appointed its rosh yeshiva one year later when the Chofetz Chaim decided to relocate to Semiatitch, and together with Rabbi Yitzchok Hirshowitz (son-in-law of Rabbi Eliezer Gordon from Telz), was asked to keep Torah alive in Smilovichi.

In 1921, after the war, when the Soviet government began permitting Torah scholars to leave Russia, Wasserman moved to Baranovitch, Poland (now in Belarus) where he took the lead of Novardok, which later became one of the most famous yeshivas in all of Europe. The yeshiva grew under Wasserman's immense Torah genius, and soon had close to 300 students. Copies of the notes taken from Wasserman's Torah lectures were passed around many of the yeshivas in Europe, increasing his influence and fame over most of the Torah world. He was one of the leaders of the Agudath Israel movement and was regarded as the spiritual successor of the Chofetz Chaim.