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In about the year 5608 [1847–1848] the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horowitz was born in the town of Plungian [Plunge] in Lithuania. He was the son of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Ziv, who served as dayan [religious judge] in that town. From Plungian Rabbi Shlomo Zalman moved to Kurtuvian [Kurtuvenai], which is near Shavli [Siauliai], to serve as chief of the rabbinical court. And it was there that the man who would grow up eventually to be a founder of the mussar [ethics] movement^[1] and of the Novhardok yeshivot was educated.

Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, his father, became known locally and beyond as a righteous man who was completely removed from worldly matters, a diligent person who studied Torah day and night. He never left the confines of his town. He lived and studied Torah in poverty. He generally studied by candle light. But if he lacked sufficient money to buy a candle, he would go out into the streets of the town and stand and study by the light of the moon. He was meticulous in his observance of the commandments like no one else. For example, he never wore anything other than clothing made of linen, lest he were to inadvertently violate the prohibition against shatnez [the wearing of a garment of linen and wool]. Therefore the locals called him the “Rabbi of the Linens.”

Rabbi Shlomo Zalman did not even know what a coin looked like, except for the three kopeks [pennies] that he would pay the bath attendant every week. He once received a half ruble coin, which in size resembled that of a kopek. He gave it to the bath attendant, who was dumfounded, asking why he was being given such a coin? Rabbi Shlomo Zalman could not understand his surprise, explaining that it was the same coin he would give him every week, just a different color!

His wife, like him, excelled in her righteousness and in her acts of kindness. The two of them provide a very strict education to their children marked by extreme care in their performance of commandments and in all their actions. But it was not easy to restrain Rabbi Yosef Yozel as a small child. He was a wild child like no other in town. He had a strong spirit, but also exceptional abilities. When he was barely sixteen he was already giving a regular lecture in the house of study in Kurtuvian to the young men who studied there under his father's aegis.

When he was still quite young he married a woman who was the daughter of Yaakov Stein, a shopkeeper in the city of Shvekshna [Sveksna] in Lithuania near the German [East Prussian] border. Between the time of the engagement and the wedding the father of the bride died, leaving a widow and eight small now orphaned children, as well as the eldest, the bride, still at home. Some members of his family now advised to call off the match, lest the entire burden of supporting the family would devolve upon the groom. But Rabbi Shlomo Zalman would not permit this harm to fall upon the fatherless bride. So after a brief period the wedding took place. Rabbi Yosef Yozel began to run the store and was very successful, while still devoting time to the study of the Torah and to delivering a regular lecture to the local residents. As a result of his business Rabbi Yosef Yozel frequently visited the city of Memel, where Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the father of the mussar movement, then resided. Rabbi Yosef Yozel met Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and was profoundly influenced by him. He became an adherent of the mussar movement, abandoning his store and his business. From that day forward until the end of his life he was dedicated to Torah and mussar.

He moved to Kovno [Kaunas], and with incomparable energy threw himself entirely into Torah and good works. He studied eighteen hours a day, most of it standing so that he would not nod off. Under the supervision of the leaders of the mussar movement, students of the Gaon Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, he worked on the improvement of his own personal traits. He aspired to achieve perfection. It was not long before the name of Rabbi Yosef Yozel became known as a gaon of Torah as well as one of the giants of mussar. In this period his wife bore a daughter, her third and last child, after which she passed away. This tragic event greatly affected Rabbi Yosef Yozel, who gave his baby daughter over

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to a nursemaid and his two sons to members of his family, while he closeted himself in a room in the home of Reb Shlomo Hoffhach in Slobodka and did not leave it for a year and a half. Reb Shlomo and his wife, lovers of Torah, passed him small amounts of food through a passage in order to sustain him. During this period he did not speak to or see anyone. He was totally alone with his maker and his Torah, seeking perfection. This did not sit well with the rabbis. The secular people made fun of the isolate. Rabbi Yosef Yozel steeled his spirit and soul for what was to come. He paid no attention to those who mocked him, saying, “One has to achieve right thinking, clear thought.” Secular “Enlightenment” Jews could not accept Rabbi Yosef Yozel's actions, which had attracted widespread attention. They preferred to characterize the rabbis and the giants of Torah as leeches who sucked the blood of the poor. And now one of these giants of the Torah was thumbing his nose at the world. These critics hid a package of counterfeit bills near the room, and proceeded to inform the Russian police that a secret counterfeiting workshop was located in the hideout of this infamous loner. The purpose was clear: to portray Rabbi Yosef Yozef as a counterfeiter and not as a man of higher purposes, and along with him to denigrate the other Torah and mussar scholars as well. The daughter of Reb Shlomo Hoffhach happened to find the counterfeit money, and threw the package away. Soon thereafter the police appeared. They conducted a thorough investigation and did not find anything. Nevertheless they forcibly opened the door of the room of the self–secluded Rabbi Yosef Yozel and ordered him to leave it.

There was a property owner who had built Rabbi Yosef Yozel a small house in the middle of a thick forest near Novhardok, to which Rabbi Yozel moved. He continued to distance himself from all worldly matters and to abstain from all physical and material pleasures. He continued working on his Torah and character, and developed a new approach to the subject of ethics. Rabbi Yosef Yozel proposed to separate himself entirely from worldly matters, and to live out his days in that lonely house in the woods. But his great teacher, the Gaon Rabbi Simcha Zussel Broida^[2], one of the leaders of the mussar movement, influenced him to change his mind. For it is incumbent upon man to work to benefit the community, and not just himself. Rabbi Yosef Yozel accepted his advice and decided to do something about it.

Rabbi Yosef Yozel now became active on behalf of the Torah, seeking to strengthen it, and exhibiting an incomparable level of energy. He established a kolel [advanced study institute] for outstanding young married men in the town of Lubitz, which is near Novhardok. Once this kolel was up and running, and such young men were studying there, he turned to setting up a second kolel and a third. Soon a network of kolels was operating in Shavli and Dvinsk, in Minsk and in Warsaw, in Berditchev and in Novhardok, in Odessa and in Zhetil (Dziyatlava, now in Belarus], and in Lida. Rabbi Yosef Yozel appointed the Gaon Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer as head of the network. He served as the central pillar and principal support for the existence and development of these kolels. The young men of these institutes became the admirers of the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Yozel, who influenced them to spread the study of the Torah and to prefer the position of an instructor in one of these institutes over that of a rabbi. These young married students, among them many great Torah scholars, responded to his words enthusiastically. They were quickly attracted to the energy, enthusiasm and devotion of the founder of the kolels.

The network of kolels soon became a lively movement under the direction of Rabbi Yosef Yozel. From institutes for young married men he moved on to establishing yeshivot for younger, unmarried men. The first such yeshiva he set up was alongside the kolel in Berditchev, where he appointed his brother–in–law, the Gaon Rabbi Zelig Tarshish, who had succeeded his own father in the rabbinate in Kurtuvian, as head. He established a second yeshiva near his home in Novhardok, where there were soon some three hundred young students. The influence of Rabbi Yosef Yozel on his many students exceeded all previously known dimensions in the world of yeshivot. His devotion, his willingness to sacrifice, his energy that amazed so many, the incomparable strength of his endurance, his remarkable confidence, his manner and style that was like a guidebook for purifying one's character,

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all engendered enthusiasm and admiration in the hearts of his students, who adhered to his philosophy heart and soul and who were prepared to go to any lengths for their teacher.

Rabbi Yosef Yozel established specific procedures for the yeshivot under his influence. One basic foundation was the study of mussar and practical work to improve one's good behavior via active efforts to control one's ethics and good traits. As he had great rhetorical abilities, the students abandoned all else and followed his method with great enthusiasm. Around him there arose a circle of senior students who, in a few years, became lecturers of great status, giants in terms of mussar and personal character. They led groups that actively worked to eliminate undesirable traits while disregarding the critics. All this was done with attention to living modestly, in poverty, with loyalty to the fundamentals of the philosophy and methods of Rabbi Yosef Yozel.

When World War I broke out and the battle lines moved closer to Novhardok, the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Yozel and his yeshiva moved to Homel in Russia. Most of the yeshivot that then operated in Lithuania closed their doors and sent their students home until the crisis would pass. Rabbi Yosef Yozel determined otherwise. He held on to his yeshivot with intensified energy precisely because of the emergency situation out of devotion and self–sacrifice. In this period, in addition to the yeshiva in Homel, he established eight other yeshivot that followed his methods and direction, calling them “Novhardok yeshivot,” in all the major cities of Russia, in Kiev and Kharkov, in Nizhniy–Novgorod, in Rostov, Tsaritsyn, Saratov, Pavlograd and Chernigov. He even set up a yeshiva in Moscow near the Kremlin, under the very windows of the rulers of Russia. As heads of the yeshivot he appointed the most outstanding of his students, excellent unmarried or married young men who worked under this tutelage. The sacrifice and devotion that Rabbi Yosef Yozel and his students made and invested in the establishment of the yeshivot and their upkeep under extremely difficult circumstances and dedication were indescribable.

A revolution now broke out in Russia. Bloody domestic battles disrupted normal ways of life. The condition of the Jews deteriorated from day to day. But Rabbi Yosef Yozel and his students were not deterred. They intensified their efforts with greater energy, and their enthusiasm only grew. The Red Army strengthened its rule and was about to destroy the existing yeshivot. Rabbi Yosef Yozel ordered that they continue, ready to make any sacrifice. The yeshivot of Novhardok continued to function out of devotion and glorification of God's name. More than once they endangered their lives, standing up to drawn guns, but they were not intimidated. As the situation worsened and matters reached an intolerable point, Rabbi Yosef Yozel and his students continued, but for lack of choice the yeshivot began to move from White Russia [Belarus] towards Ukraine. But the cruel arm of the communist regime reached the yeshivot of Novhardok everywhere. The heads of the yeshivot and their students were brought before peoples' courts. Without fear or timidity the students of Rabbi Yosef Yozel stood up at their trials. They mocked their tormentors and continued in their own ways.

Rabbi Yosef Yozel moved from Homel to Kiev, where he set up the center of the Novhadrok yeshivot. Gangs of murderers of the anti–Bolshevist Russian White Army now launched pogroms on the Jews of Ukraine and Kiev. The students of the Novhardok yeshivot had all moved to the Kiev area to be within the sphere of operation of the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Yozel. At times entire groups of young men were taken out and killed by these murderers. Sometimes students and their teachers were arrested and incarcerated under difficult conditions. But the yeshivot of Novhardok continued to function despite all the difficulties. Some studied in dark basements, while others hid in cemeteries. They persevered under all conditions.

The situation only got worse. When the forces of the murderous Ukrainians triumphed and slaughtered thousands of Jews wherever they found them, Rabbi Yosef Yozel ordered his students to gather in Kiev into the five yeshivot that he had established there in five different districts in the city. He continued in his work with full confidence and with incomparable strength of will. He would frequently cite the scriptural passage, “I have hidden my face from you in anger, I have quickly turned away from you, but with mercy will I gather you up.” On Yom Kippur, the last of his life,

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all of the students of his yeshivot who were Kiev gathered around him. Rabbi Yosef Yozel outdid himself on that holy day. He had demanded of himself and of his students to withstand the madness of the times at all costs, not to retreat, to demand of themselves to fight for the greater truth until their last breath, to hold on despite the very difficult and bitter challenges.

The war left its impact. A plague of infectious typhus broke out in Kiev, especially among the many refugees living in the synagogues and among the students of the yeshivot who lacked the most basic conditions of a normal life. Nearly all the students of Rabbi Yosef Yozel were sick in bed. Sixteen of them died of the disease. Only three students and Rabbi Yosef Yozel himself were not infected. Under his supervision they began to devotedly tend to the ill. The gaon, who was over seventy, greatly weakened himself and seriously endangered his own life. People said that he should be restrained from undertaking such efforts, from dangerously tending to the sick, but Rabbi Yozef Yozel paid them no heed. He tended to the sick day and night until he himself was infected with the disease. Having used up his strength, he fell sick into his bed, from which he never would emerge. On the seventeenth day of Kislev in the year 5680 [December 9, 1919] he returned his pure and holy soul to its maker.

In grief and pain his many students, along with thousands of the residents of city, transported Rabbi Yosef Yozel to his grave. At his grave they took upon themselves the obligation to continue in his path and not to abandon his teachings. For two years his students had fought the tough battle in Bolshevik Russia. They worked underground and they even organized yeshivot in prisons. In the year 5682 [1921–1922] the Gaon Rabbi Yisrael Meir Hacohen, author of the Chafetz Chaim [Lover of Life], ruled that they should give up this hopeless battle, and should move to Poland by any means possible, even by sneaking across the border. They fulfilled this instruction with great dedication. Thus opened a new chapter in the history of the yeshivot of Novhardok, but this time in [newly] independent Poland.

By whatever means possible the students of Rabbi Yosef Yozel arrived in Poland, fanning out across its cities. Schooled in suffering and self–sacrifice, prepared to work even under the worst and most terrible conditions, they confronted the task of rebuilding the movement of the Novhardok yeshivot. They crossed the border illegally into Poland. By way of forest paths the loyalists of the Novhardok yeshivot eluded the men of the Yevseksia [the Jewish division of the Soviet secret police]. They established more than sixty yeshivot across the length and breadth of Poland, succeeding in their mission far more than could be expected. Even in Ostroveh two students of the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Yozel arrived, the Gaon Rabbi Yoel Kleinerman and the Gaon Rabbi Aharon Anolik (or as he was called by those from Novhardok, Rabbi Aharon Kamaier), as well as the Gaon Rabbi Meir Segal (today in Haifa).

All this was in the year 5682 [1921–1922]. Life in Poland had not yet resumed its normal course after the war and its terrible shocks. The secular movements in the Jewish community made every effort to recruit Jewish youth into their ranks, to cut them off from their roots, to remove them from the houses of study. The students of the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Yozel contributed their great efforts to strengthen the ramparts of pure Judaism, to rebuild the fortresses of Torah in the country, albeit in the style of the Lithuanian yeshivot and according to the methodology and path of the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horowitz.

The first group of young men who arrived in Ostroveh met with a mixed reception on the part of the residents of the city. The local Hassidim were not used to the Lithuanian style of learning and prayer, and to this type of yeshiva altogether. Opponents among the town's residents included those who had been educated in other, regular Lithuanian yeshivot, who did not subscribe to the Novhardok method in theory or practice, nor to their manner of dress or their behavior. The heads of the [new] yeshiva in town paid no attention to the views of the residents or their reactions. They had been trained by their esteemed rabbi to function under any circumstances, and even escaped from Russia, where conditions were difficult and terrifying. So their situation in Ostroveh seemed like a veritable Garden of Eden.

The yeshiva was located in the old beit midrash. The students who enrolled, whether from the town or nearby areas, somehow managed to find lodging among the residents of the city. With the help of a very minimal budget it all started to function. Bit by bit

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the new yeshiva struck very deep roots in the city. Many residents began to relate with growing affection to the yeshiva, which became a fortress of Torah and mussar, and which at its height enrolled up to two hundred young men. Serving as head of the yeshiva was the Gaon Rabbi Yoel Kleinerman, a relative of the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horowitz, the father of the movement and in whose honor the yeshiva was called Beit Yosef [The House of Joseph]. His assistant director was the Gaon Rabbi Meir Segal, his brother–in–law. The Gaon Rabbi Aharon Anolik served as spiritual supervisor^[3] of the yeshiva. The new yeshiva became a powerful force in the community, an integral part of its existence. It made a decisive contribution to the strengthening of religious life in the city and to the education of many of the younger generation in Torah and mussar.

Loyal to the approach of their great rabbi, the heads of the yeshiva in Ostroveh continued his methodology and philosophy. In the outskirts of the city they created a place where students of the yeshiva could go to be alone with their maker, to examine themselves and the clarity of their thought. Reb Ben–Zion Komorowski, a shoemaker by trade who had no children, managed during his life to save a considerable sum of money, and acquired two houses in town. In his later years he decided to bequeath the houses for the benefit of the Beit Yosef yeshiva. One of the houses was on Pultusk Road, and the other on Kazhia Road. By this means the yeshiva became viable economically and thus became a permanent and stable force in town.

With the outbreak of the last war the Gaon Rabbi Yoel Kleinerman and the Gaon Rabbi Aharon Anolik tried to continue their work, but the hand of the murderous beasts caught up with them. They glorified the name of God with their deaths, as did the majority of the students of their sacred yeshiva.

Editor's notes:

1. The mussar movement was an educational and social movement within Eastern European orthodox Judaism, especially in the non–Hassidic (Mitnagdic) yeshivot of Lithuania, beginning in the mid–late nineteenth century, which emphasized greater attention be paid both to individual as well as communal ethics in the context of Halacha. Its founder was Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (1810–1883). Return
2. Rabbi Simcha Zussel Ziv Broida (or Braude) (1824–1898), known as the Alter [Old Man] of Kelm. Return
3. Given its emphasis on personal ethics and behavior, the yeshivot of this movement and some other Lithuanian yeshivot created this unique position, called menahel or mashgiach ruchani. Return

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