Sfat Emet — the Rebbe of Ger שפת אמת — האדמו"ר מגור
leader of the Hasidim of Ger, author of «Sfat Emet»
Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter was orphaned early and raised by his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir, founder of the Ger dynasty. When his teacher Rabbi Chanoch of Alexander died in 5630 the Hasidim came to the twenty-three-year-old; he refused, then accepted, and led the court for thirty-five years. Ger became the largest Hasidic movement in Poland, with tens of thousands of followers.
Each Sabbath he spoke on the weekly portion, and at the close of the Sabbath wrote the talk down for himself. Those notes, published after his death as «Sfat Emet», are neither stories nor verse-by-verse exposition but sustained thought: on the «inner point» hidden in every person and every thing; on how the Sabbath reveals what weekdays conceal; on service as return rather than achievement.
His language is compressed almost to aphorism, and the book is read slowly, like poetry. Today it is studied well beyond the Hasidic world.
He was also a public leader, and under him the Hasidim of Ger became a force the Polish authorities reckoned with.