Place
Slabodka סלבודקה
The suburb of Kovno where mussar entered the yeshiva timetable and which produced the generation of yeshiva heads of Israel and America.
The Knesses Yisrael yeshiva in Slabodka was led by R. Nosson Zvi Finkel, known simply as the Alter, 'the old man'. He set mussar on a particular footing: gadlus ha-adam, the greatness of man — the student must see how high he is placed and be ashamed to act beneath it. Novardok taught the opposite, man's smallness: two medicines arguing over one illness.
In 1924 the Alter moved part of the yeshiva to Hebron, five years before the Hebron massacre. After the war Slabodka's students rebuilt the yeshiva world in the Land of Israel and in America.
On the timeline
5602 · 1842 CEMussar in the yeshivas: from Salanter's circles to Slabodka5701 · 1941 CEThe End of the Yeshiva World of Eastern Europe5706 · 1946 CERebuilding after the War: DP Camps and New Yeshivot
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Or ha-Tzafun — the Alter of Slabodka's talks on the greatness of man
- Iggeret ha-Mussar — the programme of the movement the yeshiva grew from
Basis: documents and evidence.