Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter

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Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter (1847 - 1905), also known by the title of his Torah book/s as the Sfas Emes (שפת אמת), was born in Warsaw, Poland and died in Góra Kalwaria, Poland. He was an Orthodox Judaism rabbi and succeeded his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter, as second rebbe of the Ger dynasty of Hasidic Judaism.

His father, Rabbi Abraham Mordka Alter, died when Yehudah Aryeh was only eight years old, so that when it came time to lead the Ger Hasidic dynasty, he was under-age and he refused the mantle of leadership for many years. Eventually his followers succeeded in gaining his assent for him to become their leader as rebbe. He was a prodigious scholar and his work the Sfas Emes (or Sfat Emet) deals with the legalistic Talmud, the ethics of Midrash, and mysticism of the Zohar.

During the Russo-Japanese War many of his young followers were drafted into the Russian Army and sent to the battlefields in Manchuria. Alter was very worried over these devotees and would constantly write to them. It began to be detrimental to his health. On January 11, 1905 he died at the age of 57.

He was succeeded by his son Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter. Following the Holocaust, the Ger dynasty became a large movement in the State of Israel.

1 Teachings
2 Some of His Sayings
3 Report of Funeral
4 Bibliography
5 External Links
6 Rebbes of Ger
7 See also

[edit] Teachings

[edit] Some of His Sayings

One of the greatest religious problems is that people fear having a relationship with God and consequently distance themselves from Him. Just as angels serve God without fear despite their lower status in comparison to God, so, too, human being should take their model (walk amongst them) and not be afraid of developing a relationship with God and serving Him. This represents a wholeness that we as human beings are capable of only if we think of ourselves as walking amongst angels. (Sefat Emet Parshat B'haalotcha 5636)

[edit] Report of Funeral

"When news of the Admor's petiroh spread, so many people rushed to Gur yesterday morning that although the railway dispatched extra trains there was hardly any space in the cars and thousands of people were still left without means to travel... One car with seating for 44 people held over 200, not even leaving any standing room, and in another car some people fainted as a result of the overcrowded conditions... When the time for tefillas Minchah arrived, all of the funeral goers, 20,000 in number, stood in a field and davened Minchah together... The brief words spoken by the Rav of Sochotchov made a powerful impression." ^[1]

[edit] Bibliography

Arthur Green, The Language of Truth: The Torah Commentary of Sefat Emet (JPS 1998)

Articles by Dr. Yoram Jacobson

Exile and Redemption in Gur Hasidism (Heb.), Da'at, 2-3 (1978-1979), pp. 175-215.

Truth and Faith in Gur Hasidic Thought (Heb.), in: Studies in Jewish Mysticism, Philosophy and Ethical Literature Presented to Isaiah Tishby, Jerusalem 1986, pp. 593-616.

The Sanctity of the Mundane in the Hasidic School of Gur - Studies in the Understanding of the Sabbath in the Homilies of Sefat Emet (Heb.), in: Hasidism in Poland, Jerusalem 1994, pp. 241-277.

From Youth to Leadership and from Kabbalah to Hasidism - Stages in the Spiritual Development of the Author of Sefat Emet (Heb.), in: Rivkah Shatz-Uffenheimer Memorial Volume, II, Jerusalem 1996, pp. 429-446.

Primordial Chaos and Creation in the Thought of Gur Hasidism, or: the Sabbath that Preceded Creation (Polish), in Duchowosc Zydowska w Polsce, Krakow 2000, pp. 151-171.