Rare and very important historic letter – the original invitation to the inauguration of the yeshivah building in the city of Ponovezh – Beit Pessiya. This is the invitation sent to Pessiya [Jennie] Miller herself, the famous philanthropist who donated the building. Including the envelope addressed to her. Ponovezh, Elul 1932.
The Ponovezher Rav – that wondrous personality – who no matter how many books are written about him and how many stories are told about him, they will not be able to encompass the power of this personality who lived among us in the previous generation. With his bare hands, he resurrected the whole Lithuanian yeshivah world that had become dust and ashes. Of all the catchphrases said in his name by the gedolei rashei yeshivahs , who owe him their entire spiritual world – theirs and those of their students until the end of all time – the one that stood out most was what the Ponovezher Rav used to say to his major donors, when they felt that the rabbi was asking them for a contribution that was beyond their ability, when he would say to them with pain mixed with spiritual elation, “I have personally contributed much more than that – I contributed the gadol hador that I should have been”!
This was by no means an exaggeration. In pre-Holocaust Lithuania, Rabbi Kahaneman was considered to be among the most talented of rashei yeshivahs. His lectures stirred up the yeshivah world and the best students in Lithuania flocked to his yeshivah in Ponovezh. However, after the great churban , when he saw that there was no one who could even attempt to resurrect the destroyed yeshivah world, he literally sacrificed himself. He founded one yeshivah after another with tremendous abilities, but he appointed other rashei yeshivahs for them. He himself traveled from one city to the next, from one continent to the next, to obtain the massive sums required for this. He indeed sacrificed the gadol hador for the sake of the yeshivah world as it stands today.
Historic invitation to the establishment of the original Ponovezh yeshivah, in the town of Ponovezh in Lithuania, on whose ruins Rabbi Kahaneman established the Ponovezh yeshivah on Givat HaYeshivah in Bnei Brak – the yeshivah that is often referred to today as ‘the mother of yeshivahs, ‘ as its senior sister yeshivah Volozhin used to be called.
The monthly journal HaPardes (Year III, issue 3; refer to the photocopy included) published an article on the occasion of the establishment of Beit Pessiya, the subject of this invitation. “The city of Ponovezh, world-famous for its Torah … on 21 Adar II, when the gaon R’ Yosef Kahaneman shlit”a, famous among rabbis as a prodigy, sharp, deep and master of logic, was received as rabbi and av beit din . ‘Yosef is the ruler, ‘ – he acted with all his might to spread Torah. He founded a yeshivah gedolah and a yeshivah ketanah . Students flocked to him from all around, absorbed his Torah path, heard his lessons filled with sharpness and depth. All were drawn to him by bonds of love … In Philadelphia, the woman famous for her important activities and her generous charity, Mrs. Pessiya Jennie Miller Faggen, and her husband Mr. Nathan Faggen, donated a large sum for the yeshivah gedolah building. The building is named for her – Yeshivat Pessiya bat R’ Yisrael. This woman is fitting to be enshrined in eternal memory, due to her generous charity. The final generation will remember her historical generosity and her acts of charity will be sacred and remembered forever and ever.”
Refer to the Hebrew catalog text for a brief biography of the gaon Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman .
[1] leaf, 20.5×14.5 cm. Official printed bilingual invitation, signed in print by Rabbi Kahaneman. The official stamped envelope from Rabbi Kahaneman ztz”l to the benefactor is included, from an early date.
Very fine condition.