“I am jealous of [your] great deeds, your devotion to the students. May Hashem give you much success. I hope [you] can realize [your] ideas, and more benches will be added to the yeshivah …”
Very lengthy letter [about 33 lines] handwritten and signed by the mighty gaon Rabbi Moshe Leib Schneider, rosh yeshivah of Torat Emet in London. This yeshivah produced dozens of rabbis and poskim , including major leaders such as a ga’ava”d and a ra’ava”d in Jerusalem. [London, late 1940s].
The letter was sent to his son-in-law, the gaon Rabbi Yitzchak Tzvi [‘Rabbi Zeidel’] Siemiatycki, a Mir alumnus, who served as a lecturer at the yeshivah. Rabbi Moshe Leib admired his son-in-law very much, and he refers to him several times in the letter in the third person, as “his honor.” The letter is undated, but it was apparently sent c. 1946-1948 when Rabbi Yitzchak Tzvi was occupied with many yeshivah bachurim who survived to Holocaust, some of whom joined the yeshivah. As part of his deep involvement in the matter, he traveled several times to various countries to bring students. Apparently this letter was written during one of his trips.
Rabbi Moshe Leib starts off by stating “I almost wanted to recite shehecheyanu over [you], because I hadn’t heard from [you] in a long time. He continues, writing in his unique way, “I am jealous of [your] great deeds, your devotion to the students. May Hashem give you much success. I hope [you] can realize [your] ideas, and more benches will be added to the yeshivah …” In the body of the letter, Rabbi Moshe Leib writes about a plan to move the yeshivah to a larger location, “because the crowding at the yeshivah is great, especially when new students b’ezrat Hashem come …” He signs off “Peace and blessings and much success to [your] honor in all that [you] do, from me, Moshe Leib Schneider, who blesses [you] with all goodness, selah , and anticipates mercy from Heaven and the salvation of the Jewish people.
Refer to the Hebrew catalog text for a brief biography of the gaon Rabbi Chaim Moshe Yehudah (Leib) Schneider .
[1] leaf paper, written on both sides. Official Torat Emet yeshivah stationery. 21×17.5 cm. Moderate condition. Tear in the lower right corner, almost completely detached. Fold marks and stains.