Rav Moshe Shapiro רב משה שפירא
a Jerusalem thinker: the Maharal, the Ramchal and the Gra in the language of our century
He was born in Jerusalem and studied in the Ponevezh yeshiva in the years when Rav Eliyahu Dessler was its mashgiach and, after him, Rav Yechezkel Levenstein. From them—the school of mussar; from Rav Yitzchak Hutner, to whom he was close—the breadth of thought. From these three roots his own path grew.
He was not a yeshiva head and wrote no books himself. He gave lessons—in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, for decades—in which the Maharal, the Ramchal and the Vilna Gaon became answers to the questions a person of our century asks: about freedom, about time, about what "the image of God" means. Heads of yeshivot and rabbis came to these lessons; students wrote them down, and what was written appeared as the books Afikei Mayim—by festival and by theme.
His particular bond was with Russian-speaking returnees: Toldot Yeshurun translated and printed his talks, and for many who came to Torah out of the Soviet school it was his language in which Torah first spoke to them. He died in Jerusalem on the 10th of Tevet 5777.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Afikei Mayim—the lessons of Rav Moshe Shapiro as recorded by his students — his teaching and his method
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — the years 1935-2017, Ponevezh, his circle of teachers, his lessons in Jerusalem
Basis: documents and evidence.