Rav Yechezkel Sarna רב יחזקאל סרנא
head of the Chevron yeshiva—Slabodka transplanted to the Land of Israel
A student of Slabodka and son-in-law of its head, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein. In 1924 part of Slabodka went up to the Land of Israel and settled in Hebron—so the Chevron yeshiva was born, and Rav Sarna was in it from the first day.
In Av 1929 the Arab massacre in Hebron killed sixty-seven Jews, among them twenty-four students of the yeshiva. The survivors moved to Jerusalem and opened the yeshiva anew, keeping the name—Chevron. After Rabbi Moshe Mordechai's death in 1934 Rav Sarna headed it and led it to the end of his life, thirty-five years; in the Jerusalem Chevron he was there from its beginning.
He was a student of the Alter of Slabodka and taught the same: man is great, and mussar is not about how small he is but about how to live up to his measure. His Daliyot Yechezkel is about this. From his yeshiva came the yeshiva heads and rabbis of the next generation across the country.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Daliyot Yechezkel of Rav Yechezkel Sarna — his teaching in the Slabodka spirit
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — the years 1890-1969; Hebron from 1924, the massacre of 1929, Jerusalem, head from 1934
Basis: documents and evidence.