Rav Yitzchak Blazer, the Peterburger רבי יצחק בלאזר
Salanter's student who gave up the rabbinate of Petersburg for mussar
Petersburg called him its rabbi at twenty-five, and the name—the Peterburger—stayed with him even after he left both the capital and the office. A student of Rav Yisrael Salanter from youth, he chose his teacher's trade: waking conscience, not making a career.
Or Yisrael (1900)—Salanter's letters, gathered and published by Blazer with his own commentary—became the movement's handbook: Salanter himself left almost no books, and without Blazer his voice would carry fainter. In Kovno Blazer led the kollel and was among those who held mussar up after the teacher's death.
In 1904 he went up to Jerusalem. Three years in the Old City, Elul sermons that, men remembered, left the hall in tears—and a will without a single title: ask his pardon, and do not praise.
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Or Yisrael, Vilna, 1900 — Salanter's letters with Blazer's commentary
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Petersburg, Kovno, Jerusalem; died 11 Av 5667
Basis: Talmud and midrash.