חיים ליב טיקטינסקי

Chaim Leib Tiktinsky, Rav Chaim Yehuda Leib Tiktinsky (8 Cheshvan 5584/1823–19 Nisan 5659/1899), was a Lithuanian rosh yeshiva who stood at the head of the Mir Yeshiva for some fifty years. He was born in Mir, near Minsk, to Rav Shmuel Tiktinsky, who had founded the yeshiva in the town in 5577/1817 and led it. As a boy he learned under his father and then under his elder brother Rav Avraham, who took over the yeshiva; after their passing the town’s rav, Rav Yosef David Eisenstadt, and then his son Rav Moshe Avraham Eisenstadt headed it, Chaim Leib having been too young at seventeen to succeed his brother. In his twenties he learned in Derechin, in the Grodno district, where he received semicha; he was close there to the local rav, Rav Eliyahu Shick, later rav of Lida, and filled his place whenever he was away.

In 5610/1850, at twenty-seven, Rav Moshe Avraham Eisenstadt called him to serve as rosh yeshiva in place of his father and brother, at first alongside himself. Many felt the founder’s son should lead alone, and twenty rabbanim gathered to hear a shiur from each: Rav Eisenstadt’s was intricate, while Rav Chaim Leib’s kept to the plain meaning of the Gemara with Rashi and Tosafot, and it was his approach that was judged best for the talmidim. Rav Yisrael Salanter said that whoever wants to understand the daf properly should hear Reb Chaim Leib teach it. After Rav Eisenstadt was niftar on 8 Kislev 5627/1866 he led the yeshiva alone until the end of his life. His derech was pshat — from the sugya, through the Rishonim, above all Tosafot and the Rosh, to the halacha.

Under him the yeshiva grew into one of the largest in Europe, second only to Volozhin, through years of nisyonot (trials and tribulations) – two great fires, on 20 Av 5638/1878 and 28 Av 5652/1892, burned the yeshiva together with many of his writings and the chiddushim of the talmidim, and the Haskalah worked to draw the bachurim away. In 5636/1876 he appointed his son Rav Shmuel to give shiurim in the yeshiva; when Rav Shmuel was niftar young in 5643/1883 after a long illness, he appointed his second son, Rav Avraham, as rosh yeshiva beside him. His grandson Rav Yehuda Yudel Shapira, son of his daughter Mina, was made mashgiach of the yeshiva in 5647/1887 at twenty-four.

He became gravely ill in the winter of 5659, living to oversee the building of the yeshiva’s new home in place of the one burned in 5652. He was niftar in Warsaw, where he had gone for medical treatment, on Chol HaMoed Pesach, 19 Nisan 5659/1899, and was buried the next day in the Jewish cemetery of Warsaw after a levaya attended by many. His son Rav Avraham Tiktinsky succeeded him at the head of the Mir Yeshiva.