הרב יוסף זונדל מסלנט

Rabbi Yosef Zundel of Salant (5546/1786 – 3 Cheshvan 5626/1865) was a man of Torah, mussar and chassidut and among the leaders of the Ashkenazi community in Yerushalayim. He was born to Rabbi Binyamin Beinush, a descendant of Rabbi Uri Shraga Feivush Ashkenazi who was av beit din in Vilna. He was educated by his father and then in the yeshivah of Volozhin under Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, and was counted the greatest of his talmidim — on which account he was called a third mouth to Eliyahu, the reference being to the Gaon of Vilna. After Rabbi Chaim was niftar he traveled to Rabbi Akiva Eiger to learn from his way of study and his conduct. He lived most of his years in the town of Salant.

In his younger years he occupied himself with trade an hour or two a day and gave the rest to learning in the beit midrash of Salant and to good deeds. His way of learning was unlike that of his fellows, for he would sit apart and learn alone. He kept away from position all his life and refused offers of rabbanut and dayanut, dressed as one of the plain people, and took nothing from the chalukah funds; his wife sold vinegar for the household’s living. His talmid Rabbi Yisrael Salanter founded the mussar movement under his influence.

His way in learning was his own: not the sharp pilpul common in his day, with its remarkable chiddushim and long involved arguments, nor yet the manner of those occupied only with deciding the halachah without probing to the roots of a matter, but a straight understanding pursued to its full depth, for the sake of the halachah in practice. This was the approach of the Gaon of Vilna, who warned against pilpul, and of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin after him.

In Kislev 5598/1837, at fifty-two, he went up to Eretz Yisrael and settled in Yerushalayim. Members of all the communities brought him their questions of issur v’heter, so that he became in practice a moreh hora’ah, and in 5600/1840, with his agreement, his son-in-law Rabbi Shmuel Salant was appointed moreh hora’ah and av beit din of the Ashkenazi community there. Even after the gaonim of Kutna and Kalish came up to Yerushalayim, questions light and weighty were still brought to him. He was niftar in the cholera epidemic and was buried on Har HaZeitim.