אלכסנדר משה לאפידות

Rav Alexander Moshe Lapidos (5575/1815–5666/1906) served the kehillot of Lita (Lithuania) in the rabbanut for seventy years — the span his matzeivah records — and stood in the inner circle of the mussar movement from its first hour. Son of Rav Tzvi Lapidos, a scholar of means, he was married at thirteen into a household in Yanova by Kovno, and a year later traveled to Salant, where his principal teacher was Rav Tzvi Hirsch Broida — and where began his lifelong bond, as talmid and then as colleague, with Rav Yisrael Salanter.

At seventeen he became rav of Yanova, and held that seat for more than thirty years; his final position was as rav and av beit din of Rassein. Through decades of poverty he answered the she’eilot of rabbanim across Lita, stood against the local maskilim — even seeking to found a newspaper to answer theirs — and wrote steadily in the Torah journals of the day. In his last marriage he was joined to the house of Mir, wedding the daughter of Rav Chaim Leib Tiktinsky, the rosh yeshiva of Mir.

Of the many manuscripts he left, most were lost; what survived and endured is his Divrei Emet, a sefer of mussar printed in Vilna after his passing — the distillation of seventy years in the harness of the rabbanut, from a man who had learned mussar at its source.