אריה ליב ילין

Rav Aryeh Leib Yellin (5580/1820–7 Nisan 5646/1886), known for his sefer Yefeh Einayim, was the rav of Bielsk and one of the prominent rabbanim of Lithuania and Poland, to whom halachic questions were sent for decision; in English and Polish sources his family name appears as Jelin. He was born in the town of Skidel in the Russian Empire to Rav Shalom Shachna Yellin, who later was oleh to Eretz Yisrael and traveled on behalf of the rabbanim of Yerushalayim to Aleppo to check the exact nusach of Tanach against the Keter Aram Tzova. Aryeh Leib remained in Europe and learned in the yeshiva of Volozhin as a talmid of its rosh yeshiva, Rav Yitzchak of Volozhin. The hesped volume Nod Demaot relates that already in his Volozhin years he reviewed Tanach and Shas daily, completing all of Tanach every month and the entire Talmud Bavli every year. He married Michleh, daughter of R’ Moshe Pinchas of Zhetel.

He served in the rabbanut of the town of Jasionowka until 5616/1856, when he became rav of Bielsk (Bielsk Podlaski), the position he held for thirty years until his petirah.

His name lives in the Yefeh Einayim, printed alongside the Gemara in the Romm Vilna Shas: for each sugya of the Talmud Bavli it marks the parallel sugyot in the Talmud Yerushalmi, the midrashim, the pesichtot, and other early rabbinic works, adding brief notes of great value to the learner — the foundation of comparative study between the Bavli and the Yerushalmi. In his introduction on Masechet Shabbat he described how a small upper chamber can be built in the mind as a dwelling for divrei Torah, where the foot of distraction does not enter. He also wrote Mitzpeh Aryeh on the halachot of the Rif and Kol Aryeh, a sefer of his drashot, and left in manuscript many chiddushim on Shas and a collection of teshuvot. He was niftar in Bielsk on 7 Nisan 5646/1886; the Yefeh Einayim has accompanied the daf in every edition of the Talmud Bavli based on the Vilna Shas since.