הרב אהרן מקרלין השני

Rabbi Aharon Perlow of Karlin-Stolin (1 Sivan 5562/1802 – 17 Sivan 5632/1872), known by the name of his sefer Beit Aharon, was the fourth rebbe of the Karlin chassidut and was held in his day to be the greatest of the rebbes of the Lithuanian region, his influence reaching into Volhynia as well. He was born to Feiga and Rabbi Asher of Stolin, son of Rabbi Aharon the Great of Karlin who founded the chassidut, and married Chavah, daughter of Rabbi Mordechai of Kremenets, son of Rabbi Yechiel Michel of Zlotshov. In 5586/1826, at twenty-five, he was appointed rebbe in Karlin in his father’s place, and in 5624 moved to the nearby town of Stolin.

Besides his greatness in Torah he had a gift for organizing, and in the forty-five years of his leadership the reach of the chassidut grew greatly: whole towns joined Karlin, and at the moadim thousands would come to his court. Like his father he supported the chassidic settlement in Eretz Yisrael, in which Karlin chassidim had been represented since the aliyah of his uncle Rabbi Yaakov, son of Rabbi Aharon the Great, and among other things he worked for the restoration of the beit knesset of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk in Teveria. A small group of his chassidim lived in Yerushalayim, among them Rabbi David Tzvi Shlomo Biderman, the rebbe of Lelov.

He was niftar on 17 Sivan at the going out of Shabbat, while the chassidim were at seudah shelishit, on his way to the wedding of a granddaughter, and was buried in the town of Mlinov in Volhynia. His son Rabbi Asher of Stolin took his place and was niftar about a year after him.

His sefer Beit Aharon gathers the chiddushei Torah of the rebbes of Karlin and is counted a foundational sefer of the Karlin chassidut in particular and of chassidut generally. It was first printed at Brody in 5635/1875, after his passing, and has been printed in four further editions and tens of thousands of copies. The name was chosen on the strength of an answer his grandfather Rabbi Aharon the Great had given about the source of his piyut Yah Echsof — that it is written in the sefer Beit Aharon. The sefer holds chiddushim of Rabbi Aharon the Great and of Rabbi Asher of Stolin, but the greater part is his own, together with conduct that the rebbes of Karlin wrote for their talmidim, and letters he sent to his chassidim and to his son.