הרב אביגדור מילר

Rav Avigdor HaKohen Miller (1 Elul 5668/1908–27 Nisan 5761/2001) was a Brooklyn rav, mashgiach, and mechanech whose thousands of recorded shiurim carried mussar and Torah hashkafah across English-speaking Jewry. Born in Baltimore, he attended public school and an afternoon Talmud Torah, and afterward was taught privately — without pay, for the family had nothing — by Rav Avrohom Eliyahu Axelrod, a Lubavitcher chasid whom he remembered with gratitude all his life. At seventeen he went to New York to Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchonon, where he received semichah, and there joined a small chaburah learning Mesillat Yesharim under Reb Yaakov Yosef Herman, alongside future gedolim such as Rav Nosson Meir Wachtfogel and Rav Mordechai Gifter. At Herman’s urging he set out for the yeshivot of Europe, and in 5692/1932, after meeting Rav Yitzchak Isaac Sher in New York, he arrived in Slabodka.

In Slabodka he learned under Rav Sher — he would later write that all his Torah was from this rebbi — in such poverty that he wore a coat in summer to hide his patched clothes, and with such hasmadah that his sleeves wore through on the shtender. In 5695/1935 he married Ettel, daughter of Rav Yaakov Moshe Lessin of Slabodka. In 5698/1938, as the Nazi danger rose, a Baltimore classmate serving with the American consulate in Kovno arranged passage for his family, and back in America he became rav of Congregation Agudath Shalom in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

In 5704/1944 Rav Yitzchok Hutner brought him to Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin as mashgiach ruchani, a post he held for twenty years. From 5705/1945 he led the Young Israel of Rugby in East Flatbush; in 5735/1975 he founded the Bais Yisroel Torah Center on Ocean Parkway, and when his son opened Yeshiva Beis Yisrael in 5746/1986 he stood at its head, teaching also in Beis Yaakov. A pioneer of Torah on tape, he gave more than 2,500 recorded lectures in English and Yiddish, most of them in his own shul. He wrote histories of Klal Yisrael from a Torah standpoint, contesting the historians’ reliance on Josephus, and sefarim of hashkafah and emunah such as Rejoice O Youth and Awake My Glory, in which he argued against the theory of evolution; he was a firm opponent of Zionism in every form. In private he lived with ascetic simplicity — for over sixty years he slept on a bench — guarded every moment of his time, and taught constantly on bitachon.

He was niftar on 27 Nisan 5761/2001. After hespedim in America from Rav Shmuel Birnbaum and Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, his aron was brought to Eretz Yisrael; the levayah went out from the Mir yeshiva in Yerushalayim, with hespedim from Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Rav Moshe Sternbuch, and Rav Mattisyahu Salomon, and he was buried on Har HaZeitim. Since 5779 his talmidim have published Toras Avigdor, a weekly gilyon of his shiurim and shmuessen that has been translated into Hebrew as well.