הרב מאיר חדש

Rav Meir Chodosh (27 Shevat 5658/1898–29 Tevet 5749/1989) was the mashgiach of the Chevron yeshiva for more than fifty years and one of the great bearers of Slabodka mussar in the yeshiva world of Eretz Yisrael. Born in Paritch, in the Minsk region, to Rav Ben Tzion and Machla Chodosh, he was sent as a boy to the yeshiva for young students in Shklov, headed by Rav Pesach Pruskin, and about two years later entered Slabodka, where he became the talmid muvhak of the Alter of Slabodka, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel — whose talks he arranged for print in Ohr HaTzafun — and grew close to the mashgiach, Rav Avraham Grodzinski.

His youth was full of trials. His father left for America meaning to bring the family after him, but the First World War cut them apart; his mother was niftera suddenly, and the care of his brother and sister fell on him. In the war years he was caught without papers and stood before a Russian firing squad — and was saved b’nes.

In 5686/1926 he went up to Eretz Yisrael and that Tammuz joined the chaburah of bachurim who opened the yeshiva’s branch in Chevron; young as he was, he was admitted to the Alter’s talks. In 5687/1927 he married Tzivia Leah, daughter of Rav Naftali Menachem Hutner of the rabbanim of Eishishok. In the massacre of 5689/1929 he survived by lying beneath the bodies of his friends. After the petirah of the mashgiach Rav Yehuda Leib Chasman in 5696/1936 he was appointed mashgiach of the yeshiva, and stood at that post for over half a century, shaping talmidim with the Alter’s teachings — he would say nothing he had not heard from his rebbe, and when something new arose he would work out what his rebbe would have said. Rav Yechezkel Sarna likened his closeness to the Alter to the closeness of Yehoshua bin Nun to Moshe Rabbeinu. His care for kavod habriyot was a teaching in itself: when a certain staff member would enter his hospital room, he would ask all his visitors to step out, so that no one should watch the man struggle to find his veins and he should not be shamed.

In his last years he served as mashgiach also in Ateret Yisrael, the yeshiva of his son-in-law Rav Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi, and in Ohr Elchonon, founded by his son Rav Moshe Mordechai Chodosh. After his petirah his talks were gathered by talmidim in sefarim including Ohr Chadash, Meir Netivot and Ohr Meir. He was niftar on 29 Tevet 5749 and was buried in the Chevron yeshiva’s chelkah on Har HaZeitim; his son founded the Knesset Meir yeshiva in Rishon LeTzion in his name, and a street in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood and the Ramat Meir neighborhood of Modiin Illit carry his name.