הרב מנחם נחום מצ'רנוביל

Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twersky (5490/1730 – 11 Cheshvan 5558/1797), known as the Meor Einayim after his sefer, was a talmid of the Baal Shem Tov and the founder of the Chernobyl chassidut, from which several branches came — Chernobyl, Talna, Skver and Rachmastrivka. He was born in the town of Norinsk in Volhynia to Rabbi Tzvi, son of Rabbi Nachum. Orphaned of his father as a child, he was raised by his uncle Rabbi Nachum, his father’s brother, who sent him to learn in the yeshivot of Lithuania. After his marriage he taught while continuing his own learning.

As a young married man he was drawn to the way of the Baal Shem Tov, and after the Baal Shem Tov was niftar he accepted the authority of his successor, Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritch. Already in his rebbi’s lifetime he began traveling to the towns of Volhynia to rouse the people with derashot of mussar and chassidut. After the Maggid was niftar he conducted himself as a rebbe in Norinsk, then in Prohobisht and afterwards in Chernobyl, and became known for his holiness and his fervor in avodat Hashem, and for giving away his money to tzedakah and to the redeeming of captives; many of the tzaddikim of his time sheltered in his shade. He married Sarah, a granddaughter of Rabbi Yitzchak Shapira, a rav in Lublin.

He was niftar on 11 Cheshvan and was buried in Chernobyl. Shortly afterwards two of his sefarim appeared: Meor Einayim on the Torah, counted among the foundational sefarim of chassidut, and Yesamach Lev on Shas. By the First World War the two had been printed in seventeen editions, separately and together. His teaching gives much room to the idea of daat, which stands for him for cleaving and connection, and its central themes are the refining of the middot, avodah within the physical, the raising of stray thoughts, and the coming of Mashiach. His son Rabbi Mordechai Twersky, known as the Maggid of Chernobyl, took his place; among his talmidim was Rabbi Avraham Dov of Avritch, author of Bat Ayin. His daughter Malka married Rabbi Avraham of Korostyshiv, and their daughter Chavah, wife of Rabbi Shalom Shachna of Prohobisht, was the mother of Rabbi Yisrael of Ruzhin.