הרב יהודה אריה ליב אלתר

Rav Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter (29 Nisan 5607/1847–5 Shevat 5665/1905), the second Rebbe of Ger, called for all generations the Sfas Emes after his sefarim, led Polish Jewry at the close of the nineteenth century and raised Ger to the central chassidic court in Poland. He was born in Warsaw to Rav Avraham Mordechai, son of the Chiddushei HaRim, founder of the Ger dynasty, and to Esther. Orphaned young — his mother was niftera when he was two, his father when he was eight — he was raised in the home of his grandfather, the Chiddushei HaRim, who engaged a melamed for him on three conditions: to wake him before dawn, to learn with him eighteen hours without a break, and to say a chiddush every day. Twice his grandfather took the child to the Kotzker Rebbe — so that, as he explained, his grandchildren should once see a true Jew — visits that left their mark on him for life.

In Adar 5622/1862 he married Yocheved Rivka, daughter of Rav Yehuda Kaminer; so that he not carry his father-in-law’s name, his grandfather changed his first name from Yehuda to Aryeh, and near his own petirah he asked that the name Yehuda be restored. When the Chiddushei HaRim was niftar in 5626/1866, the nineteen-year-old became rav of the town of Ger by his grandfather’s tzavaah — but refused the chassidim who sought to crown him Rebbe, binding himself instead to Rav Chanoch Henich HaKohen of Alexander. Only after the latter’s petirah in Adar 5630/1870, at twenty-three, did he take up the leadership; and he refused to sit at the head of the tish, in his grandfather’s place, which is why the Rebbes of Ger sit at the middle of the table to this day.

Under his hand Ger grew into the largest chassidic court in Poland. The young lomdim in particular held fast to him, and he set aside fixed time to guide their learning; the streams of chassidim who came for his counsel he received standing at the door of his room, answering swiftly and in few words. He refused to take money from his chassidim, supporting himself from a small shop his Rebbetzin ran, and guided his followers likewise to prefer a trade or commerce over the rabbanut. In 5661/1901 a great fire consumed the beit medrash and his home beside it; a new beit medrash of stone, with quarters for the thousands who streamed to Ger for Shabbatot and yamim tovim, was dedicated in Tevet 5663/1903, served by the railway line from Warsaw — the Rebbe’s line — opened in 5659/1899 with his own help in the funding. After the petirah of his Rebbetzin he married Reizel, daughter of Rav Baruch Halberstam of Gorlitz. When the Russo-Japanese war took thousands of his young chassidim to the front in Manchuria, he wrote to them constantly, slept on the floor with only his coat to cover him, and wept over their fate; his health broke under the worry.

He was niftar on 5 Shevat 5665 (11 January 1905); some twenty thousand accompanied him to his rest in Ger, beside his grandfather, with no hespedim by chassidic custom save a few words from the Sochatchover Rebbe, the Avnei Nezer. His Torah — written down by his own hand on Sunday mornings, wearing tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam — was printed by his sons and named Sfas Emes, after the pasuk with which his final piece closed, two weeks before his petirah: sfas emes tikon la’ad. The sefarim on Chumash and the moadim, on Shas, on Tehillim, and on Pirkei Avot spread through the whole Torah world; it is told that the Avnei Nezer kept the volumes of the Sfas Emes on his shelf of rishonim. His son Rav Avraham Mordechai, the Imrei Emes, filled his place, and the Sfas Emes yeshiva, founded in Yerushalayim in 5681/1921, carries his name.