'Lost All Touch to Save Our Holy Yeshiva That Came to Crisis' Letter from the Gen. Rabbi Yaakov Shapira - Head of ...

'Lost All Touch to Save Our Holy Yeshiva That Came to Crisis' Letter from the Gen. Rabbi Yaakov Shapira - Head of Yeshivat Volozhin - 1932

Letter in handwriting and signature of the genius Head of Volozhin Yeshiva - Rabbi Yaakov Shapira, With an urgent call to act to save the Volozhin yeshiva, 1932.

"We lose all contact to save our holy yeshiva, which comes to a crisis and a jeopardized danger is over. If we do not take quick measures to send people of deed with power in their mouth to act and do in the great cities of Poland for the benefit of our holy yeshiva ..."

Rabbi Ya'akov Shapira [1873-1936], head of the Volozhin Yeshiva [and the town's rabbi]. Born in Volozhin to Rabbi Raphael Shapira, head of the Volozhin Yeshiva, and to Drayzel  daughter of the Nazi"v. Already at the age of twelve, in response to a pamphlet of Torah novels he sent to his grandfather, he writes: "Bar Hakim is to me, a wonderful genius of Torah'. In his youth he returned to Volozhin, the study with his older brother-in-law, Rabbi Haim Soloveitchik. In 1912 he was called by his father to Volozhin to assist him in leading the yeshiva. During World War I, he found out with his father to Minsk. In 1921, his great father died and a year later, on the Shvat 18, 1922  Rabbi Yaakov Shapira reopened the Volozhin gates. The reopening of the yeshiva led by him was very exciting: "On the beginning of the month, the yeshiva was held in the big building ... All the residents of Volozhin gathered and came. All the windows of the town hall were solemnly lit. With tearful eyes, the rabbi talked about the yeshiva for the past 103 years from the day of the founding. he said that when his late father, Rabbi Raphael, lay on his deathbed, as a refugee from Russia, he sent him to Volozhin and hurried to resume the yeshiva" ["Haynet" adar 1922]. Because the need ofthe generation, he taught the study of musar at the Volozhin yeshiva, unlike what had been in the past. R. Jacob died after a long illness in Warsaw on the 9 th of Eyar 1936, his coffin was transferred to Volozhin. Most of the manuscripts and essays he wrote were burned by the damned Nazis during the Holocaust. His sons, Rabbis Yitzchak Moshe and Rabbi Zalman Yosef; His daughters: Esther, Rebecca, Pesia, and Beila, a wife who took his place, Rabbi Chaim Walkin, who all perished in the Holocaust. Named after him Geon Ya'akov yeshiva in Bnei Brak.

[1] Official Postcard of 'Ya'akov son of Rabbi Raphael Z"l Shapira - The Holy and Ancient Yeshivat 'Etz Hayim' in Volozhin '- Written on Both Sides. Sent by Mail. Stains. Good condition.