Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter
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Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter (1847 - 1905), also known by the title of his Torah book/s as the Sfas Emes (שפת אמת), was born in Warsaw, Poland and died in Góra Kalwaria, Poland. He was an Orthodox Judaism rabbi and succeeded his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter, as second rebbe of the Ger dynasty of Hasidic Judaism.
His father, Rabbi Abraham Mordka Alter, died when Yehudah Aryeh was only eight years old, so that when it came time to lead the Ger Hasidic dynasty, he was under-age and he refused the mantle of leadership for many years. Eventually his followers succeeded in gaining his assent for him to become their leader as rebbe. He was a prodigious scholar and his work the Sfas Emes (or Sfat Emet) deals with the legalistic Talmud, the ethics of Midrash, and mysticism of the Zohar.
During the Russo-Japanese War many of his young followers were drafted into the Russian Army and sent to the battlefields in Manchuria. Alter was very worried over these devotees and would constantly write to them. It began to be detrimental to his health. On January 11, 1905 he died at the age of 57.
He was succeeded by his son Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter. Following the Holocaust, the Ger dynasty became a large movement in the State of Israel.
[edit] See also
[edit] Rebbes of Ger
- Yitzchak Meir Alter (1798(?)-1866)
- Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter (1847-1905)
- Avraham Mordechai Alter (1866-1948)
- Yisrael Alter (1895-1977)
- Simchah Bunim Alter (1898-1992)
- Pinchas Menachem Alter (1926-1996)
- Yaakov Aryeh Alter (b. 1936)
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