Tzadikim

Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe (Wilhelm Wolbe, 1914 - April 25, 2005) was a Haredi rabbi born in Berlin in the early part of the twentieth century. He is best known as the author of Alei Shur (Hebrew: עלי שור), a musar classic discussing dimensional growth as it pertains to students of the Talmud. He died in Jerusalem in 2005.

Life and teaching positions

Shlomo (Wilhelm) Wolbe was born in Berlin to Eugen and Rosa Wolbe. He was raised in a secular Jewish home and received his education at the University of Berlin (1930–1933). During his university studies he became a baal teshuva through the efforts of the Orthodox Students Union V.A.D. (Vereinigung jüdischer Akademiker in Deutschland). After university he attended the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary. He continued to study at Rabbi Boczko's yeshiva in Montreux, Switzerland. He then attended the Mir yeshiva in Poland, where he became a student of the mashgiach ruchani, Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz, and, to a lesser extent of Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein.

While in the Mir, Wolbe befriended a young man from Stockholm, Sweden, Bert Lehmann, son of Hans (Chaim) and Fannie Lehmann. During World War II, Wolbe, who was a German national, was in danger of deportation and could not follow the Mir yeshiva into Russia. Hans Lehmann invited Wolbe to stay with his family and be the Jewish teacher for his sons. Wolbe thus was able to spend the war years in neutral Sweden. While he was in Sweden, he functioned there as a rabbi. During the war he worked for the US-based Rescue Committee in coordination with Rabbi Benjamin Jakobson. At the end of the war he created a girls school for refugees in Lidingö. There, he wrote pamphlets on Judaism in Swedish and German.

Wolbe moved to Mandatory Palestine in 1946 and studied at Yeshivas Lomzha in Petah Tikva. He then married Rivka Grodzinski, the daughter of Rabbi Avraham Grodzinski, of the Slabodka yeshiva (Rivka passed away on October 25, 2018),making him brothers-in-law with Hagoan Rabbi Chaim Kreisworth of Belgium. Wolbe continued his studies at Kollel Toras Eretz Yisroel in Petach Tikva under Rabbi Yitzchok Katz. In 1948, Wolbe took over a small yeshiva belonging to a youth organization called Ezra. Two years later, he was joined by Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Brisk. The yeshiva was located in the small town of Be'er Yaakov, and was known as the Be'er Yaakov Yeshiva [he]. Shapiro became the rosh yeshiva and Wolbe became the mashgiach ruchani. For more than 30 years, until 1981, Wolbe served as the menahel ruchani of Yeshivas Be'er Yaakov.

Later, he served as mashgiach in the Lakewood Yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel before opening Yeshivas Givat Shaul, a house of learning specializing in mussar. During these post-1981 years, Wolbe gave mussar talks in various yeshivot as well as small groups. He created many "mussar houses." The Bais Mussar was named with the support of Manfred Lehmann (son of Hans Lehmann) in memory of Chaim (Jamie) Lehmann, who had died in 1982. Prominent amongst his many students are Rabbi Uri Weisblaum and Rabbi Reuven Leuchter, all of whom have published works of Mussar, as well as Rabbi Benjie Jacoby, who continues to successfully reach out to North American university students, bringing thousands closer to Torah.

Publications

Daat Shlomo: Talks on Mattan Torah, Jerusalem 2006.
Igrot u-chetavim / mi ha-mashgiach; Yerushalayim : 2005.
Planting & building: raising a Jewish child / Shlomo Wolbe; translated by Leib Kelemen; Jerusalem; New York : Feldheim Publishers, 1999 (Translation of Zerichah u-vinyan ba-chinuch)
Translation of Zerichah u-vinyan ba-chinuch : sichot be-inyenei chinuch Yerushalaim : Feldheim, 5756, 1995.
Kuntres hadrachah le-chalot; divrei mavo Shmuel Barelbach. Bnei Brak, 1976
Ma'amarei Hadracha L'chosonim (1999)
Shalhevetyah : chamishah asar pirchei hadrachah le-toch olam ha-Torah. (1979)
Ben sheshet le-asor (1979), now renamed "Olam Hayedidus" ("a world of friendship" i.e. between God and mankind)
Sefer Alei shur sha'arei ha-hadrachah (1968–1998)
Pirkei Kinyan Da'as (2001)
Pathways : a brief introduction to the world of Torah / Shlomo Wolbe; trans. by M. Samsonowitz Jerusalem : Jamie Lehmann Torah Ethics Center, c1983

May the merit of Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe protect us all. Amen