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Updated: May 12, 2025
In Lithuania the whole mental energy of the Jewish youth was absorbed by Talmudism. The synagogue served as a "house of study" outside the hours fixed for prayers. There the local rabbi or a private scholar gave lectures on the Talmud which were listened to by hosts of yeshibah bahurs. The great yeshibahs of Volozhin, Mir, and other towns sent forth thousands of rabbis and Talmudists.
To avoid the unpleasant results which followed, Rabbi Chernovich of Odessa and Rabbi I.J. Reines of Lyda established seminaries in Odessa and Lyda, to take the place and to continue the teaching of the Vilna and the Volozhin yeshibot, which had been closed, and to furnish proper rabbis for the various congregations. The century-long struggle for enlightenment had a telling effect.
In response to Rabbi Hayyim's appeal contributions came pouring in, a new and spacious school-house was erected, and Volozhin became a Talmudic Oxford. To be a student there was both an indication of superiority and a means to proficiency.
They came to Volozhin "to learn," and they well knew the Talmudic statement, that "no one can attain eminence in the Torah unless he is willing to die for its sake." Rabbi Hayyim was succeeded by his son Rabbi Isaac, who united knowledge of secular subjects with profound Talmudic erudition, was active in worldly affairs, and played a prominent part in the Jewish history of his day.
In the same manner does Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin inveigh against the followers of Mendelssohn, because of the latitudinarian habits of the Maskilim, who "despise the counsel of their betters, and go after the dictates of their hearts."
These characters served for many years as weapons in the hands of the combatants enlisted in the army arrayed for "the struggle between light and darkness." The waves of the Renaissance and the Reformation sweeping over Russian Jewry reached even the sacred precincts of the synagogues, the batte midrashim, and the yeshibot. The Tree of Life College in Volozhin became a foster-home of Haskalah.
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