Interesting letter by the Tzadik Rabbi Aryeh Levin about his son the Gaon Rabbi Chaim Yakob Levin & his Sefer. ...

Interesting letter by the Tzadik Rabbi Aryeh Levin about his son the Gaon Rabbi Chaim Yakob Levin & his Sefer. Jerusalem 1937.

With the original envelope.

His sons Sefer 'Chayil Hamikdash' was published that year in Jerusalem.

The "Tzadik of Jerusalem" Rabbi Aryeh Levin (1885-1969), excelled in Torah and in charitable deeds. He served as the spiritual director and supervisor of the Etz Chaim Talmud Torah (boy's school). An alumnus of Lithuanian yeshivot: Hlusk, Slutsk, Volozhin and the Torat Chaim yeshiva in Jerusalem, he was a cherished disciple of the leading Torah scholars of the generation: Rabbi Refael Shapiro of Volozhin, Rabbi Chaim Berlin, Rabbi Shlomo Elyashiv the Leshem, Rabbi Baruch Ber Leibovitz, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, his brother-in-law Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank and Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk. He immigrated to Jerusalem as an adolescent and married the granddaughter of the head of the Jerusalem Beit Din, R. Chaim Yaakov Shapira. He was renowned for his dedication to acts of benevolence. He was a beloved friend to one and all, wholeheartedly sharing the difficulties and joys of his brethren.

R. Aryeh, the "hidden Tzadik", concealed his greatness in the knowledge and study of mishnah, and despite his substantial composition on the Six Orders of Mishnah, he wrote in his will with exceptional humility: "…I am not fully proficient in even one chapter of mishnayot…". None of his disciples and associates knew about the comprehensive work he composed. Only in his final years did he give his grandson R. Elchanan Yakobovits (a Chabad Chassid) his manuscript notebooks on four orders. After the passing of R. Aryeh, his grandson (upon the advice of his teacher the Lubavitcher Rebbe) began editing this important commentary, yet its publication was delayed for many years, and only in 2011-2013 were three parts of the work finally published. R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, in his approbation to Mishnat Aryeh, writes about the author, his father-in-law: "My father-in-law R. Aryeh Levin, who in his great humility concealed and hid his Torah prominence…".

See also Hebrew description.

The recipient Chaim Mordechai Piltzer was born in 1880 in Mikolintsa, eastern Galicia.

At the age of 18 he went to the USA and during that time he became a police officer. In the First World War, when the call went out to volunteer for the Hebrew Regiment, his friends advised him to calm his Zionist conscience by donating a thousand dollars to a Zionist charity, for the sake of "redemption of a soul", but he stood by his decision and volunteered with all his heart. And on Hanukkah 1878, the battalion moved from Egypt to Israel during the morning prayer, and we set the time to say the chapter "The Exodus of Israel from Egypt" from "Hillel" in the discussion at the time of crossing the border, and the strong impression of this experience was not with him, and at every opportunity he would repeat and recount it. After the war Stayed in Israel and was accepted for government service on the trains and as an office clerk.

In 1921 he married Pnina daughter of Menachem Mendel Kahana. He settled in the Yamin Moshe neighborhood, opposite the wall of the old city of Jerusalem, and stuck to it all his days, and in times of tension he defended it with devotion. During the riots of 1936-1938, he volunteered as an additional policeman and was assigned to serve in guarding the railroads, which the rioters often sabotaged, and he, who had been a railroad worker for many years, recognized by eye-print that the workers sent by the Arab contractor to repair the tracks, equipped with permits for free movement that he received and handed over to them, were not railroad workers , but they use this camouflage for another purpose, and while keeping an eye on their actions he discovered that they are the ones who store the explosives under the tracks. So he asked for and received permission for a personal interview with General Montgomery, who was the military commander and stationed in Haifa, and revealed this to him. The measures taken stopped the beatings, but the terrorists learned that he was the one who discovered their tricks, and due to the fear of their revenge, he was forced to leave Haifa.

At the beginning of the War of Liberation, when the defense forces removed the non-combatant residents from the neighborhood, because it was in the front line of fire at the edge of the Jewish settlement, he and his wife refused to leave, as they were also combatants (and he was 68 at the time!). Indeed, she was wounded by rifle bullets when she threw a hand grenade in front of the enemy attacking the neighborhood. Both were veteran activists in the defense, and even when it was necessary to hand over the weapons in his possession to those younger than him, he and his wife continued to fulfill military auxiliary services, by hosting the fighters in their home, and he would bring them a hot drink to the positions and encourage them, and he also gave his full assistance to those breaking into the Old City, and after the end of the war he did not stop To wish for a complete redemption, that he could go to the place of Hashem again. He died in 1953.