Dessler Eliyahu (1891-1953)

Dessler Eliyahu Eliezer (1891, Gomel or 1892, Liepāja – 30 December 1953, Bnei Brak) — one of the foremost 20th‑century rabbis in the Musar movement.

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler was born to a father who was a timber merchant in Gomel and a disciple of Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, and his mother was the granddaughter of Rabbi Israel Salanter, the founder of the Musar doctrine. Educated at home until the age of 14, he then studied at the yeshivah in Kelmė under Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Broide. He received his semicha (rabbinic diploma) from his uncle, Rabbi Chaim Grodzinski, spiritual leader of Lithuanian Jewry.

From 1919, Dessler resided in Riga, where he went into business but met with financial failure. In 1920, he married Bluma, a great‑granddaughter of Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, and declined an invitation to serve on the rabbinical court in Vilnius; instead, he and his brother entered business. In 1928, Dessler moved to London for his brother’s medical treatment and remained there, serving as a rabbi. He played a key role in establishing several religious schools and yeshivot, most notably the Gateshead Yeshiva, where he became the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in the early 1940s.

In 1947, Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Kahaneman invited him to become the spiritual mentor of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Israel, where he pioneered a synthesis of Musar doctrine with elements of Kabbalah and Hasidism. While he did not publish during his lifetime, his students preserved his teachings. These were posthumously published in Michtav me‑Eliyahu (Letters from Eliyahu, vols. I–III, 1955–64), and his moral and theological correspondence appeared in five volumes as Letters of Eliyahu. The latter work has had significant influence, with multiple Hebrew editions, an English translation, and excerpts rendered into French.

He died suddenly of a heart attack in Bnei Brak.

About: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliyahu_Eliezer_Dessler