A man so sick he could barely walk insisted that he be helped to a waiting car to go to the Kosel -- and pray for a stranger. A Sage used the power of his intellect and the force of his personality to infuse strength into the refugee yeshiva community of Shanghai, while the dangers of famine, disease, and bombardment were constant.
A rosh yeshiva with not a second to spare found a few hours a day to become the study partner of a mediocre student whom others shunned. Reb Chaim Shmulevitz zt’’l was that man. Rosh Yeshiva of the Mirrer Yeshiva of Jerusalem, Reb Chaim had an astonishing mastery of the Torah, but the world knows him best from his famous “shmuessen,” the Sichos Mussar that this book presents in English for the first time. Reb Chaim would walk up the steps to the podium of the Mirrer Yeshiva and the atmosphere in the huge wall was electric with anticipation. He would cite a verse or a teaching from the Sages -- and then open a new window on it.
The insight had been there waiting to be discovered. And he discovered it. Only three years of his great mussar discourses were preserved by his students in writing, and they became classics of the yeshiva world -- and of the new baal teshuvah communities behind the Iron Curtain. Now, thanks to his family and students, Sichos Mussar is here. Translated and edited by Rabbis A. Scheinman and Eliyahu Meir Klugman, who knew the Rosh Yeshiva and heard these discourses, and painstakingly reviewed word for word by Rabbi Dr. Samson R. Weiss and by R’ Chaim’s sons for fidelity to his thoughts, this book is as close as one can come to the definitive version of a great man’s legacy. It throbs with devotion to G-d and love of the Torah. It is saturated with understanding of the individual and faith in his ability to grow. It is uncompromising in its insistence that the Torah speaks to us and demands that we fight unyieldingly to realize our potential -- all of it!