44 Facts About Elazar Shach

Elazar Shach served as chair of the Council of Sages and one of three co-deans of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, along with Shmuel Rozovsky and Dovid Povarsky.

Later, in 1988, Shach criticized Ovadia Yosef, saying that, "Sepharadim are not suitable for leadership positions", and subsequently founded the Degel HaTorah political party representing the Litvaks in the Israeli Knesset.

Elazar Menachem Man Shach was born in Vabalninkas, in northern Lithuania, to Ezriel and Batsheva Shach.

The Elazar Shach family had been merchants for generations, while the Levitans were religious scholars who served various Lithuanian communities.

When World War I began in 1914, Elazar Shach returned to his family, but then began traveling across Lithuania from town to town, sleeping and eating wherever he could, while continuing to study Torah.

Elazar Shach reportedly sequestered himself in an attic for two years not knowing where his parents were.

In 1915, following the advice of Yechezkel Bernstein, Elazar Shach traveled to Slutsk to study at the yeshiva there.

In 1939, Elazar Shach went to Vilna, where he stayed with Chaim Ozer Grodzinski.

At Lomzha Yeshivah in Petach Tikvah, Elazar Shach served as the main Talmudic lecturer, while Rabbi Moshe Shmuel and Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky delivered specialized lectures in Talmud.

Several years after the re-establishment of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Elazar Shach was invited by Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman to become one of its deans, and, after discussing the proposal with Soloveitchik, he accepted the offer.

Elazar Shach served in that capacity from 1954 until his death.

Elazar Shach received semikhah from Isser Zalman Meltzer, and served as chairman of Chinuch Atzmai and Va'ad HaYeshivos.

Elazar Shach's wife died in 1969 from complications connected to diabetes.

From 1970 until his death, Elazar Shach was generally recognized by Lithuanian Haredim and other Haredi circles as the Gadol Ha-Dor.

Elazar Shach fought those who deviated from what he believed was the classical Haredi path.

At the behest of Aharon Kotler, Elazar Shach joined the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah.

When Zalman Sorotzkin died in 1966, Elazar Shach became president of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, before later resigning from the Moetzes after the other leading rabbis refused to follow him.

Elazar Shach wrote strongly in support of every observant citizen voting.

Elazar Shach felt that a vote not cast for the right party or candidate was effectively a vote for the wrong party and candidate.

Shas ran for the 11th Knesset in 1984, and Elazar Shach called upon his "Lithuanian" followers to vote for it in the polls, a move that many saw as key political and religious move in Elazar Shach's split with the Hasidic-controlled Agudat Yisrael.

Elazar Shach wanted the Aguda party to oppose Lubavitch; however, all but one of the Hasidic groups within the party refused to back him.

Elazar Shach was dismissive of secular Israelis and their culture.

Labor Party politician Yossi Beilin said Elazar Shach's speech set back relations between religious and secular Israelis by decades.

In 1985, four years after the Labor Party supported a liberalized abortion law, Elazar Shach refused to meet with Shimon Peres and said he would not speak with a "murderer of fetuses".

Elazar Shach is quoted as saying that, "Any yeshiva student who cheats the authorities and uses the exemption from service for anything other than real engagement in Torah study is a rodef ", and that "those who are not learning jeopardize the position of those who are learning as they should".

Elazar Shach supported the withdrawal from land under Israeli control, basing it upon the halakhic principle of pikuach nefesh, in which the preservation of lives takes precedence over nearly all other obligations in the Torah, including those pertaining to the sanctity of land.

Elazar Shach criticized Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "a blatant attempt to provoke the international community", and called on Haredi Jews to avoid moving to such communities.

Elazar Shach often said that for true peace, it was "permitted and necessary to compromise on even half of the Land of Israel", and wrote that, "It is forbidden for the Israeli government to be stubborn about these things, as this will add fuel to the fire of anti-Semitism".

Elazar Shach was an antagonist of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, and was one of the leading major Lithuanian rabbis to come out in force against the Chabad movement and its leader.

Elazar Shach objected to Schneerson's calling upon the Messiah to appear, and when some of Schneerson's followers proclaimed him the Messiah, Shach called for a boycott of Chabad and its institutions.

In 1988, Elazar Shach denounced Schneerson as a meshiach sheker, and compared Chabad Hasidim to the followers of the 17th century Sabbatai Zevi, branding as idolatrous Schneerson's statement referring to his father-in-law, the previous rebbe of Chabad, which he viewed as God's chosen leader of the generation, "the essence and being of God clothed in a body of the "Moses" of the Generation, as it was by Moses himself".

Followers of Elazar Shach refused to eat meat slaughtered by Chabad Hasidim, refusing to recognize them as adherents of authentic Judaism.

Elazar Shach opposed Chabad's Rambam Campaign and Tefillin Campaign, and once described Schneerson as "the madman who sits in New York and drives the whole world crazy".

Elazar Shach nevertheless prayed for his recovery, explaining that "I pray for the rebbe's recovery, and simultaneously pray that he abandon his invalid way".

Elazar Shach resigned from the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah following tensions between him and the Gerer Rebbe, Simcha Bunim Alter.

Some attempted to create the perception that the schism was a re-emergence of the dissent between Hasidim and Mitnagdim, as Elazar Shach represented the Lithuanian Torah world, while the Gerer Rebbe was among the most important Hasidic Rebbes and represented the most significant Hasidic court in Agudat Yisrael.

Elazar Shach is not a genuine person, and everyone is obliged to distance themselves from him.

Elazar Shach wrote that Yeshiva University-type institutions posed a threat to the endurance of authentic Judaism.

Elazar Shach wrote that he was not opposed to Hasidic Judaism, saying he recognized Hasidism as "yera'im" and "shlaymim", and full of Torah and mitzvos and fear of Heaven.

Elazar Shach died on November 2,2001, two months short of his 103rd birthday.

Elazar Shach was survived by his daughter Devorah, who had nine children with Meir Tzvi Bergman, and his son Ephraim, who rejected the Haredi lifestyle and joined the Religious Zionist movement.

Ephraim Elazar Shach served in the Israel Defense Forces, received a doctorate in history and philosophy from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University, and worked as a supervisor for the Israel Ministry of Education.

Elazar Shach married Tamara Yarlicht-Kowalsky, and they had two children.

Elazar Shach died on October 17,2011, at the age of 81.