53 Facts About Yitzchak Ginsburgh

Yitzchak Ginsburgh is the leader of the Derech Chaim Movement and founder of the Gal Einai Institute, which publishes his written works.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh's students include Charedim, religious Zionists, and Chabad Chassidim, as well as ba'alei teshuvah.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh is currently the president of a number of educational institutions, including the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the settlement of Yitzhar in the West Bank.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh's teachings cover subjects including science, psychology, marital harmony and monarchy in Israel.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh has published over 100 books in Hebrew and English, most of which are edited by his students.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1944, the only child of Shimshon Ya'akov and Bryna Malka Yitzchak Ginsburgh.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh was considered a child prodigy in music and mathematics.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh's parents had a great affinity to their Jewish roots and a love of the Land of Israel.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh's father immigrated to Israel as a young man, where he was one of the founders of the City of Ra'anana, but returned to the USA to complete his higher education.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh's father held a PhD in education and served as principal of a number of Jewish schools.

The family later moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where Yitzchak Ginsburgh grew up until the age of 14, when his parents spent a year in Israel while his father wrote his doctorate on teaching the Hebrew language.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh attended the University of Chicago, majoring in mathematics and philosophy.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh then completed a Masters in Mathematics at the Belfer Graduate School of Science of Yeshiva University.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh spent 1966 through 1967 at the Slonim shul in Tiberias.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh took part in founding Freund's Or Yerushalaim yeshivah in Jerusalem, where he taught Talmud, Shulchan Aruch, and Chassidut.

In 1973, at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, under instruction from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yitzchak Ginsburgh visited the warfront to transmit the Rebbe's blessing to officer Ariel Sharon, who later became 11th Prime Minister of Israel.

The next morning, after a successful battle, Yitzchak Ginsburgh presented Sharon with a lulav and etrog.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh founded the Chabad house in the Yamit settlement in Sinai, where he lived during the last few weeks before the settlement's destruction by the Israeli government in 1982.

In 1982, Yitzchak Ginsburgh returned to Kfar Chabad, and was asked by Jerusalem rabbi and philanthropist Yosef Eliyahu Deutch to serve as head of the Shuva Yisra'el Yeshivah on Yo'el Street.

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh gave frequent classes on a wide variety of subjects, from the exoteric to the esoteric parts of the Torah.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh served as the Rosh Yeshivah of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshivah from 1987 until the retreat of the IDF from the Tomb of Joseph in Nablus during the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh served as the head of a Kollel in the Menuchah Rachel Synagogue in Hebron and as the head of a Kollel in the ancient Shalom Al Yisrael Synagogue in Jericho.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh currently serves as the president of a number of educational institutes run by his students, including the Torat Chaim elementary school for boys, the Ya'alat Chen elementary school for girls, Ma'ale Levonah high school for girls, and the Tom Vada'at Yeshivah in Jerusalem.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh is president of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshivah since its relocation to Yitzhar.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh follows Chassidic practices in his teaching style and is proficient in many aspects of Chassidic literature.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh has written books on Jewish law, Kabbalah, Torah and science, psychology, love, marriage and education.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh has published a book addressed to children, named "Anochi Ve'Hayeladim".

Yitzchak Ginsburgh specializes in analyzing modern cultural phenomena in the light of Kabbalah.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh has published over 100 volumes of original work in Hebrew and more than 20 in English.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh's books are published by the not-for-profit Gal Einai Institute, founded by Ginsburgh in 1991.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh delivers classes in Israel, and has lectured in the United States and other countries including France, Canada and England.

Since December 2012, Yitzchak Ginsburgh has been a lead speaker at an annual gala evening commemorating the Chassidic festival 19 Kislev.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh sees awareness of the Divine as the key to successful psychological therapy.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh aims to find the balance between science and the Torah, which will allow establishing psychology on the Torah together with empirical analysis of the data in order to develop working theories.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh has thus severed the chain of non-Jewish religious sources upon which all western schools of psychotherapy are founded.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh remains faithful to the Chabad system of meditation, which consists of Torah study, pre-prayer meditation, and meditation during prayer.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh defines two types of meditation, "general meditation" and "detailed meditation" The purpose of general meditation, according to Yitzchak Ginsburgh, is to arouse one's natural love and awe of God.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh has composed hundreds of songs and original melodies in the Chassidic tradition.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh has composed a number of musical compositions in the genre of world music.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh's music has been published in dozens of discs, which include discs that conserve Chassidic songs and melodies from bygone eras.

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh has appeared and sung together with Shlomo Carlebach.

Russian violin virtuoso, Sanya Kroytor has performed renderings of some of Rabbi Ginsbrugh's compositions, and has played violin accompaniment to Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh singing the Chassidic melody Tzama Lecha Nafshi.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh's compositions are performed by a number of musicians and singers, including Shuli Rand, Erez Lev Ari, Yosef Karduner, Yishai Ribo, Aharon Razel, Shlomo Katz, and Daniel Zamir.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh has co-designed a number of pieces of Jewelry based on ancient Kabbalistic ideas, expressing love, peace and grace.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh later conceded to their request to join them as their rosh yeshivah.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh's students include Charedim, religious Zionists, and Chabad Chassidim, as well as ba'alei teshuva.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh has repeatedly said that he does not promote violence.

In 1994, Yitzchak Ginsburgh received widespread criticism for his article "Baruch Hagever" in which he defended Baruch Goldstein who had massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

The Jerusalem Post asserted that Yitzchak Ginsburgh had called the massacre a mitzvah.

Yitzchak Ginsburgh responded to claims that he permits the murder of non-Jews:.

On March 10 1996, Yitzchak Ginsburgh was arrested for administrative detention for 60 days for his pronouncements that the state should take action against Arabs in response to the recent wave of terror attacks.

The judge declared that the accusations were baseless and that Yitzchak Ginsburgh was not a danger to the public.

Tzvi Sukkot, self-identified as a prior "hill top youth", says that it was Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh who convinced him to stop his violent activities against Arabs and find more legitimate ways to express his frustration.