Unique: Vidui of Rabbi Chaim Friedlander, Mashgiach of the Ponovezh Yeshivah

Unique: Vidui of Rabbi Chaim Friedlander, Mashgiach of the Ponovezh Yeshivah

Kuntress Mitzvat Vidui including various vidui texts and an elucidation of the Yom Kippur vidui. Jerusalem, 1960. This tear-soaked compilation was used by the gaon and tzaddik Rabbi Chaim Friedlander every year during Yom Kippur prayers. His personal stamp appears on the back of the title page.

Notations all along the printed vidui written by the gaon and tzaddik, Rabbi Chaim Friedlander - the final remnant of the generation of giants of mussar - indicate additional transgressions he considered himself to have transgressed and for which he desires to perform vidui, but do not appear among the hundreds of transgressions listed by the kuntress. The gaon Rabbi Chaim Friedlander emphasizes some of the transgressions by underlining them, indicating he must increase his vidui for these - and in his tremendous righteousness, he also marks the transgressions for which he does not require vidui at all.

Unique and fascinating document in which we are exposed to the form and method of performing personal teshuvah by one of the leading ba'alei mussar, the final remnant of the glorious movement established by Rabbi Yisrael of Salant, and the gedolei hador among them, including the Alter of Kelm, the Alter of Slabodka, the Alter of Novordok, Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian, Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler and Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein (these last two also served as mashgichim in the Ponovezh yeshivah). Close examination of the hundreds of notations in this kuntress feels like listening in on the mashgiach's silent vidui!

Tehillim states "Do not touch my anointed!" When we consider the "transgressions" of the sacred and righteous of the generation, which would certainly be considered "mitzvahs" for us commoners, we must remain silent. At the same time, is it deeply fascinating to see the transgressions that Rabbi Chaim Friedlander considered himself to require teshuvah for - and even more interesting are the "transgressions" he invented for himself, with which those who composed the vidui texts were not even familiar (and only a "ba'al aveirah" such as he transgresses). Most interesting of all is to see the transgressions that the same lofty tzaddik knew that he did not commit at all, making it unnecessary for him to say vidui for them on Yom Kippur.

Refer to the Hebrew catalog text for a brief biography of the gaon and tzaddik Rabbi Chaim Friedlander.

35 pp, 16 cm.

Fine condition Fold marks and the sacred tears of the tzaddik and gaon.