Novardok yeshiva

The Novardok yeshiva in Navahrudak, then the Russian Empire, was one of the biggest and most important yeshivas in pre-World War II Europe, and a powerful force within the Mussar movement. The yeshiva was established in 1896, together with a Kollel for married men, under the direction of Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz, an alumnus of the Kovno Kollel and pupil of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. In the footsteps of his mentor, he was a staunch advocate of the Mussar approach. He was known as the der Alter fun Novardok, a Yiddish term meaning "the elder of Novardok".

The yeshiva opened with ten students. A few months later there were already fifty. A year after the yeshiva's establishment, great criticism was levelled at the study and practice of Mussar, and the opponents of that philosophy sought to close the yeshiva. They didn't succeed. By 1899, the yeshiva had swelled to 200 pupils.

After the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, the Alter ordered his students to cross the border into Poland. Many of the students were shot in the attempt; others were sent to Siberian prison camps, but six hundred made it across the border. Novardok yeshiva was re-established in Białystok under the leadership of the Alter's son-in-law, Rabbi Avraham Yoffen, it soon became the center of an entire movement. Following the doctrine of "springs flowing outward", in a few years Novardok established yeshivas all over the region, in major cities such as Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa Kherson, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Zhitomir, Berdichev, Tsaritsyn, Saratov, Plogid, Chernigov, Pinsk, Cherson, Mogilev, Kamieniec-Podolski, Nikolaev, Bălţi and Od.

The Novardok philosophy

Self-improvement

Novardok had its own unique outlook, stressing the wearing of tattered clothing and total negation of ego and the physical world. Through this the complete and total focus of a person can be on his spiritual and intellectual side. Like other Mussar schools, Novardok demanded the complete shattering of personal desires, eradicating any vestige of evil habits. For that purpose, students would carry notebooks, in which they would daily enter records of failures and achievements. Before bedtime they would check their "bookkeeping" and make plans-of-action for correcting faults. One method of "breaking" oneself was by denying oneself the rewards of a sin.

Students of Novardok participated in deliberately humiliating behaviour, such as going to a bakery and asking for a box of nails, or wearing a tie made out of hay. One pupil related that the purpose of these exercises were not to "put yourself down", as is commonly thought. The training, in fact, promoted the opposite; it gave the students the emotional freedom from the chains of public approval. They discovered that the fear of embarrassment was actually much greater than the reality. This strengthened their confidence to do the right thing, oblivious to what others might think.

Novardok network

An extension of Novardok's unconventional approach entailed the establishment of numerous branches of the yeshiva. The most elite students of the yeshiva would set out on foot to strange communities without a penny in their pockets, simultaneously abstaining from speech and not asking for a ride or even food. Upon reaching a town, they would enter the Beth Midrash, and without a word to anyone, study Torah.

With this method, Novardok established in Poland alone no less than seventy yeshivas of varying sizes. Dispatched from the yeshiva base in Białystok, teams would investigate towns and cities and evaluate their suitability for a yeshiva. The extensive Novardok network supplied half of all the students to Eastern Europe's other famous yeshivas.

In Israel

One of the Alter's star students, Rabbi Ben Tzion Bruk opened a branch of the Yeshiva in Jerusalem in the 1930's. The Yeshiva was called Bais Yoseph Novardok. Today, it is headed by his son and grandson, Rabbi Yitzchok Bruk and Rabbi Avrohom Bruk, respectively.

Post World War II

After escaping Nazi Europe, Rabbi Avraham Yoffen settled in Brooklyn, New York where he re-established his yeshiva. The faculty consisted of Rabbi Yoffen as dean, his son Rabbi Yaakov Yoffen as a lecturer, and his son-in-law Rabbi Yehuda Leib Nekritz as Mashgiach ruchani.However, the post-WWII yeshivas are run as regular yeshivas, without the unique Novardok way of education.

During the 1960s Rabbi Avraham Yoffen moved to Jerusalem and established a branch of his yeshiva in Meah Shearim. Under the leadership of the younger Rabbi Yoffen and Rabbi Nekritz, the Brooklyn branch continued to thrive and became renowned as a center for very advanced Talmudic studies.

Following Rabbi Avraham Yoffen's passing in 1970, leadership of the Jerusalem branch was assumed by his grandson the brilliant Talmudic scholar Rabbi Aaron Yoffen, the editor of the Mosad HaRav Kook edition of the Ritva's commentary to Yevamot and Nedarim. Yearly, Rabbi Yaakov Jofen would travel to Jerusalem to teach the students of his father's yeshiva.

Following Rabbi Nekritz's death and Rabbi Yaakov Yoffen's passing in 2003, the leadership of the Brooklyn-based yeshiva fell to their sons, Rabbi Mordechai Yoffen and Rabbi Tzvi Nekritz. They chose to move the Yeshiva to the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, and bringing in Rabbi Yaakov Drillman of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin as a Rosh Yeshiva.

The Jerusalem branch is headed by Rabbi Shmuel and Rabbi Eitan Yoffen, sons of Rabbi Aaron Yoffen. However, the latter is primarily a high level talmudic professor in the Mir Yeshiva of Jerusalem.

Another branch of the yeshiva, the Yeshiva of Far Rockaway in Far Rockaway, New York, is led by Rabbi Yechiel Perr, the son in law of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Nekritz. The yeshiva is named after Rabbi Yoffen's book, Derech Ayson.

Another branch in the footsteps of Novardok is Yeshiva Madreigas HaAdam in Queens, NY, named after the Alter's mussar compendium, headed by Rabbi Yoffen's grandson Rabbi Moshe Faskowitz.

Famous alumni

• Dayan Yechezkel Abramsky
• Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan
• Chaim Grade
• Rabbi Nachman Kahane
• Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman
• Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky
• Rabbi Selig Starr
• Rabbi Dr. Irving Greenberg

References

• Novogrudok reminiscences
• Rabbi Yosef Yoizel Horowitz, the Alter of Novardok