Lot 340
Teacher’s Certificate Signed by Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch of Telz, Author of Shiurei Daat - 1926
Certificate of accreditation as an Orthodox teacher, hand-signed by R. Yosef Leib Bloch, dean of the Telz yeshiva. [Telz (Telšiai)], Kislev 1926.
"As I have heard and as I know for several years… R. Lipman Rakow from Frankfurt, I affirm… that he is fit to be a lecturer and teacher in the Rabbinical seminary in Germany, of all Hebrew and religious subjects… Yosef Leib Bloch". At the foot of the leaf, a confirmation handwritten, signed and stamped by R. Dr. Yaakov Hoffmann, rabbi and yeshiva dean in Frankfurt am Main. December 1926.
R. Yosef Yehuda Leib Bloch (1859-1929), a student of Volozhin and Kelm, a foremost leader of the musar movement and one of its noblest members. He married the daughter of R. Eliezer Gordon of Telz and was appointed lecturer and mashgiach in his yeshiva. After the first musar polemic, he left the yeshiva and went to serve as rabbi in Vorne (Varniai) and Shadova (Šeduva). Upon his father-in-law’s passing in 1910, he returned to Telz and succeeded him as rabbi and yeshiva dean. R. Yosef Yehuda Leib Bloch was the forerunner of the Telz approach to study and musar. The study method he implemented in his yeshiva was continued by his sons, grandsons and followers, in Telz yeshivot in Lithuania and in the United States. His teachings were published in the books Shiurei Halacha and Shiurei Daat. Recipient of the certificate: R. Yom Tov Lipman Rakow (1884-1950), native of Lithuania and one of the finest products of its yeshivot. From 1920, he lectured in R. Breuer’s yeshiva in Frankfurt am Main, and after a year, left to teach in the yeshiva of R. Hoffman in Frankfurt am Main, a position he held for close to 20 years (the reason R. Rakow needed this certificate in 1926, after actively serving as teacher and lecturer in the yeshiva in Frankfurt for several years, is unclear. R. Rakow was also not a student of the seminary for Orthodox teachers in Telz, established after WWI). At the outbreak of WWII, he moved to London where he continued teaching Torah in yeshivot. His sons were R. Benzion Rakow - dean of the Chayei Olam yeshiva in London, and R. Betzalel Rakow - renowned rabbi of the British Torah center, Gateshead. His biography is recorded in the Orchot Yesharim books (London, 1991-1997).
[1] leaf, official stationery. 28.5 cm. Good-fair condition. Tears and wear to margins.
