Novardhok - A revolution against desire

a Former Novardhoker tells us how it was in the old days. I guess he forgot what they taught him there, eh?

By Shmuel Ben-Artzi (Sarah Netanyahu's - wife of Bibi - father)

Buy it here.

"We would go to a pharmacy and request nails, or ask for butter at a haberdashery, in order to get used to not being ashamed. Or we would do things to 'break our will' - we would get meat and potatoes for lunch, and we were supposed to eat the potato and leave the meat."

The most extreme yeshiva was Novardok. This, no doubt, was due to the personality of its founder, Rabbi Yosef Yoizel Horowitz. In his youth, he was considered a rascal who was often truant, but a chance meeting with Rabbi Salanter (at a relatively late age, when he was already married) led him to leave his family and business and devote himself to studying Torah and morals - despite the vociferous objections of his father and the rabbi. After his wife died, he became even more ascetic. He sent his children to live with other families and became a hermit in the home of a tinsmith, who supplied all his needs. For a year and half, he did not leave his room, not even to go to the synagogue - he observed all the religious precepts there, even blowing the shofar on the Jewish New Year by himself. Eventually he married the tinsmith's daughter, and only later was he persuaded to spread his doctrine through a yeshiva.

I now see that mentalblog has something on Novardok now too. Wasn't he supposed to be on break? again?

Some great WWI photos in Novardhok