Tomchei Temimim

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Tomchei Temimim is the central Yeshiva (Talmudical school) of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement. Founded in 1896 in the town of Lubavitch by Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, it is presently a wide network of institutions of higher Torah learning around the world.

1 History
2 Chaotic times
3 Today
4 See also

[edit] History

Towards the late 1800s, the position of traditional Orthodox Judaism was declining. Various new movements eroded the traditional fabric of Jewish life; the Haskalah, Zionism, and others had made serious inroads into Jewish life. Many students were being lured away from a traditional yeshiva education to [[Gymnasium (school)|gymnasiums]] and universities. Even within the yeshiva framework, times had changed; no longer was the atmosphere one of exclusive devotion to Judaism, where Torah study was not simply an acquisition of another science, but an end in itself. The winds of Enlightenment were blowing; students were reading books considered heretical by the yeshivot, and were for the first time exposed to ideas at odds with Orthodox Judaism. It was not uncommon for students to flagrantly violate basic Jewish laws.

Against this backdrop, Rabbi Sholom DovBer believed it necessary to found a new type yeshiva, one in which he hoped that the study of Hasidism would inoculate its students against the heretical views spreading through the camp. Moreover, he indicated his trust that the students of this yeshiva would be suitably prepared to counter the problems plaguing the yeshiva community and Judaism in general.

[edit] Chaotic times

In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russia; within a short time, virtually any kind of formal Jewish education was made illegal by the new Communist rulers. The yeshiva took to operating underground, with teachers facing harsh penalties if they were caught: sentences of ten years or more of hard labor in Siberia, or a merciful death at the hands of a firing squad. Tens of young rabbis paid the ultimate price for continuing the survival of Judaism in the Soviet Union, at any cost.

When Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn (the Rebbe Rayatz) exited the Soviet Union in 1927, the yeshiva reestablished itself in Warsaw and later in Otwock, Poland. When in the course of World War II the Rebbe was safely evacuated to New York, the yeshiva was reestablished there, where it remains to this day.

[edit] Today

The central Yeshiva is housed today in Lubavitch World Headquarters, at 770 Eastern Parkway, with approximately four hundred students. Branches of the yeshiva, formally independent but recognized to be part of one global network, are to be found in major cities in the United States, Europe, South Africa, Australia and the former Soviet Union, aside from a distinct network of yeshivot in Israel, and all the branches perform the functions necessary to grant ordination to its students. The predominant majority of graduates of Tomchei Temimim continue working within Chabad Lubavitch, in Chabad Houses or in education.