Rav Avraham Elya Kaplan

• • Biographies and Overviews
    • In the Footsteps of Rabbi Avraham Eliyahu Kaplan on RAEK’s life and philosophy, along with translated quotations from these articles. By Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer.
    • הרב אברהם אליהו קפלן זצ”ל part 1 and part 2 (Hebrew), by Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer, from Hamaayan (Tamuz 5759 and Tishrei 5760, respectively)
    • Elul in Slabodka: From the Diary of Rabbi Avrohom Eliyahu Kaplan zt”l from RAEK’s diary. ByRabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
    • Wikipedia entry: “Avrohom Eliyahu Kaplan“
    • Hebrew Wikipedia entry: “אברהם אליהו קפלן“
• • Essays
    The following articles are scans from “Be’iqvos haYir’ah“, in PDF format:
    • Be’iqvos haYir’ah: Yir’as Hashem is not being bent over, huddled in fear. Rather, gilu bire’adah be joyful while trembling!
    • Shtei Derachim: A comparison of mussar and chassidus, centering around a story about R’ Yisrael Salanter’s encounter with the Lubavitcher Rebbe Maharash. Translation by Rabbi Nosson Ungar and Jeremy Rovinsky (and their PDF original).
    • Shetayim Shehein Achas: How can Judaism embrace both compassion and a call “Praiseworthy be the one who grabs their infants…” (Tehillim 137:9)?
    • On organizing a Commentary to Talmud Bavli (in Hebrew; off-site): R’ Avaham Elyah Kaplan’s essay introducing a proposed commenary to Sha”s.
    • Chokhmas haUmos uChokhmas Yisrael: How to treat and correlate Torah studies vs. secular studies.
    • Cowardly vs. Courageous Mussar: A letter written in 1907 (age 17, shortly after leaving Telzh for Slaboka, critiquing some Mussarists’ timidity. Idiomatic translation by Jeremy Rovinsky. followed by an image of the Hebrew.
• • Music
    • Sung by Reb Abish Brodt
      • Shakah Chamah (d/l music) — lyrics
    • Instrumentation and Played by Shabi Elashvili
      • Lador (d/l music)– lyrics, sheet music
      • Regendel (d/l music) — lyrics, sheet music
      • Shir haMaalos (d/l music) — lyrics are Tehillim 126, sheet music
• Poems
  • Tefilah, Zimri, Layeshiva
  • Shakah Chama (streaming audio, d/l)
  • Zimri, LaYeshiva
  • bshomi
  • ulai
  • ulai2
  • ulai3-lador (Lador: sheet music, streaming audio d/l)
  • haera-krach
  • sifdu-barchu
  • barchu2
  • geloibt
  • geloibt2
  • geloibt3-hoht
  • hoht2-dort
  • dort2-ahin

There was a man,
A man whose life was creation,
A man whose creation was life.

There was a man who sang and who learned and who taught,
And who thought and who rejoiced
And who loved and who grieved.

And all of his words were alive and illuminated
With the light of Avraham Avinu’s furnace,
A brilliant light that escapes from between his words
That like a hammer shatters rock,
The light of the secrets of Yisroel,
The light of the secret of the world.

And the light became life,
The light of life, a life of light.
“And he is no longer.”

Is he no longer?

Wasn’t the brilliance of his smiling eyes absorbed
In the light of my eyes, in the light of your eyes,
You, my brother in sorrow, who knew him?

Will it not happen that his image will flash out and illumine us?
Will it not happen that we will see him smiling at us?

Accompanying us in our determined pursuits, in attempts to be “alive,”
In our ascents, in the joy of our creations?

Let us impart to all who come within our precincts
From the light of his eyes, from the light of his soul.

And they will live by them.

And he will live in them.

– Dr. Fyvel Meltzer, Telzer “HaNe’eman”, 1929