Exhibit · Plain text
The Last Light of Slabodka: Rabbi Avraham Grodzinski, 1883–1944
Seven photographs trace one life from the study halls of Lithuania to the ghettos of the Holocaust
Through seven photographs from the Rabbi Perlow Collection, this exhibit traces the life of Rabbi Avraham Grodzinski — the spiritual director of the legendary Slabodka Yeshiva in Kovno, Lithuania. From his youth as a promising scholar, through decades of guiding hundreds of students in the Mussar tradition of ethical self-examination, to his final years in the Kovno Ghetto where he was forced to shave his beard and continued teaching until his murder in July 1944.
The Last Light of Slabodka
In the early twentieth century, the suburb of Slabodka, across the river from Kovno, was home to one of the most influential institutions in the Jewish world — the Slabodka Yeshiva, crown jewel of the Mussar movement.
For over three decades, one man stood at its spiritual center. Not the rosh yeshiva who lectured on Talmud, but the mashgiach ruchani — the spiritual director — Avraham Grodzinski.
The Young Scholar
A young Avraham Grodzinski, photographed between 1909 and 1915. He had already studied under Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel — the legendary "Alter of Slabodka" — who recognized in him an unusual capacity for understanding the inner life of others.
Grodzinski formally became mashgiach of Slabodka in 1924. His approach was rooted in "gadlut ha-adam" — the greatness of the human being. Where other yeshivot focused on intellectual rigor, Slabodka insisted that every student be treated with the dignity of a king.
The Leader
By the late 1920s, Grodzinski was one of the most respected figures in Lithuanian Jewry. His gaze carries the weight of a man responsible for hundreds of young souls — and aware that the world outside the yeshiva walls was growing darker.
His World
The home of Rabbi Avraham Grodzinski in Slabodka. Nothing grand — the Mussar movement taught that material simplicity freed the mind for spiritual work. From this modest house he walked daily to the yeshiva.
Two glimpses of a private life — at a health resort, and at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.
The Last Portrait
Likely one of the last photographs taken before the war. A man who has spent a lifetime teaching others how to face whatever comes.
June 22, 1941
The yeshiva ceased to exist as an institution. But Grodzinski did not stop teaching. In the ghetto, amid hunger, forced labor, and periodic "actions" in which thousands were selected for murder, he continued to deliver mussar talks.
He taught from the same principles he had always taught. But now the words carried a weight no peacetime lecture ever could.
This photograph.
A rabbi who taught that every human being carries the image of God — photographed after the Nazis forced him to shave his beard.
Look at his eyes.
And yet — he continued teaching.
Rabbi Avraham Grodzinski was murdered during the liquidation of the Kovno Ghetto in July 1944. He was sixty-one years old.
His final mussar talks, reconstructed from survivors’ memories, were published as "Torat Avraham." The Slabodka Yeshiva was reestablished in Bnei Brak, Israel, where it continues to this day.
הי״ד
