Letter from Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, Author of Michtav MeEliyahu - Regarding Composing a Biography of Rabbi ...

Letter from Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, Author of Michtav MeEliyahu - Regarding Composing a Biography of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter - London, 1933
Letter handwritten and signed by R. Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, addressed to R. Shlomo Blazer. London, Shevat 1933.
Embossed stamp of R. Dessler at the top of the leaf, with his name and address in London.
This letter was written to R. Shlomo Blazer, son of R. Yitzchak Blazer of St. Petersburg, as a response to his request that R. Dessler write an article about the illustrious R. Yisrael Salanter. R. Dessler explains in this letter: "Concerning the article portraying the spiritual figure of this great Torah giant, it appears to me that we will not succeed thereby in fulfilling our obligation… and who do we have greater than the outstanding Torah scholar and Tzaddik, his father [R. Itzele Blazer], and what is found in his writings [in his book Or Yisrael, Vilna 1900, Netivot Or section] is what can be said, and who has the audacity to come after the king…". Further in the letter, he writes that in the meantime, he is enclosing a copying of four letters handwritten by his grandfather R. Yisrael Salanter, for publication.
R. Shlomo Blazer, son of R. Itzele Blazer, was the editor of Shaarei Tzion - a Torah-musar anthology which appeared in Jerusalem in 1921-1939. In the honor of the 50th yahrzeit of R. Yisrael Salanter - founder of the musar movement, an anthology entirely dedicated to his memory was published (booklets 3-5, Kislev-Shevat 1933). To this end, the editor asked R. Dessler (grandson of R. Yisrael Salanter’s daughter) to write an article about R. Yisrael. Ultimately, the anthology included the copyings of the letters which R. Dessler sent, mentioned in this letter, as well as a few lines from this letter. The complete letter was not published.
R. Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892-1953), a pious Torah scholar, was one of the leading authors of musar literature in our generation, and a descendant of R. Yisrael of Salant, founder of the musar movement. A product of the Kelm yeshiva, he was the son-in-law of R. Nachum Ze’ev Ziv of Kelm. He arrived in England in 1927 and served as rabbi of Dalston, London, later founding the Gateshead Kollel and other Torah institutes throughout England. In his final years, he served as mashgiach of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak. His profound lectures constructed upon the fundamentals of ethics, Kabbalah and Chassidism were published by his disciples in the book Sichot U’Maamarim, in the five volumes of Michtav Me’Eliyahu and in Sefer Zikaron Michtav Me’Eliyahu, which have become the basis for profound study of musar in this generation.
[1] leaf. 25.5 cm. Good condition. Folding marks. Minor creases.