Central Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitz

Tomchei Temimim (????? ?????? = "supporters of the pure ones") is the central Yeshiva (Talmudical academy) of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. Founded in 1896 in the town of Lubavitch by Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, it is now a worldwide network of institutions of advanced Torah study.

History

Towards the late 1800s, the position of traditional Orthodox Judaism was declining. Various new movements eroded the traditional fabric of Jewish life, notably the Haskalah and Zionism. Many students were being lured away from a traditional yeshiva education to gymnasiums and universities. Even within the yeshiva framework, times had changed; no longer was the atmosphere one of exclusive devotion to Judaism, according to which Torah study has traditionally been 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, and ultimately join these secular movements.

Against this backdrop, Rabbi Sholom DovBer believed it necessary to found a new type of yeshiva, one which would regularly study Hasidic philosophy (Chassidus) according to the Chabad tradition, and thereby inoculate its students against the heretical views spreading through the Orthodox Jewish world. Moreover, he expressed his confidence that the students of this yeshiva (whom he termed "temimim" ??????; sing. "tamim" ???? = pure, perfect) would be suitably prepared to overcome the problems plaguing the yeshiva community and Jewry in general.

Chaotic times

In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russia; within a short time, virtually any kind of formal Jewish education was outlawed by the new Communist rulers. The yeshiva took to operating underground, with teachers facing harsh penalties if caught: sentences of ten or more years 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.

Tomchei Temimim (????? ?????? = "supporters of the pure ones") is the central Yeshiva (Talmudical academy) of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. Founded in 1896 in the town of Lubavitch by Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, it is now a worldwide network of institutions of advanced Torah study.