Rav Mordechai Pinchos Teitz- rov of Elizabeth, NJ . 1908 -1995 . Famous for his broadcast on American Radio in Yiddish on Motzei Shabbos . One of the Seforim - books he wrote is online thanks to www.hebrewbooks.org "Mafteiach Shel Geulah" in Yiddish by Rabbi Pinchas Teitz (Elizabeth, NJ 1948) .
This article was kindly sent to us by his daughter Rivkah Teitz Blau
HARAV MORDECHAI PINCHAS TEITZ ZT’L :
ORIGINALITY AND INSPIRATIONIN TORAH LEADERSHIP
What new ways can you think of to bring Torah to Jewish people and Jewish people to a life of Torah?
In 1953 HaRav Mordechai Pinchas Teitz saw a number of men who had studied in the beis medrash when they were young, but had become distant from the Torah of their youth. He thought they might return to Torah study if the beis medrash could be brought into their homes; the radio would be the way to welcome them back. He founded Daf Hashavua, “the page of the week,” a half-hour program of Talmud on Saturday night, beginning with Tractate Megillah.The broadcast immediately became popular not only with its target audience, but with young people as well as old, women as well as men. If a person missed a program he asked HaRav Teitz for a tape. These tapes were seven inches in diameter, designed for the reel-to-reel recorders that preceded cassette players. These are among the first instances of sharing Torah on tapes.
Soon communities in areas beyond New York and New Jersey requested the Daf Hashavua. Tapes went out to radio stations in Montreal, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles. Israeli radio picked up the program and Kol Tzion Lagolah, which penetrated behind the Iron Curtain to listeners in Russia, broadcast the shi urim. HaRav Teitz also made phonograph records under the label Bas Kol, with one side in Yiddish and the reverse in English.At annual celebrations he held in different communities from 1953 until 1988 he urged his listeners to move from a weekly page to a daily page, the Daf Yomi, and helped to spark the interest in regular gemara study.
How could we help Jews who were trapped in the former Soviet Union, forbidden to keep mitzvos or study Torah, and forbidden to emigrate as well?He thought we must visit them and bring in whatever we could to sustain Jewish life:prayer-books in Hebrew with a modern Russian translation, tefillin, mezuzos, Torah with Russian translation, books explaining Jewish law, essays on Jewish values, as well as food, medicine and whatever else they needed.He worked diplomatically for religious rights in Russia, for preservation of Jewish cemeteries and for the right to emigrate. He made 22 trips to Russia in the 1960’s and 70’s, always traveling with an American-born member of the family for safety; his native country, Latvia, had been overtaken by the Communists and he did not want them to decide he must remain in the USSR.
HaRav Teitz had demonstrated the same originality, optimism and ability to unite people for an idealistic purpose when he came to the United States in 1933. The prevailing sentiment was that only in Europe could one be observant. In Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he became the rabbi in 1935, he built a mikvah, a day school, new synagogues, all under the title of the Jewish Educational Center because education is the center of Jewish life. It became a model for making America a place of Torah. Today Elizabeth is flourishing with two mikvaos, an elementary school, boys’ and girls’ high schools, a kollel and five synagogue s in a united community.
Let us each find our own answer to the challenge: what can I do for Torah learning and Torah life?
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