Avigdor Miller

Avigdor HaKohen Miller (August 28, 1908 – April 20, 2001) was an American Haredi rabbi, author, and lecturer.

He served simultaneously as a communal rabbi, mashgiach ruchani (spiritual supervisor) of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, and as a teacher in Beis Yaakov.

In 1932, at the age of 24, Miller arrived in Europe to study at the Slabodka yeshiva in Slabodke, Lithuania, where he was greeted personally by Avraham Grodzinski, the mashgiach ruchani (spiritual supervisor).

While there, he studied under Sher.

As a student in Slabodka, Miller was so diligent in his studies that he wore out his shirtsleeves over the lectern he was using.

He was compelled to wear a coat during the summer, in order to conceal the multitude of overlapping patches that were his trousers.

Rabbi Shulman of Slabodka, a son-in-law of Sher, introduced Miller to Ettel Lessin, daughter of Yaakov Moshe HaCohen Lessin of Slabodka (later mashgiach in RIETS).

They were married in 1935.

In 1938, due to the rise of Nazism and the tensions leading up to World War II, Miller sought to return to the United States with his wife and two sons.

The American consul in Kovno at the time was a public high-school classmate and acquaintance of Miller's from Baltimore.

He arranged passage for Miller's wife and children, who were not United States citizens.

Upon returning to the U.S., Miller became rabbi of Congregation Agudath Shalom in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

Initially, the community was taken aback by Miller's audacious pedagogy, and the sheer volume of his Torah presentations, attempting in vain to restrain his unconventional approach.

Within a few years, however, the community had changed their minds, desiring for Miller to stay longer.

Miller received special dispensation to refrain from sending his young sons to public school.

Instead, he had them tutored privately in secular subjects, and taught them Jewish studies himself.

His sons still needed to appear at the public school twice a year for testing.

This arrangement seemed to Miller to not be ideal; so, he began to look for a community with a stronger Jewish presence.

In 1944, Yitzchak Hutner, rosh yeshiva (dean) of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, hired Miller to become its mashgiach ruchani, in which position he served until 1964.

In 1945, he assumed the pulpit of the Young Israel of Rugby in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.

After his son opened Yeshiva Beis Yisrael in 1986, Miller served as its rosh yeshiva (dean).

Miller was an American-born, European trained rabbi immersed in the demanding Lithuanian academic and mussar traditions.

As one of the earlier prominent rabbis to use the medium of tape to distribute Torah lectures to the public, he reached a broad audience.

Avigdor Miller was born Victor Miller in Baltimore, Maryland.

He was a kohen, his father's name was Yisroel.

Although he attended public school, only Yiddish was spoken at home.

After school, he attended an afternoon Talmud Torah.

When he finished his regular classes at the Talmud Torah, the school arranged for him to learn privately with Avrohom Eliyahu Axelrod, a Lubavitcher Hasid.

The Talmud Torah was unable to pay Axelrod, but he continued to teach Miller anyway.

Miller would never forget that Axelrod taught him without being paid, and spoke about him with appreciation.

At age 14, Miller went to New York City to attend Yeshivas Rabbenu Yitzchok Elchonon, at the time the only American high school offering high-level Jewish learning.

After this, he enrolled in Yeshiva College.

He graduated from both Yeshiva College and Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), attaining a B.A. and rabbinical ordination, respectively.

While a student at Yeshiva College, Miller joined a chavurah (study group) together with a few other young men to study Mussar from the sefer Mesillas Yesharim.

The organizer of the chavurah, which met in Miller's dormitory room, was Yaakov Yosef Herman, a builder of Orthodox Judaism in New York City of the early 20th century.

Some of the men in this group, which included Nosson Meir Wachtfogel, Yehuda Davis, and Mordechai Gifter, would go on to become notable Haredi rabbis in their own right.

Herman encouraged Miller to travel to Europe to learn Torah in the yeshivas there.

Miller met Isaac Sher, the son-in-law of Nosson Tzvi Finkel, who was in New York collecting funds for the Slabodka yeshiva at the time.

Sher did not raise much money, since this was during the Great Depression.

But Sher would later declare this to be his most successful trip to America, since he was able to recruit and bring such a bright student to Slabodka.