Yitzchak Ginsburgh

Yitzchak Feivish Ginsburgh (Hebrew: יצחק פייוויש גינזבורג; born 14 November 1944) sometimes referred to as "the Malakh" is an American-born Israeli rabbi affiliated with the Chabad movement.

Ginsburgh was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1944, the only child of Shimshon Ya'akov and Bryna Malka (nee Dunie) Ginsburgh.

He was considered a child prodigy in music and mathematics.

Both of his grandfathers were Chabad chassidim.

His parents had a great affinity to their Jewish roots and a love of the Land of Israel.

His father immigrated to Israel as a young man, where he was one of the founders of the City of Ra'anana, but returned to the USA to complete his higher education.

His return to Israel was delayed when the Second World War broke out and he remained in the USA, where he married Ginsburgh's mother.

His father held a PhD in education and served as principal of a number of Jewish schools.

The family later moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where Ginsburgh grew up until the age of 14, when his parents spent a year in Israel while his father wrote his doctorate on teaching the Hebrew language.

During their year in Israel, the young Ginsburgh studied at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Rechavia, where he learned Hebrew and began his path to Torah study by reading Ethics of the Fathers, which left a great impression upon him.

Upon their return to Philadelphia, he met the Rebbe of the Nadvorna Chassidic dynasty, Rabbi Meir Isaacson, author of the Mevasser Tov responsa, and at the age of 15 became a baal teshuva.

He attended the University of Chicago, majoring in mathematics and philosophy.

He then completed a Masters in Mathematics at the Belfer Graduate School of Science of Yeshiva University.

At the age of 20, he abandoned his doctorate studies to devote himself entirely to Torah study.

In 1965, he returned to Israel and studied at the Yeshivah of Kamenitz in Jerusalem.

He spent 1966 through 1967 at the Slonim shul in Tiberias.

After the Six-Day War, Ginsburgh went to Jerusalem and was one of the first to move into the old Jewish quarter.

There, together with his future father-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Zvi Segal, he began renovating the ruins, sleeping at night in the Tzemach Tzedek synagogue.

In the summer of 1967, he went to the Torat Emet Chabad yeshivah in Jerusalem, where he studied the Chabad school of Chassidus in depth.

That year he visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and remained in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for several months.

There, he was accepted for private audience with the Rebbe, whose guidance became his leading influence.

When he returned to Israel, he married Rabbi Segal's daughter, Romemia.

They lived in Jerusalem, where Ginsburgh studied with Reb Asher Freund, helping to establish Freund's charity organization, Yad Ezrah.

He also took part in founding Freund's Or Yerushalaim yeshivah in Jerusalem, where he taught Talmud, Shulchan Aruch, and Chassidut.

During this period, a kernel of students developed around him.

In 1971, following an instruction from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he moved with his wife and growing family to Kfar Chabad.

In 1973, at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, under instruction from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Ginsburgh visited the warfront to transmit the Rebbe's blessing to officer Ariel Sharon, who later became 11th Prime Minister of Israel.

The next morning, after a successful battle, Ginsburgh presented Sharon with a lulav and etrog.

In 1996 he was regarded as one of Chabad's leading authorities on Jewish mysticism.

He is the leader of the Derech Chaim Movement and founder of the Gal Einai Institute, which publishes his written works.

His students include Charedim, religious Zionists, and Chabad Chassidim, as well as ba'alei teshuvah.

He is currently the president of a number of educational institutions, including the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the settlement of Yitzhar in the West Bank.

Ginsburgh has lectured in various countries, and throughout Israel.

His teachings cover subjects including science, psychology, marital harmony and monarchy in Israel.

He has published over 100 books in Hebrew and English, most of which are edited by his students.

Ginsburgh is a musician and composer.

Some of his music has been performed by Israeli musicians.

His students include Torah scholars, academics and musicians.

Some of his statements regarding the differences between Jews and non-Jews have aroused controversy.

Ginsburgh and his students have responded to the controversy by saying that his use of concepts taken from Chassidut and Kabbalah are far removed from the language that the media has adopted.