Shmuel Alexandrov

Rabbi Shmuel Alexandrov of Bobruisk (Hebrew: שמואל אלכסנדרוב; 1865–1941) was a prominent student of the Volozhin Yeshiva, who became close to the tradition of Chabad Hasidism. Alexandrov was a Jewish Orthodox mystical thinker, philosopher and anarchist, whose religious thought, an original blending of Kabbalah, Orthodox Judaism, contemporary philosophy and secular literature, are marked by universalism and some degree of antinomianism.[1][2] His works include פך השמן ("the Oil Jug"), a commentary on Pirkey Avot, and a large collection of essays, מכתבי מחקר וביקורת ("Letters of Research and Investigation"). Alexandrov was influenced by the anarchistic implications of the work of Rav Kook (the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine), from which he sought to derive practical instruction.[3] Another influence on Alexandrov was Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov.[4] Alexandrov lived all his life in Bobruisk and was murdered in the Holocaust.[5]

Shmuel Alexandrov
Shmuel Alexandrov c. 1920
Born26 December 1865
Borisov, Belarus
Died7 November 1941(1941-11-07) (aged 75)
Babruysk, Belarus
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionJewish philosophy
SchoolJewish Mysticism
Chabad philosophy

See also

Further reading
  • “Shmuel Alksandrov”, Sefer Bobruisk (Bobruoisk book), ed. Yehuda Slutski Tel-Aviv, 1967, vol. 1, p. 322
  • Mikhail Agursky, “Universalist Trends in Jewish Religious Thought”, Immanuel 18 (Fall 1984), pp. 49–51
  • A. Greenboim, Rabanei Brit-ha-Moetsot bein milkhamot ha-olam (Rabbis in the Soviet Union between the World Wars), Jerusalem: The Institute for Research and Documentation of East-European Jewry, 1994, p. 10.

References
  1. Luz, Ehud 1981 "Spiritualism and religious anarchism in the teaching of Shmuel Alexandrov" (Hebrew). Daat, no. 7 (summer): 121–138.
  2. Argusky, Mikhail. "Universalist Trends in Jewish Religious Thought: Some Russian Perspectives". Jewish-Christian Relations. Retrieved 2 March 2008.
  3. Ish, Shalom (1993). Rav Avraham Itzhak Hacohen Kook. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-1369-1.
  4. Konstantin Burmistrov (Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia) On the History of Russian-Jewish Intellectual Relations: Vladimir Solovyev and Rabbi Shmuel Alexandrov
  5. Bar-Yosef, Hamutal. "The Jewish Reception of Vladimir Solovyov". In von Zweerde, Ewert (ed.). Vladimir Solovyov: Reconciler and Polemicist. Archived from the original on 11 June 2011. Retrieved 2 March 2008.


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