Philosophical Approach
Despite his influence, he was an intensely private person. Yet, he personally oversaw the complete student body of the yeshiva.
His motto was summed up in the words Gadlus HaAdam ("Greatness of Man"). He stressed the need for mussar (ethics), using works such as those of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, polishing the character traits of his students so that they would aspire to become gedolim - "great ones" in all areas of both scholarship, and personal ethics .
He spent ten out of every twelve months with his students full time, only returning to his wife for the Jewish holidays. He had special agents that would keep an eye out all over Europe for teenagers with an aptitude for both scholarship and leadership, recruiting them and bringing them back to Slobodka. He attained unusual success, and his students subsequently reflected that he was a master of the human psyche and knew just which psychological buttons to press to give direction to his students' lives.
He would monitor the extracurricular behavior of students judging their character faults and strengths. He was responsible for deciding which boys would share rooms together, weighing the strengths of one against the other. Some were chosen to be his personal assistants. He stressed the importance of outer appearance and the need for neatness and cleanliness. He did not want the image of the poor, tattered, down-trodden yeshiva bochur (yeshiva student) to be associated with the alumni of his institution. The rabbinical and Talmudical graduates of the Slobodka Yeshiva tried to live up to a higher code of dress and deportment, to the point of being accused of being dandies.
He would send teams of his trained prized pupils to places that needed a boost in religious observance and learning of Torah. His own son, Eliezer Yehudah (Lazer Yudel) Finkel eventually became the head of the far older Mir yeshiva, eventually leading it all the way to Jerusalem where it is today the largest post-high school yeshiva in the world with thousands of students.
Read more about this topic: Nosson Tzvi Finkel (Slabodka)
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