Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe (August Wilhelm, 1914 – April 25, 2005) was a Haredi rabbi born in Berlin in the early part of the twentieth century. He is best known as the author of Alei Shur (), a musar classic discussing dimensional growth as it pertains to students of the Talmud. He died in Jerusalem in 2005.
Life and teaching positions
Shlomo Wolbe (August Wilhelm) was born in Berlin to Eugen and Rosa Wolbe. He was raised in a secular Jewish home and received his education at the University of Berlin (1930–1933). During his university studies he became a baal teshuva through the efforts of the Orthodox Students Union V.A.D. (Vereinigung jüdischer Akademiker in Deutschland). After university he attended the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary and Rabbi Joseph Breuer's yeshiva in Frankfurt. He continued to study at Rabbi Boczko's yeshiva in Montreux, Switzerland. He then attended the Mir yeshiva in Poland, where he became a student of the mashgiach ruchani, Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz, and, to a lesser extent of Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein.
While in the Mir, Wolbe befriended a young man from Stockholm, Sweden, Bert Lehmann, son of Hans (Chaim) and Fannie Lehmann. During World War II, Wolbe, who was a German national, was in danger of deportation and could not follow the Mir yeshiva into Russia. Hans Lehmann invited Wolbe to stay with his family and be the Jewish teacher for his sons. Wolbe thus was able to spend the war years in neutral Sweden. While he was in Sweden, he functioned there as a rabbi. During the war he worked for the US-based Rescue Committee in coordination with Rabbi Benjamin Jacobson. At the end of the war he created a girls school for refugees in Lidingö. There, he wrote pamphlets on Judaism in Swedish and German.
Wolbe moved to Mandatory Palestine in 1946 and studied at Yeshivas Lomzha in Petah Tikva. He then married Rivka Grodzinski, the daughter of Rabbi Avraham Grodzinski, of the Slabodka yeshiva (Rivka died on October 25, 2018), making him brothers-in-law with Hagoan Rabbi Chaim Kreiswirth of Belgium. Wolbe continued his studies at Kollel Toras Eretz Yisroel in Petach Tikva under Rabbi Yitzchok Katz. In 1948, Wolbe took over a small yeshiva belonging to a youth organization called Ezra. Two years later, he was joined by Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Brisk. The yeshiva was located in the small town of Be'er Yaakov, and was known as the . Shapiro became the rosh yeshiva and Wolbe became the mashgiach ruchani. For more than 30 years, until 1981, Wolbe served as the menahel ruchani of Yeshivas Be'er Yaakov.
Later, he served as mashgiach in the Lakewood Yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel before opening Yeshivas Givat Shaul, a house of learning specializing in mussar. During these post-1981 years, Wolbe gave mussar talks in various yeshivot as well as small groups. He created many "mussar houses." The Bais Mussar was named with the support of Manfred Lehmann (son of Hans Lehmann) in memory of Chaim (Jamie) Lehmann, who had died in 1982. Prominent amongst his many students are Rabbi Uri Weisblaum and Rabbi Reuven Leuchter, all of whom have published works of Mussar, as well as Rabbi Benjie Jacoby, who continues to successfully reach out to North American university students, bringing thousands closer to Torah.
Views on child education
Wolbe opposed hitting children; this, in light of the weakening generations in understanding the biblical verse (Proverbs 13:24) advising "spare the rod spoil the child."
Known for being a lifelong reader of many disciplines such as secular psychology and educational theory, Wolbe created his own educational philosophy for the greater community. In his important work on education Zeriah u'Binyan beChinnuch ("Planting and Building in Education") he presents an adaptation and paraphrase of John Dewey's Democracy and Education (1916), in which Dewey presented the tension of rote learning and a democratic individualism. For Wolbe, the educator needs to "build" the students on the firm ground of Torah, the community, and Haredi yeshiva values, yet at the same time allow the students to "grow," each in their own personal and individual way.
Wolbe emphasized the great stress Torah places on the individuality of every child and every situation. In his discussion of prayer he states:
Mussar approach
He published his first volume of Alei Shur in 1966, which contains his mussar ("ethics") analysis on a proper regimented life of a yeshiva student. The second volume published 20 years after the first was an intense glimpse into his actual mussar workshops for developing elevated character traits. The book contains step by step instructions and specific exercises.