השל״ה הקדוש

The Shelah HaKadosh, Rabbi Yeshaya HaLevi Horowitz, is the man who united in one book the three worlds of Torah: law, ethics and Kabbalah. His great book, 'Shnei Luchot HaBrit,' from which the author himself is named, is not a dry compilation of law but a whole spiritual journey, teaching the Jew how to sanctify every moment of his life.

The Shelah served in the rabbinate of the great Ashkenazi communities, foremost Prague, but his heart was always drawn to the Land of Israel. At the end of his days he went up to Safed and Tiberias, and there he is buried. The enactment of the 'Prayer of the Shelah,' a parents' prayer for their children on the eve of Rosh Chodesh Sivan, is said to this day by multitudes, and in it the whole heart of a father prays that his offspring be God-fearing.

In his book he taught that the whole person should be a 'chariot' for holiness: from rising in the morning to sleep, from eating to speech, there is no moment without the service of God. He did not separate the sacred from the mundane but taught to bring the sacred into the whole of the mundane.

What do we learn from him? That there is no 'gray' domain in a Jew's life devoid of holiness, and that the Torah seeks to penetrate every corner. The Shelah teaches that law, ethics and secret are not three separate shelves but one whole view of life, and that a father's prayer for his children, simple and burning, can be among the great things a person leaves behind.