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<font size=3>At 02:17 PM 11/5/2018, R Micha wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">HaMagid was an shomer Shabbos
*Haskalishe* newspaper. For example,<br>
they did a piece on Yom Tov Lipman Lipkin's (a/k/a Lipman
Yisroelovitch<br>
Lipkin, as he was registered under) going to college for a degree in<br>
math, and praising R' Yisrael Salanter for being liberal enough to let
it<br>
happen. (In reality, there is no indication RYS agreed to the
decision.<br>
And the son ends up OTD, so at some point father and son part
hashkafic<br>
ways.)</font></blockquote><br>
He did not agree with nor approve of his son's decision to
get a college education.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
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<dd><font size=3>From The Mussar Movement, Volume 1, Part 1 pages 313 -
314.</font>
<dd><font size=3>R. Israel, however, was deeply distressed that his son
had abandoned the study of Torah, since the son had excelled so well in
it in his youth. The father derived no comfort at all from the son's
remarkable achievements in the world of science, and cut off his support
during all the son's student years. R. Israel exerted every effort to
restore his son to Torah study. When Hamaggid reported in 1865, that
"Mr. Lipkin was on his way to Koenigsberg to engage in advanced
research, "the editor added that this was the son of R. Israel of
Salant, and that he was "a pride to his saintly father, the Gaon, as
well, may he live, who did not prevent the son from attending lectures at
university, and so to integrate Torah and science, for the greater glory
of the sons of our people." A few weeks later the same periodical
(No. 11) carried a letter over the signature of R. Israel with these
remarks: "Since Truth is the lamp at the feet of the righteousness
that goes about on earth, I find it my duty publicly to proclaim that no
glory accrues to me, as the slip of your pen would seem to indicate, in
respect of my son. On the contrary, to me this is a 'bitterness of the
spirit'. My heart grieves at the path which my son has wanted to set for
himself. Whoever loves his soul and has the power to persuade him, to
turn his desire not to run counter to my will and wishes, will do a great
favor to one as depressed in spirit as I am today".<br>
<dd>Nor was there any contradiction between R. Israel's personal attitude
and his simultaneous efforts to spread Judaism in academic circles. There
was nothing in his views to prevent him from trying to infiltrate Torah
inside the walls of the university and to influence students.
Furthermore, he employed every means at his disposal to guard his son
against straying from Judaism. He journeyed specially to St. Petersburg
to extract a three-fold promise: that his son would observe Shabbat,
refrain from eating trefah food, and not shave. [27] He would say that
were he able to disguise himself as a woman, he would go to work in the
restaurant patronized by his son, so as to supervise the kashrut. He also
requested R. Isaac Blazer, then rabbi in St. Petersburg, by mail, to keep
an eye on the son. [28] In this way, it is said, the son remained a loyal
Jew.<br>
<dd>[27.] As related by Rabbi A. D. Berkovsky. Presumably this was the
journey to St. Petersburg undertaken that year, 1872, as mentioned above,
in connection with his political activities. R. Naftali Amsterdam is
reputed to have related that, when R. Israel was in St. Petersburg,
several of the university professors remarked to the son that they would
want to see what made his father so great. The son suggested that they
ask his father the most difficult question in geometry they could
propound. They submitted a problem which had engaged their minds at that
time. R. Israel studied it for a few minutes, and solved it to the
astonishment of all the specialists in the field (told by R. Abraham
Braude).
<dd>[28.] R. Israel's last letter to R. Isaac Blazer concerning his son's
conduct elicited the reply that the son had not tasted gentile baked
bread for the past three months R. Israel understood this to imply that
his son had been dead for three months, since no other bread was
available in the capital.<br>
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