Letter from Rabbi Chaim HaLevi Soloveitchik of Brisk - Regarding the Torat Chesed Yeshiva in Brisk - "…To be ...

Letter from Rabbi Chaim HaLevi Soloveitchik of Brisk - Regarding the Torat Chesed Yeshiva in Brisk - "…To be Blessed from Heaven with Good, Lengthy Years of Life, Happiness and Wealth, Much Blessing and All Good Forever"
Letter signed by R. Chaim HaLevi Soloveitchik Rabbi of Brisk. Brisk D'Lita (Brest-Litovsk, today: Brest, Belarus), Cheshvan 1908.
Addressed to Dr. Avraham Eliyahu Harkavy, the letter confirms receipt of funds donated to the yeshiva via the emissary R. Binyamin Ze'ev Chusiczer, with an appeal to continue "upholding this yeshiva, which comprises a large group of excellent, exceptional students, who toil diligently over Torah study with strength. Some are sons of the poor, from whom Torah will emerge, and whose parents cannot afford to support them, therefore large sums are required to provide them with all their needs". R. Chaim praises and blesses the supporters: "Fortunate is the lot of those who support them, who merit and benefit many with the light of Torah… and may he receive his full recompense from G-d, to be blessed with good and lengthy years of life, happiness and wealth, much blessing, and all good forever". The entire letter is written by a scribe, apart from the concluding line: "One who esteems him, Chaim HaLevi Soloveitchik".
R. Chaim HaLevi Soloveitchik (1853-1918), rabbi of Brisk, was a foremost Torah scholar in Lithuania and one of the leaders of his generation. He is considered the initiator of the learning method in Lithuanian yeshivot. Son of R. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, the Beit HaLevi, and son-in-law of R. Refael Shapiro, dean of the Volozhin yeshiva and son-in-law of the Netziv. After his marriage, he began serving as the third dean of the Volozhin yeshiva (the disciples of R. Chaim from that period include: R. Baruch Ber Leibowitz, R. Shimon Yehuda Shkop and R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski). With R. Refael's move in 1881 to Babruysk, R. Chaim was appointed second yeshiva dean in his place. After the passing of his father the Beit HaLevi in 1894, he succeeded him as rabbi of Brisk, and continued teaching Torah to a small group of elite students who gathered to absorb his teachings (behind the scenes, R. Chaim also directed the Torah Chesed yeshiva in Brisk, which was intended for slightly younger students). These disciples later disseminated his study method in all Lithuanian yeshivot, orally and in writing. Many of his novellae circulated orally within Lithuanian yeshivot, transmitted and copied by many writers (some were later printed in the stencil edition of Chiddushei HaGrach, published in Eretz Israel ca. the 1950s).
R. Chaim founded the Torah Chesed yeshiva in Brisk in the late 1890s. He first appointed R. Simcha Zelig Reguer, posek in Brisk, as its dean, and later R. Moshe Soloveitchik of Brisk, author of Imrei Moshe. This yeshiva operated until the Holocaust. (Its renowned alumni, from its final years, include: R. Moshe Soloveitchik of Switzerland, his colleague R. Aharon Yehuda Leib Steinman, R. Ze'ev Eidelman of Bnei Brak, and many other leading scholars of the yeshiva world).
[1] leaf. 25.5 cm. Very good condition. Stamps of "Yeshiva Torat Chesed, Brisk", and of the rabbi of the city, R. "Chaim HaLevi Soloveitchik - Brisk".