Yeshivas Kol Torah and the entire Torah world were plunged into mourning with the passing of Hagaon Rabbi Avraham Erlanger, known as the Birkas Avraham for his set of commentaries and novellae which cover the entire Talmud. Rabbi Erlanger had been hospitalized in Shaarei Tzedek hospital suffering from coronavirus and passed away Sunday night in his 90th year. In the last year Kol Torah lost two other Rosh Yeshivas to coronavirus- Rabbi Yehezkel Koren Ztz’l and Rabbi Shalom Povarsky Zts’l.

Rabbi Avrohom Erlanger was born in December 1931 in Lucerne, Switzerland. His father rabbi Shimshon Refoel was a prominent member of the local community and his grandfather Rabbi Avraham Erlanger who founded the community was a disciple of Rabbi Yitzhok Dov Halevi Bamberger.

Rabbi Erlanger’s mother, Toibe nee Varschner, attended the Knessia Gedola in Vienna and met with Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, who was so impressed that he said she is a great woman and people should stand before her. His mother, who died young, said that she was not afraid to die since “a mouth and ear which did not hear or speak even “dust” of Loshon Hora need not fear anything.

Rabbi Erlanger studied in the Lucerne yeshiva and then in Gateshead where he studied under Rabbi Leib Gurwicz. In Gateshead he was known as the “student who knows Nashim and Nezikin fluently.”... Read More: Vosizneias.com