The Gerer - full name:
Kotsk-Ger - sect of
Hasidic Judaism was founded in 1859 in the town of
Gora Kalwaria, Poland- known to the Jews as "
Gur". The first Gerer Rebbe was
Rabbi Itzchok Meir Alter (1789-1866), the author of
Hidushey haRim ("Insights of R.I.M."). Rabbi Itzchok was known as the emperor of Polish
Hasidism, and the town hosted many
pilgrims to his court.
The most famous of the series of Gerer Rebbies was
Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Gur (1847-1905), author of the
Sfas Emes, a collection of Biblical
homilies. This book established the tenets of Gerer
philosophy, in which
God's Inner Light is concealed by his own
Tzimzum (reduction) and the outer trappings of
Teva (nature), and a Jew's mission is to separate himself from the natural world so that God's spirit can once again flow into it.
In 1940, the Gerer
Rebbe Mordecai Abraham Alter fled to
Palestine, and reestablished his community in the
Mea Shearim section of
Jerusalem. There are also Gerer communities in
Bnei Brak, Israel and
Borough Park, Brooklyn. The current Gerer Rebbe is
Rabbi Yaacov Alter. He wields not a little power in Israel, as the Gerer Rebbe traditionally holds the chairmanship of
Agudat Yisrael's Council of Torah Sages, an Orthodox political party which decides issues of
policy and
representation.
Gerer garb varies from the typical Hasidic one in that the
shtreimel, or fur hat, is of the
spudik, or "tall" variety.
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