Rabbi Dov Mayanei (1883-1942) was one of the senior students of the Grandfather of Slobodka, a proponent of the 'Gedelot Adam' method and a faithful follower of his talks. Due to his eloquence, he was among the few who were allowed to record his moral talks.
He was the closest student of Rabbi Avraham Eliyahu Kaplan of the Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin and his soulmate. He mastered eight languages, played the piano wonderfully, was a gracious orator, and during his rabbinate - a halachic arbiter - a man of faith of the Chazon Ish.
Even in his youth, he was a protégé of the great moralist Rabbi Yerucham Leibowitz of Mir, with whom he was associated for many years. He studied in the yeshiva of Rabbi Shimon Shkop in Grodno, who was destined for greatness, and was a member of all the Lithuanian yeshivahs of those days. He stayed in the yeshivahs of Kelm, Radin, Vilna, Mir, Novorodok, and others, and everywhere he left behind students and admirers.
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He was a disciple of the Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, and was one of the leaders of the Slobodka Yeshiva, which immigrated and settled in Hebron, where he was among the group of "alterers" and was the mentor of the young Simcha Zissel Broida, later the head of the Hebron Yeshiva.
During those years, the unique and special friendship with Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner - later one of the greats of the Lithuanian yeshiva world in America - author of "Pahad Yitzhak" was also formed.
He served as the rabbi of the Magdiel settlement (now Hod Hasharon) and devoted himself to community work with all his heart and soul. At the same time, throughout his rabbinate, he worked on a national and global scale. His travels to various communities around the world to strengthen Judaism spanned Europe and America.
In his personality, the different Lithuanian and Hasidic worlds merged into one. His image as a Lithuanian rabbi dressed in a tailcoat but also wearing a Hasidic girdle, which he received personally from his friend the Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz, was extraordinary. He was also a household name in the courts of Gur and other Rebbes. His skills as an orator and poet, along with his musical talents in singing, playing instruments and composing, were well-known. He was predicted to be crowned the leader of the next generation, but he did not make it. At the age of forty-nine, his stipend ran out. It turns out that Moses' cry to life: "Let me pass over and see" was also the cry that accompanied him throughout his life.
""Please Pass" is a new book written by his daughter Rivka Manowitz-Ma'ani, which is currently being published by the Rabbi Kook Institute and reveals the secret of his life for the first time, following the discovery of the hidden archive of his letters. This is a fascinating non-fiction book and an important historical document. The title of the book, which is also the title of Rabbi Ma'ani's famous song, which he composed and sang in his youth, expresses the plea of someone who knew that he had been given a limited gift of life and begged for it to be revoked, but he was not answered. Exactly at the end of his allowance, which he had received ten years earlier, on that very Shabbat, his soul returned to his Creator.
This song, along with other melodies he sang, his complete epistles, essays, and Torah sayings – are on the CD attached to the book.
