[3] His father, Reuven Dov Dessler,[1] was a disciple of one of the main leaders of the Musar movement, Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, best known as the Alter (Elder) of Kelm.

His father remarried, and would become a successful timber merchant in the city of Homel over the ensuing years, although he would lose virtually his whole fortune after the Russian Revolution, which would prompt his son to relocate to England (1929).

At the age of 13[4] (in 1906), he was to be one of the youngest students at the yeshiva of Kelm, which was then being led by Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Braude, the son-in-law of the founder.

It was unusual in the sense that it provided its pupils with a secular education parallel to their religious studies, enabling them to earn a livelihood rather than having to take up rabbinic positions.

After the death of his stepmother in 1928, Dessler was obliged to accompany his father to London for medical treatment, and decided to remain in the United Kingdom.

In the early 1940s, Dessler assumed leadership of the newly formed Gateshead kollel, an institute of religious study for married men, then a novelty in Western Europe.

In the late 1940s, the leadership of the Ponevezh yeshiva in the Israeli town of Bnei Berak convinced Dessler to become mashgiach ruchani (spiritual counsellor and lecturer on ethical issues).

Most of Rabbi Dessler's work has reached the public through the pupils he reared in England and Israel, chiefly [6] Aryeh Carmell and Chaim Friedlander.

He writes that a civilization which is preoccupied with developing the external and the material, and neglects the inner moral content will eventually degenerate to its lowest possible depths.

His method in interpreting tenets of Jewish philosophy reveals an adherence to the principles of the Maharal (Rabbi Loeb of Prague, 16th century).