Our Name

We know that Ezra Hasofer was a great leader of the Jewish people who helped lead them back to the land of Israel. Interestingly though he didn’t come from Bavel in the first wave of return. Some say he chose the remaining few years of Torah learning with his aging Rebbe Baruch ben Neriyah over the exciting prospect of joining the effort of rebuilding the Temple. Others say he didn’t want to compete with Yehoshua ben Yehotzedek who led the first wave of Jews back from Bavel. Either way his ethics were pure and well thought out.

He led the Jews through the process of tremendous sacrifice of comfort and position they had in Bavel to adjust to a new way of life in Israel. He was a man with great vision and was able to see ways to be “metakein” (to fix) major issues of disunity, intermarriage, assimilation, and a general lack of connection and purpose that the Jews experienced at that time. Externally, many Jews had returned to the land. Externally the Temple was in the process of being rebuilt. But internally and spiritually the Jews who returned were still weak.

Ezra strengthened their purity. He forged unity amongst the people with humility rather than power. He actually helped to form the “Great Assembly” and was responsible for a mass tshuvah amongst the people who joined him.