Pushke, Pushke, on the Wall   

Rav Chaim of Volozhin began employing these methods to expand the Volozhin yeshivah’s fundraising, distributing pushkes as far away as England. Designated gabbaim and shadarim (shelucha d’rabbanan) made occasional rounds to collect the pushkes’ contents. Because Rav Chaim and later his son Rav Itzeleh oversaw collections in Lithuania for both the Volozhin yeshivah and the Eretz Yisrael scholars, the two pushkes were not seen as competing with each other.

In White Russia, collections for the Holy Land were overseen by Chabad leaders, while in Ukraine and Galicia they were administered by local tzaddikim. Eretz Yisrael was then part of the Ottoman Empire, a geopolitical rival of Russia; when international tensions flared up, donations were collected in the name of yeshivos generally, and the funds were passed on clandestinely to the Holy Land. Participation in this scheme put Russian rabbis in constant danger; at different times both the Baal HaTanya and the Netziv of Volozhin were arrested.

Later in the 19th century, pushkes crossed the Atlantic, necessitating further clarification on their distribution. A din Torah decades earlier had allowed the Mir yeshivah to put out its own pushkes, determining that it was not an encroachment on Volozhin’s territory. But in 1888, the great Kovno Rav, Rav Yitzchok Elchonon Spektor, issued a psak that only Kupas Rav Meir Baal Haness pushkes were authorized for collections on behalf of the poor in Eretz Yisrael.

Concerned that this would affect collections for yeshivos, the rabbi of Mir, Rav Yom Tov Lipman, along with rosh yeshivah Rav Chaim Leib Tiktinsky, requested that Rav Yitzchok Elchonon clarify his position on their pushkes as well. Rav Spektor issued a letter along with Rav Dovid Karliner and the Minsker Gadol, Rav Yerucham Yehuda Leib Perelman, permitting the Mir and Volozhin yeshivos to continue distributing their pushkes wherever they saw fit.