STRELISK, URI BEN PHINEHAS OF

STRELISK, URI BEN PHINEHAS OF (d. 1826), disciple of R. Solomon of karlin . Opposed to wonder-workers, Uri b. Phinehas required ethical perfection from his Ḥasidim. His ecstatic manner of praying brought him the name Ha-Saraf (the seraph). It was said of him that every day before saying his prayers he bade farewell to his wife and family for fear that he might die of ecstasy in the middle of his devotions. Once he said, "In the Torah there are 600,000 letters; and there are 600,000 souls among the People of Israel; and just as the Torah scroll is unfit for use if one letter is missing, so the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) does not rest upon the people if one soul is missing from Israel." His book is entitled Imrei Kadosh (1871). His son, R. Solomon, died several months after his father's death and Uri b. Phinehas's outstanding student, R. Judah Ẓevi Stretyn , inherited Uri's post. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dubnow, Ḥasidut, index; L.I. Newman, Ḥasidic Anthology (1963), index; M. Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, 2 (19663), 145–9. (Zvi Meir Rabinowitz)