Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, known as Reb Elya Lazer, was born in 5652 (1892) in Homel (Gomel), today in Belarus. His father, Rabbi Reuven Dov Dessler, a leading disciple of the Alter of Kelm, Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, was a wealthy timber merchant and for many years the main financial supporter of the Kelm Talmud Torah. His mother, Chana Freidel, was a granddaughter of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, founder of the Mussar movement. He lost his mother at a young age.

Taught first by private tutors, he entered the Kelm Talmud Torah at about thirteen, under Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Broida, son-in-law of the Alter; he regarded himself all his life as a product of Kelm. He received semichah from his uncle, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski of Vilna, who rarely granted ordination. Around 1920 he married Bluma, daughter of Rabbi Nachum Zev Ziv and granddaughter of the Alter of Kelm. He declined a position as dayan in Vilna and joined the family business, which was ruined after the Russian Revolution.

In 1928 he accompanied his father to London for medical treatment and decided to stay in England, serving as rabbi in the East End and then in Dalston. Realizing he should focus on a few gifted students, he gathered a small circle of young men. In the early 1940s he took on the spiritual leadership of the newly founded Gateshead kollel, then a novelty in Western Europe, also raising its funds while taking no salary himself.

In 1947, at the invitation of Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, he became mashgiach of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak. His mussar discourses, drawing on the Maharal, the Ramchal and the Tanya, shaped a generation of students. Works: Michtav MeEliyahu, a collection of his writings, talks and letters on faith and mussar, edited after his death by his students Rabbi Aryeh Carmell and Rabbi Chaim Friedlander and later published in English as Strive for Truth; it develops the concept of the "point of free choice" (nekudat habechirah) and a profound treatment of kindness (Kuntres HaChessed).

He died suddenly of a heart attack on 25 Tevet 5714 (December 31, 1953) and is buried in the Shomrei Shabbat cemetery in Zichron Meir, Bnei Brak. His son, Rabbi Nachum Zev Dessler, founded the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland.