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7 Nissan 5763 - April 9, 2003 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Window on the Wall
by Yisca Shimony

In the streets of Koibersdorf, Hungary, marched groups of soldiers. In a typically fierce demeanor, they stomped, looking neither to the left nor the right, one line following the other down the roads of the seemingly deserted town. The people of Koibersdorf were there, watching behind drawn curtains, hiding from the cruel invading army. How would these brutal soldiers treat them? the Hungarians wondered.

The first group came to an abrupt stop in front of the municipality and the commanding officer stomped into the building, followed by several aides. They were about to brush past an old man standing at the entrance of the massive, impressive edifice but he stepped forward and faced the commander bravely. Although now in an inferior position of disadvantage, the mayor stared directly into the eyes of the German commander and coldly, but politely, formally ushered the men into his office.

Before taking the proferred seat, the officer barked, "Where are the Jews of the town?"

"Oh, they're gone by now. I doubt if there is a single one left," the mayor said.

The answer did not please the German. He persisted, "Well, they must have had synagogues and other communal buildings, no? We will be taking them over for our use. We need all the vacant space we can get for our army."

It was obvious that the mayor was reluctant to provide the information, by the way he hemmed and hawed. The officer was growing impatient but felt it better not to antagonize the elderly mayor right away. He might still need him. "So, you don't wish to tell?" he asked with a smile that belied the threat in his tone.

"There is one synagogue, a very old one," the mayor said slowly. "I still remember when it was built. I was a child at the time and I watched it being erected. The rabbi, believe it or not, supervised the construction all the time with care and devotion, taking measurements and making sure of the direction of the walls. We gentile children were curious why this was so important to him and we boldly asked him one time. `This wall must face the holy city of Jerusalem,' he murmured to us.

"He didn't explain why and somehow, the building became shrouded with mystery throughout the years. Everyone, even us gentiles, consider it very holy. No one dares enter it, even." The mayor sighed. "I do hope nothing will happen to it now. I am an old man, but I still feel the same awe and fear towards it that I did as a child."

*

In the year 5633, R' Avrohom Shaag, rabbi of Koibersdorf, left the Diaspora to go to Yerusholayim. But he left his legacy behind in the form of a spiritual protection to the synagogue he had built. Miraculously, it remained intact, surviving World War II.

*

A bright sun shone in the skies of Yerusholayim. The rebbetzin paused in her busy erev Shabbos preparations to gaze through her window in their small Old City apartment. The scene below was very peculiar...

From her window, she was able to view the Har Habayis and the very site where the Beis Hamikdosh had stood many centuries before. She felt a sharp twinge of pain as she saw the Arab multitudes pouring out on this Friday, trampling the place so sacred to her people. She knew that her revered husband, R' Avrohom Shaag, stood by this window every day and was able to visualize this site as it had been in the times of its glory, when the Shechina had resided here.

"How sad!" she thought.

Then, suddenly, she caught a glimpse of a scene of days gone by, of the aliya leregel. The Beis Hamikdosh stood erect in magnificent splendor, gleaming in the bright sunlight. Thousands of pilgrims crowded near the gates, awaiting their turn to enter and bring their sacrifices. Inside the courtyard, the kohanim were nimbly doing their service to the chanting of the leviim.

Then she heard voices far down the road. Soon throngs of people appeared, carrying baskets full of produce, the first fruits of the land. There were oxen, also loaded down with baskets, their horns plated in gold! At each step they took, sparks of gold scintillated all around. Their singing blended in with that of the leviim, which was accompanied by trumpets and flutes.

The crowds waiting at the gates cheered the approaching pilgrims joyously and soon they were inside the gates. Each one duly lifted and waved his basket of fruits and recited the vidui [as it appears in our Haggada], "Arami oved ovi."

Those magnificent sights passed before her eyes, the very sights her husband saw daily when he stood by this special window...

*

Favored disciple of the Chassam Sofer, R' Avrohom Shaag immigrated at the age of seventy-three, together with his wife and children, and his esteemed talmid, R' Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld and his young wife. His prayers, always fervent, were much more intense and heartfelt, here, where he could focus on the very site of the Mikdash. And from his special window, his mind and his heart were able to actually visualize the scenes of ancient times!

The scene faded from the rebbetzin's eyes and she sighed from deep inside her. "Oh, Hashem, rebuild Your Mikdosh, speedily and in our days!" She yearned to stand there and recapture the marvelous glimpse into the past, but the present beckoned to her. The chicken was plucked and koshered, but it had to be cooked. The fish was ground, but that had to be cooked, too, and on her crude stove, no more than a large can filled with burning coals, it would take a long time, to say nothing of the soot that would cover the bottoms of the pots...

All the while she worked, her mind kept reverting to the dazzling sunlight and the beautiful sights she had envisioned earlier in the day and to the sad reality of Arabs trampling the place. She wished so much to go back to the window and see it all once more, but knew that this had been a special glimpse. Who knows if she would ever merit seeing such a scene again?

Later, in between tasks, she stood once more in front of the window, but the skies were clouded and grey shadows covered the area down below; soon they burst and rain poured down in torrents. "How strange," she thought. "It's the end of the second Adar and winter has dawned again upon us!" A shiver ran down her spine as she rushed away to complete her tasks.

*

R' Avrohom used to welcome the Shabbos Queen with a minyon of his sons and his disciple, in his own home. It was warm inside, but cold and raining outside. After the men departed, the elderly couple sat down to a quiet Shabbos meal, each thinking about the great privilege afforded them to live so close to the site of the Mikdosh, a thought that recurred constantly.

When the kerosene lamp died down, they both retired for the night, to sleep peacefully...

Or so it seemed. The following morning, the sons and the talmid came to the house. It was late, and they knocked gently at first, but the door did not open. They knocked louder. Time for kriyas shema passed and still no sign from inside. It was decided that this was an emergency and the door was broken.

A cloud of smoke burst out the door. The rav and rebbetzin seemed to be unconscious. Speedily, a doctor was summoned but the rabbi never recovered.

The people of Yerusholayim mourned the great rabbi, of whom the Chassam Sofer had said: "Within twenty miles of Pressburg, there is no one as great a talmid chochom as he, and in all of Hungary, there is none as great a tzaddik!"

*

R' Avrohom Shaag had wanted to bring seventy of his disciples along on aliya, but only brought one, R' Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, who later became chief rabbi of Yerusholayim. Yerusholayim tradition maintains that during the two years that R' Avrohom lived in the Holy City, he saw daily through his window the sights of its olden glory, as he prayed fervently for its rebuilding.

His fierce love lived on in his disciple, and is remembered by the people of this Heavenly city, if not directly, then in the hearts of the many descendants which he left behind, and in the memory of Jerusalemites for generations to come.

[Ed. I am privileged to be the neighbor of a granddaughter who lives in Kiryat Mattersdorf, until 120. She told me the story of how, as a young girl, she went to visit R' Avrohom Shaag to help in his Shabbos preparations and found him on hands and knees under the table.

"What's the matter, Zeidy?" she asked in concern. He came up with a smile on his face and something in his hand: a white bean which had fallen to the floor as he had been checking it for the cholent. It lay there gleaming in his hand, a testimony of his appreciation of the preciousness of every single thing created by Hashem for the use of man!]

 

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