24 Elul-September 15 is the yahrtzeit of both the Chofetz Chaim and HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky. These two gedolei Yisroel were also linked in life in a famous incident. Now, some additional color has been added.
HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky (center left) and HaRav Elchonon Kunstadt (center right)
HaRav Dovid Kunstadt notes that his father, HaRav Elchonon Kunstadt (a founder of Kol Torah Yeshiva in Jerusalem), had a regular practice together with HaRav Gedaliah Eiseman of visiting HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky once a week. Several times upon these visits, HaRav Abramsky told them about another dream he had in Siberia (in addition to the dream mentioned last week about Rabbi Akiva Eiger).
As is known, HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky, the author of Chazon Yechezkel, was arrested by the Bolsheviks and exiled to Siberia in 1929.
At first he tried his luck and went underground to escape the Bolsheviks who were determined to seize him. He once sought refuge in the home of an elderly couple. He asked for a Torah work that he could study from. His hostess said that she only had one sefer, which happened to be a work of responsa by HaRav Yitzchok Elchonon Spector. He opened it up at random to begin reading, and the sefer opened up to a teshuva on which he and HaRav Spector had differed very divergently. As a result, he said, "Now I am sure I will be caught since Rabbi Yitzchok Elchonon has a kepeida towards me for having differed and ruling against him in the question that opened at random." He was subsequently arrested and sent to Siberia.
One day, in Siberia, he turned to his roommate and stated, "Today I am going to be freed."
"How do you know?" the man asked.
"Because I saw HaRav Yitzchok Elchonon in a dream and he was smiling at me. I understand that his kepeida against me has resolved so I will be freed." On the following day, Erev Yom Kippur, he was in fact released. This is what HaRav Abramsky told HaRav Elchonon Kunstadt and HaRav Gedaliah Eiseman.
It is also well-known that HaRav Elchonon Wassermann was walking together with the Chofetz Chaim on that Erev Yom Kippur, when suddenly, the Chofetz Chaim said to him, "The Bolsheviks have not succeeded! HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky was released from jail." HaRav Elchonon looked at his watch and later, when HaRav Yechezkel arrived, he learned that it had been precisely at that time that the Chofetz Chaim made his remark that he was freed from prison.
An additional interesting testimony adds to the picture, this time from another son of HaRav Kunstadt, HaRav Avrohom Arye: HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky once got on to the #12 bus in Bayit Vegan, and as he got on, there was a reaction among the passengers. Some of the passengers stood up for him, others remained silent and yet others spoke among themselves excitedly.
The driver, an observant Jew who was not young, felt the undercurrent and asked: "What's going on here?"
He received the answer from several of the passengers: "HaRav Abramsky has just come on. We can't help looking at him and talking about him."
"That's HaRav Abramsky?" the driver asked, obviously moved, and stopped the bus.
He got off his seat and approached the revered passenger, and said, "I was in Radin and walked very close behind the Chofetz Chaim along the path leading to the yeshiva. I heard the Chofetz Chaim telling his accompanier, HaRav Elchonon, about your release from Siberia. He said, `The Bolsheviks did not succeed. Boruch Hashem, HaRav Abramsky was freed from Siberia.'"
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HaRav Elchonon Kunstadt also told that he heard from HaRav Yechezkel that he had had a dream on a Friday night in which he saw his master, HaRav Chaim Soloveitchik from Brisk, reproving, "We must study more. We must increase our study of Torah more and more. Me darf lernen mehr."
"I woke up and got up to learn Torah. And wonder of wonders, I had given over a work of divrei Torah to the printer that Friday morning, but now I suddenly discovered a mishnah just a few pages onward which almost explicitly negated what I had written. I had made a painful mistake! On Sunday, I went back to the printer, took back the pages and quickly made the necessary correction. HaRav Chaim saved me from terrible embarrassment."
