Feature
Maran HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky zt'l—His Forty-Ninth Yahrtzeit

by M. E. Abramsky

This was originally published in 1996, twenty-nine years ago. Includes reports of HaRav Abramsky's stunning dreams.

Part 1

For Part II of this series click here.

Is there such a thing as a retired rov?

Rashi on Bereishis (37:2) quotes a Midrash, "Yaakov wanted to live in tranquility and G-d said `Isn't it enough for the tzadikim what I prepared for them in the world to come? They also want to enjoy this world too.' "

When World War II ended, my father, HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky, was over sixty years old and approaching retirement age. At that time,the United Synagogue, which administered the London Beis Din where my father served as av beis din, had a hard and fast rule: all rabbonim had to retire at the age of 65, with the exception of the Chief Rabbi who was elected for life. (This was also amended at the death of Chief Rabbi Hertz, and his successors retired at the age of seventy.)

My father was asked by both then-Chief Rabbi Broide and the administration of the United Synagogue whether he would consent to carry on after the age limit. His answer was—a firm "No."

This resulted in the suggestion of various compromises. He should come to the beis din on Mondays and Thursdays only; he would only come to the beis din whenever a difficult problem arose etc. All these offers were turned down and to prove that he really meant it, he showed them a contract for the purchase of an apartment in the Bayit Vegan district of Jerusalem.

The contract was signed on a Friday in winter and all the protestations of the contractor, the late Mr. Treger, that it could wait till the Sunday morning were of no avail. My father insisted that he come over and sign it then.

The reason my father declined the above offers was that he hoped whilst living in Israel, he would be able to complete his life work, the Chazon Yechezkel on the Tosefta and on the Shas. He published nineteen volumes after settling in Eretz Yisroel. Before he had only published five volumes.

Within a few days after his sixty-fifth birthday in 1951, my father and mother accompanied by myself left London for Eretz Yisroel.

A few days before the departure I had a number of arrangements connected with father's change of address. I needed his signature on a Bank of England form and had to return it to our own bank before they closed for the day.

I went to the beis din, and he told me in a firm tone he has no time for me as he was in the middle of arranging a get where the husband was called by no less than five names (one by his father, another by his mother, a third how he signed his bank checks etc.) He was trying to solve the problem of which name to be written first; only after he succeeded in doing this and instructed the sofer how to write the get did he take the form, and after reading it he finally signed it. I barely made it to our bank on time.

While on board the boat from Italy to Haifa, my father used to walk the deck reciting Tehillim and praying that some yeshiva take him on a voluntary basis and allow him to give a shiur. My mother, too, was praying that such a yeshiva be found, but not in Jerusalem, for if the Yeshiva be nearby, my father would almost certainly go there every day and what would be the fate of the Chazon Yechezkel.

We arrived two days before Shabbos Hagodol and he sent me to Rav Eleazri, rav of Bayit Vegan, to get his permission for father to start giving a weekly shiur on Shabbos. Rabbi Eleazri readily agreed, and all was set for the shiur. But where could it be held?

My mother suggested our apartment, where two rooms were joined by a wide door to turn them into one room. But the day we left London, a strike broke out in the London docks and our possessions had not yet arrived. We had only five chairs with a table and two beds that we borrowed from various neighbors.

Everyone was welcome to the shiur provided he brought his own chair and gemora. We used to rush through the Shabbos meal and arrange the house for the shiur and mother looking through the window would announce that the chairs were on the way.

Starting with twelve people, this shiur grew until at the last shiurim, given about three months before his petiroh, almost two hundred people were sitting spellbound in the dining room of Yeshivas Kol Torah which had moved to Bayit Vegan in 1958.

A few weeks after this shiur was well-established in the yeshiva dining room, the rosh hayeshiva told my father outright that the yeshiva wanted rent for the use of their premises. One can imagine how my father felt thinking they expected him to raise funds for the Yeshiva.

HaRav Abramsky with HaRav Leib Lopian and HaRav Leib Gurwicz

However, Rav Elchonon Kundstadt was a shrewd businessman, and explained that for rent they wanted him to deliver a shiur to the talmidim, and so every Rosh Chodesh father gave a shiur in the Yeshiva.

My father also started giving a weekly shiur (on Thursday evening) in the Chassidim Synagogue, as the Beis Knesset HaGra, where he usually davened, did not yet have permanent premises. When eventually the Beis Knesset HaGra found permanent premises the gabboim pressed father to transfer the Thursday night shiur to the Beis Knesset HaGra. My father obstinately refused saying the chassidim were his hosts till then and he will not change the place.

A few days after our arrival, during Chol Hamoed Pesach my mother and I agreed that I should go to Bnei Brak and try to find a suitable yeshiva where he could say a shiur. Without telling him the real reason, I traveled to Bnei Brak to the recently reestablished Slobodka Yeshiva headed by Rav Isaac Sher and his son-in-law Rav Mordechai Shulman.

Rav Sher immediately asked his son-in-law to go to Jerusalem and tell my father that they were ready to engage him with a fitting wage. I told them that father would not hear of such a plan, as he insisted he had enough to live on from his pension. They could offer to pay his fares from and to Jerusalem.

On my return, my father told me that Rav Shulman from the Slobodka Yeshiva had invited him to give a regular shiur there, but he had his doubts if the talmidim there would understand his method in learning.

I humbly advised to give one shiur and then he could judge for himself, to which he consented. Secretly I wired the Yeshiva to prepare their outstanding talmidim to repeat the shiur and prove that the shiur did not fall on deaf ears.

My father spoke for over an hour on the question of chomesh (it can be found at the end of the Tosefta Bava Kammo). After the shiur, my father stayed behind to answer the boys' questions. When he eventually went to Rav Sher's apartment, it was agreed that he give a weekly shiur on Tuesdays.

Years later when my mother was ill and could not accompany him to Bnei Brak, as she always did, he would always ask her if he could go to Slobodka and her response was brief and to the point. It's her pleasure that father gives a shiur in a great yeshiva and this will bring about her recovery.

On the occasions she was hospitalized, father would call at the Hadassah Hospital on the way to Bnei Brak and come back straight to the hospital.

Soon the talmidim and others started calling my father the rosh hayeshiva, a title father never assumed. Rav Moshe Mordechai Shulsinger, an alumnus of the Yeshiva, relates in his book Pninei Rabbeinu Yechezkel that before every shiur my father would ask Rav Shulman for his permission to deliver the shiur to which Rabbi Shulman would reply, "Zu Gezundt."

I never told my father of my part in arranging the weekly shiur in Slobodka, but about two months before his petiroh, he told me without any connection to the conversation we were holding at the time, that even if a shadchan does not ask for the shadchonus, it is nevertheless his. Realizing that I did not understand what he was talking about, he explained that my share in arranging the Slobodka shiurim was written down to my credit.

End of Part I

* * *

The Chofetz Chaim and HaRav Abramsky: HaRav Abramsky's Dream

The following is taken from a report we published on 23 Ellul 5777 (September 14, 2017). To see the original report Click here.

HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky (center left) and HaRav Elchonon Kundstadt (center right)

HaRav Dovid Kundstadt notes that his father, HaRav Elchonon Kundstadt (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 Kundstadt 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 Kundstadt, 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.'"

*

HaRav Elchonon Kundstadt also told that he heard from HaRav Yechezkel that he 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."

*

This essay was originally written by HaRav Abramsky in Hebrew and translated under the direction of his children.

Jewish Religious Education

There is an important rule in science and philosophy in connection with the experimental method. When one wishes to investigate the nature and purpose of an object, one compares it with a similar object, and from the differences apparent between them one can learn much of their real nature. Thus the shade of a color can be better recognized when it is set beside another shade. Every idea and opinion is made clearer by comparison with something with which it stands in close relationship.

If one wishes to understand the nature of religious education, one should make a comparison between sacred and secular studies such as, for instance, engineering or natural science. Seeing the differences between them, one can form a precise definition of the content of Jewish religious education, and of its purpose.

There is a fundamental difference between sacred and the above mentioned branches of secular studies. The latter are directed to the senses and to the intellect, the former (which include the Torah, commandments, faith, character, morals and philosophical research) also to the soul — the latter cultivate the intellect alone, the former educate both the mind and the heart.

Any student who has acquired knowledge in a branch of science has thereby achieved his purpose. It is not so with religious education. Besides the acquisition of information there is also a cultural purpose. The studies must leave their impress on the soul of the student and imbue him with their spirit, so that he may be influenced by them in all his dealings and his actions may be swayed by their effort on his heart and soul.

In the happy phrase of one of its advocates, the aims of Jewish religious education is the "civilization of the heart." While secular studies as a rule increase knowledge and speak the language of the mind, sacred studies as defined speak the language of both the mind and the soul. Besides giving a man information, they develop his emotions.

The purpose of Jewish education is to impart to Jewish children the knowledge of correct conduct as between one man and another in the synagogue, the street, the home and even of correct conduct that concerns the man himself. It is a study that leads to performance. This is the fundamental conception that distinguishes religious education from all other studies.

The basis of these principles has been wonderfully expressed by Josephus, himself educated by High Priests and a contemporary of our Tanaitic sages, in his book Against Apion as follows:

"There are two ways of acquiring learning or a moral conduct of life; the one is by verbal instruction, the other by practical performance. Now all other lawgivers have separated these two ways in their codes, and choosing that one of these ways of instruction which has best pleased them, have neglected the other.

"Thus, the Lacedemonians and the Cretans taught by practical exercises, and not by word of mouth; whilst the Athenians and almost all the other Greeks made laws about what was to be done or left undone but had no regard to the training of people therein by practical means.

"Our Legislator, however, very carefully joined these two methods of instruction together; for He neither left practical performance to proceed without verbal instruction, nor did He permit the hearing of the law to proceed without practical performance. But He began at the earliest opportunity, namely (with children) in earliest infancy."

In these few words Josephus gives us the fundamental principle of Israel's Torah and the character of Jewish religious education. They are two concepts that are in the relation of cause and effect to each other, because religious education is determined by the principles which education serves to establish and disseminate.

In the view of Josephus, the secret of the survival of the Law of Moses lies in the sense of reciprocity between study and action; their mutual effect upon each other. Study and contemplation are the mainsprings of action, and the practical performance of the commandments is established by the intellect and emotions.

"Ye shall therefore keep My statutes and Mine ordinances, which a man do, he shall live by them," is the pregnant admonition of Holy Writ. The man who practices them lives through them and their spirit, and finds in them the purpose of his worldly existence.

From Josephus we learn that even at the time when Israel was living in his own land, like the surrounding nations in theirs, the strength of the Jewish religion lay in the fact that in the Jewish Torah the value of deeds was not less than that of contemplation and thought. While the symbols of other religions were images of gods and man, the symbols of the Jewish religion were thoughts and actions.

After comparing Judaism with other religions and with philosophy, and showing its superiority in giving pride of place to practical commands: "do's" and "don'ts," (which was done at a much later period by Yehuda Halevi), Josephus continues with an abruptness which adds emphasis; "But, he (our Legislator) began at the earliest opportunity, namely (with children) in earliest infancy." He thus indicates that in Jewish religious education, Jews began the study of the Torah together with the performance of religious duties in their childhood. If the conditions of religious education were such in a Hebrew atmosphere in our Holy Land, how much more must they be so in non-Jewish surroundings in the lands of the Diaspora?

While the child is young and in his early stages of development and still in his simplicity, all nature is wrapped in a sacred veil, and his ears are attuned to the voice of G-d moving softly on the wings of the wind, every bird talking to him, every bush whispering its secrets. In the mood he experiences at the sight of beauty of nature, he will enjoy in innocence and delight the stories of the Creator of nature, and the creation of the world in the six working days, and of the Shabbos-rest on the seventh day. He will absorb the words of the Torah in remarkable harmony, so that even when he grows to be a man he will not forsake them.

The practice which he acquires in childhood, when he absorbs enthusiastically and uncritically the ordinances of G-d as expounded by his teachers, will become second nature to him. He will take care to observe them, until, in course of time, the spirit of the commandments rests on him and he will feel it with heartfelt devotion and "apprehend it in his soul."

Those parents who bring their children up and fail to give them religious education in their childhood, sin against their offspring. This fault of the parents in neglecting to enroll their children among the infants of the Hebrew school at the proper time is remedied with great difficulty at a later stage, because "if there are no lambs there are no sheep." This Talmudic expression finds its echo in the Book of Proverbs of R. Samuel Hanagid in these words:

"Thou mayest straighten the green whilst it is still moist, thou wilt not straighten it once it is cold and dry."

For those Jews who are not averse to hearing Jewish teaching from Gentile sources it is worth quoting Lancelot Addison's "Present State of the Jews," (he was English military chaplain in Tangier):

"There is current among them (the Jews) a saying: `There are no fruits in the autumn where there are no blossoms in spring' and this they endeavor to realize in the education of their children. They hope that their children will become G-d-fearing and upright men in their maturity if in their youth they sow in their hearts the seed of religion and morals; and in their sermons are to be found many words devoted to that end."

Jewish religious education is not content just with delivering the keys to study, as in natural science. The Torah seeks above all to educate the spirit, to perpetuate that form of Judaism for which Jews are distinguished among the nations. This being impossible without adequate conviction and sufficient influence, such education demands teachers possessed of inner religious feeling, not men whose calling as religious teachers takes precedence over faith. Because of the love for their calling they encourage loyalty to the practical commandments.

The prophetic utterance "Thine eyes shall behold thy teachers" is a profound principle in Jewish religious education, the effect of which is the transmission of our spiritual treasures from parents to children and of our sacred heritage to future generations. With regard to teachers, more is required of a religious teacher than of a secular teacher. In secular studies every attentive pupil can learn by listening and diligent repetition, but with religious studies it is not sufficient for a pupil to train his ear to listen. He must see for himself the manner of life of his teacher and guide, and learn from his actions to go and do likewise.

There is no one so capable as an innocent child of distinguishing almost intuitively between honesty of mind and pretense, between inner religious feeling springing from faith and knowledge and that which has no firm root in the soul, between words spoken without sincerity and those coming from the heart. He depends on his father and mother for whatever he does, and they must guide and watch every action of his as he, indeed, observes and is influenced by their actions. Thus there develops in the child a fine evaluation of the true worth given by his mentors to what he is taught. One result is that he will become lax and gradually indifferent and apathetic if the sole reprimand or retribution for neglect in any religious duty is merely a laughing condonation or pardon by the parent or teacher.

There are thus three requisites for religious education: (i)That parents should introduce their children to Jewish studies in earliest infancy, at the same age at which children of other peoples enter the Kindergarten; (ii) a real religious education, that is, knowledge and practice; (iii) G-d-fearing and observant teachers who are "anxious for the word of the Lord to practice it."

Only with these three shall we bring up children loyal to their faith and their people, children who will grow into Jews who by their character and bearing and action will reveal, despite hardships, dignity and confidence; Jews who, though in the Diaspora, will be the possessors of a wholesome soul, living a G-dly life in thought and word and deed.

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