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Maran HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky zt'l—His Forty-Ninth Yahrtzeit
by M. E. Abramsky
This was originally published in 1996, twenty-nine years ago.
Part 2
This part continues the report of HaRav Abramsky's son about his father's activities after he retired to Eretz Yisroel. It also includes an essay written by HaRav Abramsky and a report of a dream of HaRav Abramsky zt"l.
For Part I of this series click here.
But apart from these various shiurim, my father was involved in many other activities, some behind the scenes, and others openly and publicly. To the former belong the advice people sought from him, not only such people as Chief Rabbis Herzog and Unterman, even governmental personalities took advice.
After the Six Day War, then Prime Minister Eshkol sent round a prominent MK to find out father's opinion about a certain important matter. (The time is not yet ripe to divulge this matter.)
When the "Who is a Jew" issue arose, my father submitted his answer to this question in his capacity as President of the Vaad Hayeshivos. He wanted very much that the American Rabbonim submit a similar memorandum and he decided to phone Rav Moshe Feinstein. However he forgot the seven hour difference between Israel and New York.
He phoned Rav Moshe at 10 a.m. Israel time, it being three o'clock at night across the Atlantic. Rabbi Shurin in his book on Rav Moshe Feinstein, relates how Rav Moshe awakened in the middle of the night spoke with father for about half an hour, and although a boy brought him a chair, he remained standing all the time.
Rav Moshe explained that although some three thousand miles separated them, he had to show his respect to Rav Abramsky and hence he remained standing.
Chinuch Atzmai
Of the activities that were conducted openly and publicly, the Chinuch Atzmai and Vaad Hayeshivos are outstanding. In the limited space of an article one cannot tell of all the efforts my father made for these organizations.
Whilst on a private visit to England to see his three sons living there, he arranged to see Mr. James de Rothschild, to convince him to donate a substantial sum for the Chinuch Atzmai. He contributed $15,000.
Their conversation was conducted in English, but just as father was about to leave him, Mr. Rothschild said that his donation was "einmolik"—a one-time donation and not an annual affair.
When he died, the British press reported that his estate was valued at just under $75 million and the government took $27 million in death duties. When my father saw the press reports he remarked that he merited just an "einmolik" righteous deed.
On another occasion when the Chinuch Atzmai was in financial difficulties my father called a meeting attended by over a hundred leading rabbonim, roshei yeshiva and Admorim. He opened the meeting by expounding on the importance of the Chinuch Atzmai.
The Gerrer Rebbe (the Beis Yisroel)— interrupted father and said that this was not the right way to raise funds, rather he should ask everyone present how much he would undertake to raise in the next few days. Father immediately asked the Gerrer Rebbe in a commanding tone how much he—the Gerrer Rebbe—would raise in that week.
After the Gerrer Rebbe named a sum, he was heard to say that father was a good pupil, as he caught on quickly.
On assuming the presidency of the Vaad Hayeshivos upon the petiroh of Chief Rabbi Herzog, father threw himself in the struggle for the deferment of the military service of talmidei hayeshivos; hardly a week passed without father dealing with this problem.
The late Moshe David Tennenbaum related how father once telephoned him that he should send a telegram on behalf of the Vaad Hayeshivos to then Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and told him roughly what to what to write. Five minutes later, father phoned again and asked to hear the proposed text. Five minutes later he phoned again to change a certain word. Within the next half hour father phoned no less than five times each time altering one word or another.
Mr. Tennenbaum was getting fed up and decided that if father phoned again he would say that the telegram had been sent off. After a further twenty minutes father rang again and asked if the cable had been sent, and when Mr. Tennenbaum answered in the affirmative, father merely said two words—"yasher kochacha."
Hesped by HaRav Zolti
After father's petiroh, Yeshiva Kol Torah organized a hesped, the main speaker being the Rav of Jerusalem, Rav Betzalel Zolti. (He was one of those whom father recommended as a successor in the London beis din, however for personal reasons as he turned it down).
He based his hesped on the famous explanation given by Rav Yisroel Salanter on Hoshea 1:1 "When Israel was a child, then I loved him." He then added an explanation of his own: When a young lad takes on a new job, he goes into it with fervor and zeal. When father came to Eretz Yisroel, he took on new tasks with the fervor of a young boy and not as a retired gentleman.
Biographical Sketch
HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky (1886-1976), was a rav in various Russian communities and later in London. He was a world renowned talmid chochom. His major written work is the Chazon Yechezkel, a commentary on the Tosefta. An acknowledged leader of Orthodox Jewry for almost seven decades, he was a profound thinker, a forceful preacher, a regular teacher, and a staunch fighter for halachic supremacy.
In the early days of Communism, he was arrested by the Soviet government and condemned to death for refusing to attest to religious freedom in the U.S.S.R. Through the intensive efforts of various rabbinic authorities the world over, he was eventually exchanged for Communists held prisoner in pre-Nazi Germany. The Chofetz Chaim davened for his release and was overjoyed when he was set free. (Last week's article included a follow-up in Israel to the story with the Chofetz Chaim.)
He reached England in 1932 and within a short period headed the British Rabbinate until his retirement in 1951, when he moved to Jerusalem. There he was busy with the Vaad Hayeshivos, the Chinuch Atzmai, and other communal activities, and giving three weekly shiurim (two for his neighbors of Bayit Vegan and one in the famous Slobodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak), though he still managed, during the quarter century he resided in Israel, to issue a further 18 volumes of his commentary Chazon Yechezkel. He also left a few volumes in manuscript, and his chidushim were published in the Genichovsky edition of the Talmud Bavli.
HaRav Abramsky epitomized in his whole life "in all thy ways acknowledge Him" and he lived to see fulfilled "and He shall direct thy paths."
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What did Rabbi Akiva Eiger Really Look Like? HaRav Abramsky's Dream
The following is taken from a report we published on 16 Elul 5777 (September 7, 2017). To see the original report Click here.
Rabbi Akiva Eiger was niftar in 1838 (5598), before the invention of photography. However there are a number of paintings that purport to show his likeness.
As we will see, HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky, saw Rabbi Akiva Eiger in a dream, and as a result he identified pictures as being a good likeness or not.
Dos iz nisht Rabbi Akiva Eiger! This picture was taken at the engagement of HaRav Avrohom Genichovsky, who is at the right of the picture. HaRav Abramsky is in the center, standing under the picture that is not Rabbi Akiva Eiger.
The son of HaRav Avrohom Genichovsky zt"l told Musaf Kodesh that HaRav Abramsky attended the engagement party of his father. He saw a picture on the wall purported to be Rabbi Akiva Eiger, and he said, "This is not Rabbi Akiva Eiger."
Engagement of HaRav Avrohom Genichovsky zt"l
We have a photograph taken on that occasion with HaRav Abramsky in the center (and the chosson at the right). Behind HaRav Abramsky, on the wall, is clearly visible one of the pictures purported to be of Rabbi Akiva Eiger. HaRav Genichovsky supplied us with the photograph taken at the home of his grandfather, HaRav Eliyahu Moshe Genichovsky, in Bnei Brak.
HaRav Yeshaya Bernfeld told us that he heard from HaRav Gavriel Sternfeld zt"l, the following: One time HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky attended a simchah. He thought it was the engagement of HaRav Avrohom Genichovsky. On the way out, he saw a painting on the wall.
Maran asked who was in the picture. They told him that it was Rabbi Akiva Eiger.
"No! This is not Rabbi Akiva Eiger," declared HaRav Abramsky unequivocally.
But this is a well-known and widely accepted likeness.
"No! This is not Rabbi Akiva Eiger!"
HaRav Sternfeld asked respectfully, "I accept that this is not a true likeness of Rabbi Akiva Eiger. But may I ask the Rav to understand, how he knows so definitely?"
The answer came with HaRav Abramsky's customary decisiveness. "One time, I had a great difficulty with a passage in one of the teshuvos of Maran Rabbi Akiva Eiger. I was pained, and I worked very hard, and I davened to Hashem very much to understand this Torah. Then he appeared to me in a dream to explain the sugyah to me.
"And therefore I say: Dos iz nisht Rabbi Akiva Eiger!"
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"Yes his is what Rabbi Akiva Eiger looked like.
Engagement of HaRav Avrohom Genichovsky zt"l
We also heard from HaRav Dovid Kundstadt, the son of the rosh yeshiva of Kol Torah HaRav Elchonon Kundstadt, zt"l.
He said that his father often told over that once on Succos HaRav Abramsky went to the succah of HaRav Yehuda Addes in Bayit Vegan in Jerusalem, and he saw a painting of Rabbi Akiva Eiger and he said, "Yes his is what Rabbi Akiva Eiger looked like."
HaRav Abramsky told HaRav Kundstadt that he saw Rabbi Akiva Eiger in a dream and he told him that his is planning to publish a sefer on Tosefta. And Rabbi Akiva Eiger answered, "I have heard about that..."
HaRav Kundstadt used to say also that when the Chofetz Chaim was preparing to go to Eretz Yisroel, one of the seforim he bought was Chazon Yechezkel on Zeraim.
On the subject of the drawing itself, we also heard from HaRav Yaakov Zer, who said that he visited Maran HaRav Shach with his father HaRav Yitzchok Zer. Since his father dealt with pictures, he once asked HaRav Shach about the single picture of Rabbi Akiva Eiger that hung in his room. There were no other pictures on the wall.
My father asked if the picture was a true likeness, and HaRav Shach said that there is a tradition that it is, and that it is also mentioned in Igros Sofrim as a true likeness.
As a result, my father borrowed the picture and reproduced it and distributed it. In the original picture, besides Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the two dayanim flanking him, there is a large plaza and several buildings around it. The picture was painted by a non-Jew.
We also heard from a descendant of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, HaRav Yaakov Yeruchom Vershner who wrote:
"The undersigned is currently working on finishing up a biography of Rabbi Akiva Eiger that was originally published in German by my grandfather and will soon be published in Hebrew.
"This picture was first published in Igros Sofrim that was published by a direct descendant of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, the Ksav Sofer, HaRav Shlomoh Sofer who also wrote Chut Hameshulosh. (Note: This latter sefer was aid by HaRav Yaakov Friedman of Tifrach to be one of the most reliable of all biographies of gedolei Yisroel. - AC)
HaRav Sofer said that the painting was done when Rabbi Akiva Eiger was 74 years old, two years before he was niftar, by a non-Jewish artist. The well known part is really only a small part of a large painting that shows many people and buildings.
In the book to be published, my grandfather writes about the impression given by Rabbi Akiva Eiger: This great soul was like a fine wine preserved in a cheap earthenware vessel (Taanis 7).
His outward appearance was not special. He was described by those who knew him: His body was small and short. His face radiated seriousness. On his lips was a faint smile and a heavy humility. On the whole his gaunt face gave an impression of sickness and quiet suffering.
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"Shilton Hamma'aseh": The Teachings of Maimonides
For a long time, the intellectual attackers of Judaism argued that the essential parts of it are the ideas and philosophy, while the legal codes are of lesser importance. This essay is written against that view, showing the importance of fulfilling the practical mitzvos of Judaism.
Ironically, in our times the "reformers" seem to think that the deeds are all that counts. A prominent example is conversion, where Reform, Conservative and even Orthodox rabbis do mila and tefillah and try to pass off the result as geirus, even though it lacks the rational kernel of the conversion process: a sincere acceptance of the obligation to perform all the mitzvos.
Though the underlying issue is not so burning today, the essay retains interest as the analysis of a godol of the approach of the Rambam.
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Maimonides, who is commonly regarded as the great rationalist among Jewish thinkers, made what many may regard as an extraordinary statement at the conclusion of his Sefer Hamitzvos: "There is no commandment in the Torah which has not its reason and its purpose; but many of the reasons underlying the Torah's statutes are deliberately beyond man's understanding, so as to ensure that he will devote himself to their fulfillment for their own sake, and will not spend the time and thought needed for their observance on an inquiry into their purpose and meaning ... for in fulfilling the statutes and observing the commandments, man finds his highest enlightenment and his greatest rejoicing."
That an understanding of the meaning and significance of the practical observance of Judaism should take second place to their active performance, indeed that the performance of the mitzvos is virtually an end in itself, may seem a surprising view for Maimonides to take.
Yet there need be nothing to occasion surprise in this attitude of our greatest philosopher and codifier, if we understand correctly the character of Judaism as he had learned it from those who preceded him, and if we examine aright the immense range of his own writings.
For Judaism was seen from the earliest of times to be a code of conduct rather than a mere creed or system of beliefs; its basis is what we are required to do, and not merely what we are required to believe. Those who study Maimonides' works — halachic, moral and philosophic alike — find him affirming and reiterating this view, and see him not as the teacher of the "supremacy of reason," as he has been described by some, but as the master exponent of the "supremacy of action."
For him, as for all the classic teachers of Orthodox Judaism who went before him or who have come since, the active performance of the commandments — even those precepts whose purpose and meaning lie outside human comprehension — takes primary place as representing the will of G-d, their interpretation, if such came within his understanding, was a secondary matter.
Let Maimonides speak for himself (Yad: Me'ilah viii, 8; and see Guide iii, 26) :
"It is fitting that man should understand the laws of our sacred Torah and should know their underlying purpose, so far as his faculties permit; but if there should be any commandment whose meaning and significance he cannot fathom, he should not dismiss it lightly as he would a secular matter ... There are `judgments' and `statutes' commanded in the Torah; the former are those whose reason and purpose are revealed and known to us, such as laws concerning theft, murder, honor of parents and the like: the latter — the `statutes' — are laws whose meaning and purpose are concealed form us, such as the dietary laws, shatnez, and so on.
"On the verse (Vayikra xix, 37), `And you shall observe all My statutes and all My judgments, and do them,' the Rabbis comment that both types of command are equal in the duty they impose on us of `observing' and `doing' and stress that we may not criticize, disparage, or belittle those precepts which it is not given to us to understand.
The Psalmist, grieved when detractors mocked at these laws, but the more they mocked, and the more difficult he found it to offer them rational explanations, the more did he cleave to the statutes, as he says (Psalm cxix, 69): `When the proud forge a lie against me, then with my whole heart I keep They precepts,'" Maimonides underlines his view by calling attention to the mention of statutes before judgments in the Scripture passage.
Throughout his writings Maimonides repeats this cardinal principle of the importance of fulfilling the commandments before understanding them. Moreover, such must always be the attitude of the Jew in all ages and in all circumstances, for the Torah, he reminds us, is immutable and its precepts transcend time and environment.
Thus he remarks, and in the introduction to Sefer Hamitzvos, that the 613 precepts in the Torah are of intent divided into 365 prohibitions to correspond with the days of the year, and 248 positive precepts to correspond with the limbs and organs of man; this is designed to teach, he tells us, that all of them remain binding at all times — for the year will always be of the same length — and in all man's circumstances — for man's physical structure will always be as we now know it; and, be it noted, he adds, the total includes precepts for which he can find no rational basis.
These are not the words or thoughts of the rationalist, but the professions of an intense believer in Judaism as a religion of conduct and action — Shilton Hamma'aseh, the dominion of action, is the cry of this greatest philosopher of Judaism.
If we have this and much further evidence of Maimonides' theoretical views, we have in his writings no less abundant testimony to his practical application of them.
For example, in a letter to R. Pinchas ben Meshullam, he speaks of himself as performing the minutest of the customs, as well as the major laws that have been handed down to him, and he says that he does so because they represent for him the way revealed by G-d as leading to man's knowledge of his Maker's will and realization of it; while elsewhere (Yad: Taanis v. 9) he records that even so slight a usage as the kind of food he would eat before fasting received his meticulous attention, for the practices of Judaism, of which this is one, must be his constant concern.
Thus we see in Maimonides an outstanding expression of the fundamental conception that in Judaism the primary system of religious life is the practical implementation of the mitzvos — the halacha.
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that our forefathers, gathered about Sinai, had a prophetic or intuitive understanding of this truth which was to guide and direct the standards and thoughts of their descendants. For when they made their historic declaration under the impact of Revelation (Exodus xxiv, 7). "All that the Lord has said we will do and we will hearken" they gave their undertakings — "to do" first, "to hearken" second — in an order which has remained that followed by Orthodox Jews ever since.
They touched the very foundations of Torah — true Judaism: that "doing" leads to "hearkening," that the active practical performance of the mitzvos is the one path that leads inevitably to the submission of man's will to that of G-d; that in proportion as man actively serves his Maker, his intellectual and emotional contact with Him grows closer. This profound thought is surely inherent in the verse (Vayikra xviii, 5) "Ye shall keep my statutes and my judgments which if a man do he shall live by them" — by "doing," that is by actively fulfilling the mitzvos, man reaches life's highest potential; he lives in their spirit, and in nearness to the G-d who commanded them. And when this service of G-d through the mitzvos ma'asiot is constant and continuous, it brings the Jew to a knowledge of the nature of G-d and His attributes which no theological study can give, and bestows upon him a spirituality which can never be achieved through any other means.
To quote Maimonides again (Yad: Deot I, 7), "How shall a man conduct himself so that the ideals of his faith become firmly established within him? He must repeatedly perform those actions which are required of him by his faith: he must return to them constantly, until their performance comes easily to him and is never burdensome — by such means are the ideals of his faith implanted in his soul."
Not the least imperative of the mitzvos is the study of the Torah itself, the inquiry — constant and unwearying — into its meaning and the nature and teachings of its precepts; but this very study is directed towards the practical fulfillment of mitzvos; in the expressive words of the Rabbis "study is great for it leads to action."
The primacy of "doing" in Judaism, affirmed by our fathers at Sinai, sung by the Psalmist in Temple times, expounded by the Rabbis in every generation since, must remain today the keynote to the life of the Jew. Ecclesiastes (xii, 13) puts it with forceful lucidity: "The end of the matter all having been heard; fear G-d and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man."
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