The Genius of Sosnowiec
Rabbi Shlomo Sztencl was a young and wonderful genius who was plucked from the world in his youth. At first he served as the rabbi of the town of Czeladz, which is close to Sosnowiec (and according to what is stated in the Yizkor book of Sosnowiec, about two thousand Jews lived in this town, most of them Radomsk or Sochaczew chassidim). About his leaving the rabbinate of this city and returning to Sosnowiec, a magnanimous story is told, “Let this be written for the last generation”:
The shaking hand of the butcher
One day, claims began to surface about deficiencies in the butcher’s slaughtering in the town. These claims of course upset the residents of the city of Czeladz.
For many years, the local butcher did his job faithfully, and was known for his piety, neatness, and great caution. There was no one in the city who doubted the kosher status of the animals and poultry he slaughtered. But more recently, it was evident that aging was showing its signs in the elderly slaughterer; His hands began to shake.
Everyone knew that the transfer of the butcher from his position was a painful and difficult step, but there was no choice. Some of the citizens of the city turned to the rabbi of the city, Rabbi Shlomo Sztencl, and told him about the shaking of the old butcher’s hands.
Now the young rabbi was faced with an extremely difficult situation. He decided to summon the butcher and examine his work. The butcher understood the reason for his summons to the rabbi, and stood before him humiliated.
The rabbi asked the elderly butcher to slaughter a rooster in front of him. The butcher wanted to prove his ability, and quickly grabbed the rooster and did the job, but the rabbi saw a noticeable tremor in the butcher’s hand that held the knife. It turned out that the butcher was no longer able to engage in the craft of slaughtering, one of the conditions of which is that the knife slaughters smoothly and without tremors.
With a heavy heart, the rabbi had to inform the butcher that from this day on, he would no longer be able to engage in the work of butchering. The butcher returned home dejected, and in the city they began to organize finding a butcher to take his place.
A few weeks pass and one evening, late at night, when the genius Rabbi Shlomo was sitting in his house studying Torah, there were knocks on the door. In the doorway stood the old butcher and his wife, bent over and distraught. The rabbi invited them in and asked to hear what was in their hearts.
In a broken voice, the two explained that the business of butchering, in which the husband worked, was the source of their livelihood all these years. After his work was stopped, they had no money left in their pockets, and they were almost down to a loaf of bread. In those days, needless to say, it was still not customary to accumulate a pension fund for savings for the days after retirement.
Rabbi Shlomo’s heart broke. How hard old age is, he thought to himself. A G-d-fearing Jew, who enjoyed his life and faithfully engaged in sacred work all his days, was now forced to live a life of poverty and deprivation. The young rabbi of course tried to encourage them as much as possible, and the couple left his house calmer than when they arrived.
An idea ripened in the rabbi’s head. In those days, his cousin the rabbi, later rabbi of Kozieglowy and the head of Chachmei Lublin, approached him and asked him that if he learned of any city where a rabbinic position had become vacant, he would be happy if he informed him about it. Rabbi Frumer was a young genius at the time after his wedding, and was looking for a rabbinical position, thinking that this way he could both make a living and of course be able to stay in the world of Torah.
He did not expect that the answer to his request would be given so quickly. Rabbi Sztencl turned to Rabbi Frumer and offered him a deal.
Rabbi Aryeh Tzvi Frumer
“What’s wrong with Rabbi Sztencl and business?!” wondered Rabbi Fromer, but he immediately realized that this was a different kind of transaction.
Rabbi Sztencl explained: “I know that you received a respectable dowry for your wedding. I am ready to make a deal with you and sell you my rabbinate here, for half of the dowry you received.” Rabbi Sztencl looked at Rabbi Frumer and waited for his answer.
His words amazed Rabbi Frumer. Did the rabbi really want to resign from his position and give it to him in exchange for money?! He looked again and again at Rabbi Sztencl and saw that his expression was completely serious. He understood that Rabbi Sztencl probably had weighty reasons for his decision, and answered in the affirmative. That day he handed over the money – half of the dowry.
Late at night, Rabbi Sztencl knocked on the door of the butcher’s house. When he entered the house, the butcher and his wife could not believe their eyes. The rabbi handed them a large bundle containing many bills. This was the money he received from Rabbi Frumer, and was transferred in full to the butcher.
The rabbi told the butcher and his wife that with this money they would be able to support themselves until their last day, he said goodbye to them cordially and returned to his home. A few days later it became known to everyone that Rabbi Shlomo Stztencl had packed his belongings and left the city of Czeladz, the place of his birth and the place of his rabbinate, and that he was replaced by Rabbi Aryeh Tzvi Frumer, known as the Kozieglower.
When Rabbi Frumer left and moved to Kozieglowy, Rabbi Eliezer Lipman Tzvi HaLevi Leventhal was appointed as the rabbi of the city.
As mentioned, the genius of Sosnowiec died in his youth, before he was thirty-five years old, and to memorialize him we will quote the words of his father, the rabbi of Czenstochowa, who wrote in his memory in the introduction of the book “Kahalat Shlomo”:
They are informing all who know the sons of the rabbi of the greatness in perserverance in Torah and his fear and worship of G-d. He did not even walk 4 amot (a measurement) without Torah, and he was very careful about learning in the yeshiva. On top of this, he was very humble, and I only became great due to the intercession of dear grandchildren; I came to mention some of his deeds, from which they will learn and do.
He is ready at any time to give his soul for the L-rd by the words of our holy sages, and for private and public prayer at his time and prayer in public, and in immersing in a ritual bath. I have seen many times his devotion.
And he did not pass midnight in his sleep, and he did tikkun chatzot (mightnight prayer service lamenting the destruction of the Temple) every night.
And he gave a tithe of everything he had, and immediately after the wedding he gave a tithe of the money that his father-in-law had given him, and he conducted himself in the same way until the day of his death. And there is also a note from the tithe that he gave, and this is kept in utmost secret because there were many days when G-d almost did not let him eat and yet he did his part anyway.
And every night, he thought about his actions of the day and the transgressions that he had performed that day, and he wrote them all down in his diary. And this was kept an utmost secret, for he did it after midnight when everyone else was asleep; and the key for the drawer where the diary, his tithing accounts, and other writings were kept, was not given to anyone.
And I really cannot describe the amount of my sorrow for the magnitude of the loss that has been taken from me. And look at the translation of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, verse 18: “And he adds knowledge, he adds pain.” […] But now that I see that the fountains of his wisdom have passed, I will be comforted a little, because his lips are speaking in the grave, and because many times he told me that even though he intends to make some kind of publication, he only intends to print only what he came up with after he turned forty, because “forty is understanding” (Ethics of the Fathers 5:25). I said, I will not withhold good from its creators, because like arrows in the hand of a hero, so are the youth. And certainly also in the things he wrote in his youth we can find good things because they come from a faithful source and a good and pure spring, as it says in the Jerusalem Talmud (Brachot 2:8).
Many times before a lesson, he would recite an introductory passage. And we found out that when he was eight years old and he was studying with the rabbi of Czeladz, the chassid Shlomo z”l, and the rabbi would apologize to him in this way: “I am having issues with my gall bladder because of him” because of his difficulties, and then he immediately answered him in a cheerful way: “Did not our holy rabbi command his son to throw bile at the students” (Ketubot 103).
And he was well versed in the Bible, and when he was six or seven years old, I took him with me to Czenstochowa for the yahrzeit (anniversary of death) of the Rebbe, and I was with him in the shtiebel (small prayer house) and he played and danced because in his childhood he was one of the naughty children, and one of the followers was angry with him: “Surely you don’t even know a verse of the Chumash (Pentateuch). What was the name of the first king who reigned in Israel?” He answered him: “The first king was Avimelech,” and immediately everyone laughed at him for not knowing. He immediately went to the bookcase that was in the shtiebel, and looked for a verse in Judges; he took the book of Judges and showed them chapter 9, verse 6: “And they made Avimelech king” and the name of an Israelite with the title king is not mentioned before this. And after that, he said that it is said that Shaul was the first king; I knew this when I was four years old, but this they did not know and they were all dumbfounded.
And I saw some other wonderful things from him in his childhood, and when he was ten years old, I was with him at the Checiny Rebbe when he was in Ogrodzieniec near Pilc, and I gave him a note, and he read the note, and when he got to the name Shlomo (on the note), he asked about him and I told him that he was here and was there standing behind me, and he told me that he wanted to see him because it crowded in the room, and I brought him in front of him, and he said to him: “wow wow” and looked at him for a few moments and blessed him, and it generally wasn’t his way to give blessings.
And when we were received by the rabbi in Czeladz, it was then the wedding of the Rebbe of Szczakowa, and he was then the rabbi and head of the beit din (religious court) in Makow, who was very old at the time; The Rebbe, the Baal Knesset Yechezke lof Radomsk who was giving a sermon there, requested from him to behave with respect as he was 21 years old. And then when the Rebbe of Makow took the farewell blessing from the Rebbe of Radomsk, he told him that if it weren’t for the trouble of marriage and the troubles of the world that are here, I would have gone to Czeladz myself to do him some kind of favor because he is worthy of it.
As a side note, I will write a wonderful thing that happened to him, after he traveled from Czeladz and was admitted to the rabbinate in the city of Sosnowiec and he served there as a rabbi and educator until the day of his death, when his son Nahum fell ill in his leg, and he traveled with him to Bresloi, the professor immediately told him that he had to amputate his leg and if not, he would die in the near future, because he is in great danger. And he did not want to agree to this. And the professor spoke on the phone to Dr. Rabbi Rosenthal and asked him to come to the clinic to consult with him, and the rabbi immediately came and spoke to the son’s heart to agree to this, because the professor is an expert and he is the doctor for Breslovi and you can trust him. Then he said that he would cast a lot whether to cut or not. And he had a small book of Psalms in his lap, and he opened it for the first time, and fell on the page that had the verse at the top: “They crossed by foot, there we rejoiced with Him (66:6). And he opened the Psalms again and fell on the verse: “My feet stood on the plain” (21:12). And he opened it a third time and fell on the verse: “If I said ‘under the feet ‘my foot has slipped,’ your kindness, O L-rd, supported me” (94:18). And immediately he took him and went with him to Vienna and there they did not amputate his leg. And we still have this book of Psalms and it is truly a wonder. And I later found in his diary that he cast the aforementioned lot according to the book “Dvash Le’pi” that it must be done.
And he was also one of the people for whom the spirit of humanity is found, because when he went with his son Nachum to Trieste for medical purposes, and the rabbi and head of the beit din in Trieste at the time was Dr. Rabbi Chayut, who later became the chief rabbi of Vienna, and the Rabbi was with him and received him well and played with him for a few hours, and put in some effort for his son Nahum, and he was like a father to him, because he had to stay there for a few years because of the war that was going on at the time. And also later when the Doctor Rabbi was in Vienna, he put in much effort for him and my son was with him and respected him very much and had fun with him for several hours. And people from Vienna told me that he spoke of him many times and praised him very much and watched over my grandchild Nachum until he passed away . And also Rabbi Yosseli Baumgarten in Vienna also respected him very much.
And the words that came out of his heart were pure, entered the hearts of the hearer, and if it is stone, it becomes soft. At the beginning of the war, Person A came to him and told him that he was an orphan and could not say Kaddish because he was a train mechanic, and had to travel all the time, and asked him for advice on what to do. And he asked what he does on Shabbat and he laughed and said he had to travel on Shabbat as well because he has no other livelihood, and in wartime it’s hard to get a job. Then he explained to him the greatness of the sanctity of Shabbat and his great wages, and wept before him that he had nothing else, and said that he had many children. After some weeks, the above-mentioned man came before him with great joy, and told him that from the time that he was with him and spoke about the above, there was no rest and no quite, and he asked for another job, so that he wouldn’t have to desecrate Shabbat, and he found a much more comfortable job, without having to Shabbat, and he wanted to give my son some kind of gift and he didn’t want to accept it.
If I had to think of how many wonderful things I had seen from him, there would be much to write about, especially during his illness and before his death, (and two days before his death he saw me putting on a tefillin and hinted to me to take it off, even though he could not take it off with something on his body: “that dead people cannot perform mitzvot,” that’s what he told me
But because of my weakness I have to cut short. And now I give thanks to my dear grandchildren for the greatness of their trouble, who bothered themselves to collect the things and arrange the available articles that thus far were scattered, and what this grouping together will achieve.
And I give thanks to all those who helped in this matter, and in particular to his brother, the Rabbi of Kozieglowy, who helped a lot in this matter. And the author’s merit will stand for us and to all those who helped, that we will be saved soon with all kinds and numerous blessings.
And G-d willing we will be able to publish the rest of the author’s thoughts.
From me, the author’s father.
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