“For it is for Your sake that we are killed all the time” (Psalms 44:23). Rabbi Yehuda says this is a woman and her seven sons, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, this is circumcision…
By: Yaakov Rosenfeld
In honour of the yahrzeit (anniversary of death) of Rabbi Israel Spira, the Bluzhever Rebbe z”l, on the first of Cheshvan.
The Bluzhever Rebbe, one of the greatest righteous men of the generation and one of the elders of the rebbes in the United States, was born on Rosh Chodesh (the first day of the month) Cheshvan 5650 (1889) and passed away exactly one hundred years later, on his birthday, in 5760 (1989).
The Rebbe was considered a prodigy even in his youth, and was counted among the top students of Rabbi Meir Arik. After his marriage, he was a student of the Maharsham (Rabbi Shalom Mordechai of Berezin) and was ordained by him as a teacher. At the age of 20, he served as the rabbi of the town of Pruchnik in Galicia, and in 5684 (1923) he took part in the Great Congress of Agudath Israel.
He faced many troubles when he was young. His sons died one after the other in their youth, and only his only daughter was able to marry and start a Jewish home (and she and her husband Rabbi Shaul HaCohen Rappaport and their only son were killed in the war).
At the outbreak of the war, he fled to Lvov; from there he ended up in Janowska, and there he was among the few who survived out of the hundreds of thousands who were killed there with harsh and cruel deaths. From Janowska, he was deported to Bergen-Belsen, and after surviving the Holocaust, he immigrated to the United States, where he was among the great rebbes, the leaders of Agudath Yisrael and the Council of Torah Sages, and he had a great influence on the Jewish People and on the heartbroken Jews who hid under his wings and benefited from his advice and resourcefulness.
Unconditional love for other Jews
In every situation, pure joy shone from the Rebbe’s face. He was never seen frowning nor sad and worried. After the war, he married a Holocaust survivor widow, the mother of two children. He himself was no longer blessed to have more children, but he raised his stepchildren with love and devotion and they are his successors in the Bluzhov rabbinate in the United States.
This story was told by the Rebbe when he was participating in a circumcision celebration. The Rebbe was in tears as he recounted this story, and there is no one whose heart did not tremble upon hearing this terrible testimony:
“It was in Janowska, the story I will tell you now, on the day of Hoshana Raba in the year 5703 (1942). While we were doing hard work in the forest, I heard cries of robbery and destruction. It was a large group of Jews, women and children, who were kidnapped to be killed in an aktion (roundup) held that day, and among them I noticed a woman bitterly crying. From among the few cries that broke out from her broken heart, I heard that she wanted a sharp knife here and now. ‘Merciful Jews’ cried, ‘please bring me a knife.'”
“I understood that she did not have the energy to suffer anymore and she wanted to commit suicide.”
“I immediately approached her and spoke to her heart and told her, please don’t commit this serious act. After all, our suffering will soon be finished and then we will all stand together before the throne of honour, we will not lack anything then, but G-d forbid you should lose out on both worlds (i.e. the current one and the world to come)…”
“This is how I spoke to her heart in an attempt to persuade her not to kill herself, and then, as if out of nowhere, a Nazi appeared and gave me a severe blow and in a voice of satanic madness ordered me to reveal to him immediately what I had said to her in the middle of work time.”
“I had no other choice, and I told the evil man that this woman wanted to kill herself, she was looking for a knife and I tried to convince her not to do it.”
“This pleased the evil man who was looking to amuse his animal instincts, he asked the woman if the matter was true and she nodded her head as she said it.”
“Immediately the Nazi pulled out a sharp dagger and offered it to her saying, ‘Take what you asked for,’ and to my horror I saw her reach out and take the knife, and suddenly, before our astonished eyes, she leaped to a corner, where a tender baby, covered with worn clothes, lay curled up, and with a quick movement she removed the the clothes over him and called out in a loud voice: ‘Blessed are you, Oh L-rd our G-d, King of the universe, Who sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us to perform circumcision!’ And with the sharp knife in her hands she circumcized her son, and when she finished, she announced in a clear voice:
‘Master of the Universe! You gave me a kosher Jewish baby, I will return a kosher Jewish baby to You!'”
“That same day, the mother was murdered in sancitifcation of G-d’s name, along with her son and countless other holy and pure Jews who were taken to be killed in the same aktion on Hoshana Raba 5703.”
And when the Bluzhever Rebbe finished the story, he would say:
“I am sure that this act caused a ‘big noise’ in the upper worlds. Maybe even like the noise made above by our forefather Avraham when he bound his son Yitzchak on top of the altar.
(Source: L’ad B’bnei Yisrael)
His funeral
