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[Page 405]
Rabbi Moshe Yitzchok Rabinowitz, of Blessed Memory[1] [2]
by Moshe Rabinowitz
Translated by Allen Flusberg
Kamenetz was a little Jewish shtetl with its share of pain and pleasure. It also had its share of disputes, of synagogue charity functionaries who were striving to hold sway. And there were many stories about the town. I was with my father, may he rest in peace, for nearly fifty years; and as he was always steeped in memories of the little town, his fount of stories about Kamenetz never ran dry.
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| The Bays-Medresh [House of Study] of Rabbi Moshe Hersh, of blessed memory, and the synagogue of Rabbi Moshe Yitzchok Rabinowitz, of blessed memory |
[Page 406]
My father also told me a great deal about my grandfather [Moshe Yitzchok Rabinowitz], who had served as the Rabbi of Kamenetz. He had been a great prodigy who happened to wind up in Kamenetz, a town of diverse learned laymen. It was said that when my father's brother, the Rabbi of St. Petersburg, Rabbi David Tevel[3], came to visit, they would go outside together for a stroll, and people used to remark that it was two angels, with the spirit of God resting on them, that were walking around in the town.
With respect to my grandfather's prodigious scholarship, the following story was told: After my grandfather had presented his ruling at the end of a particular Din-Torah [religious-court hearing], one of the litigants was not pleased. This man thereupon brought his case to the brilliant Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik[4], the Rabbi of Brisk[5], who told him that the Kamenetz Rabbi was a great scholar whose ruling should be relied on.
My grandfather's home was always filled with Torah scholars, since rabbis from outside Kamenetz as well as ordinary learned laymen were constantly coming over. And thus my grandfather's children, among them my father and my Uncle Laybke, absorbed Jewish wisdom, sharp reasoning, the beauty of Jewish life, and the Torah scholarship that had been passed down for many generations.
My father and Uncle Laybke were very different from each other. My uncle was uninhibited, one “who stands before kings”[6]; he would mesmerize his listeners with rhetoric that was simultaneously beautiful and meaningful. He was always ready to do anyone a favor, never refusing to help a fellow Jew. He was the finest example of someone who interceded on behalf of the Jews. When he spoke, it was in “words that come from the heart and penetrate the heart”. He was a modern Jew whom everyone was fond of. Christians who knew him also treated him with respect, and many a time he brought glory to his people.
Although he never attended high school, he spoke Russian and Polish well.
When the image of my Uncle Laybke[7] comes back to me, it seems to me that people were more admirable and more sincere in those days. Within him “Torah and greatness were combined”. I had the good fortune to spend time with him during my adolescence. I often accompanied him on his walks, and every one of his words and ideas were gems, for he had “a mouth that utters pearls”. He was a true religious scholar.
If my Uncle Laybke was the representative of the family, then my father was the modest, unassuming one[8], the humble one, the one whom the family referred to as “good Naphtali”[9]. He was willing to do anything for everyone, to help out even beyond what he was capable of. He was zealous about putting all his heart and soul into the things he truly believed in.
[Page 407]
At a young age he was already subscribing to HaMelitz[10] (which in the 1890s was a usual [sic][11] step for the son of the Town Rabbi). He was already a Zionist in his youth, and he was among the first to buy the “shekel”[12].
He was active in the Jewish community, doing much for Jewish religious education. He was one of the founders of Mizrachi, the “Mizrachi Schools of Brest Litowsk.” Many times he prioritized his Zionist work and neglected his family. He was one of “those who faithfully occupy themselves with the needs of the community”[13], and in his later years he was fortunate enough to come to the Land of Israel and realize his ideological goals.
He had a dignified old age. People would gaze at this emaciated man, whose physical body, little more than skin and bones, had such a great soul within it. He was a rarity, the Last of the Mohicans of a fine generation of Jews. They lived in God's little world, these admirable people, harming no one, always seeing the best in people. They were the righteous intercessors[14] for the Jewish people, pleading only for peace. I would say he was one of the 36 righteous ones in whose merit the world exists[15].
He lived in a generation of the sword, of wars that exterminated a large fraction of the Jewish people. How much he suffered, how many troubles and torments he lived through during his long lifetime! With his own eyes he saw how a third of his people went to the crematoria to be exterminated. But he also saw the beginning of the redemption[16], and he believed that our redeeming messiah would soon be arriving. My father would also readily accept all that came his way, whether good or bad[17]. He left this world calmly and quietly, without suffering[18]. He was never a burden on anyone, not during his lifetime and not even when he was taken away from us.
Translator's Footnotes
[Page 408]
by Rabbi Yitzchok Turetz, of Blessed Memory
Translated by Allen Flusberg
It was a great honor for Kamenetz when the town was selected as the site of a place of Torah, the world-renowned yeshiva (previously “Knesses Bais Yitzchok” of Kovno[2], then later housed in Lukishok, Vilna[3]), with its young unmarried students, its great Torah scholars, and their great rabbi, the Head of the Yeshiva, Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibovitch, of blessed memory.[4]
When he arrived in Kamenetz from Vilna-Lukishok, Rabbi Boruch Ber was given a reception with singing and orchestral music. The sound of Torah study[5] rang out day and night.
A few years before the destruction wrought by the Second World War, they built a new building to house the Great Yeshiva. All the town residents expressed great joy for being fortunate enough to have such a yeshiva in their midst.
The day on which the building was dedicated was a holiday. They carried Torah scrolls in a procession to Rabbi Boruch Ber's house and to the new building. All the windows of the houses were lit up with candles and lamps[6]; everyone flocked to the yeshiva. The doors to the houses stayed unlocked, like in the days of the pilgrimages, when everyone would rely on the verse “no one will covet your land”[7]. In addition the Jews who lived in the surrounding villages gathered around the yeshiva.
It is a sacred labor to immortalize the memory of the community in which all these great sages had taken root—generations of prodigies and righteous ones, including the last rabbi, the wise and saintly prodigy, the local rabbinical authority, Rabbi Burstein, may God avenge his blood.
Aside from the yeshiva gedola “Knesses Bais Yitzchok”, there was also a yeshiva ketana and a talmud torah[8], headed by Rabbi Leib, who was the son-in-law of the moreh horo'o[9] Rabbi Shlomo Chaim Garfinkel. The community leaders Mr. Alter Liptzik-Greenblatt and Mr. Avrohom Yeshaya-Noson's Stempnitzki were in charge of materially supporting the yeshiva ketana and the talmud torah.
Kamenetz with its religious scholars, great rabbis, yeshivas and its beis-midroshim[10], which were always packed—what has become of it!
This was the type of Holy of Holies that Kamenetz was, with all the treasures of the Jewish people.
Translator's Footnotes
[Page 409]
by Ch. Z. Mendelson
Translated by Allen Flusberg
Rabbi Reuven Burstein, z.tz.l: a tall patriarchal figure with a noble face enveloped by a short, black beard with a few white hairs. His proud bearing demanded respect; even non-Jews would deferentially take their hats off as they passed him in the street. He was not only greatly learned in religious subjects—someone who was constantly sitting and studying in the religious courtroom—but also knowledgeable about secular subjects. He was beloved and esteemed by all. Even the government authorities of our town dealt with him in a dignified manner.
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| The rabbi and his wife, with his son and daughters |
The image of how our town welcomed him as the new rabbi —after the death of our previous rabbi, the great scholar Rabbi Rabinovich—is truly unforgettable, as is the profound sermon that he delivered then, on Shabbes Hagodol[3]. All of the most learned and nearly all of the other townspeople had come to hear the new rabbi's first sermon; they were standing cheek to jowl. Then a sacred hush fell over the sanctuary as the rabbi, wrapped in his talllis[4], slowly walked up the few stairs to the Holy Ark. Leaning on his lectern, he opened his sermon with a timely pilpul[5] concerning the Passover regulations. He brought up contradictions from within the vast sea of Talmud and then resolved them, rendering everything consistent. Held in suspense, the audience was spellbound, hanging on every word. After he had completed his sermon, several of the finest scholars deferentially accompanied him down to his seat at the eastern wall, near the Holy Ark. And everyone wished one another mazel tov[6].
His household consisted of his wife, two daughters and a son. They too were treasured and beloved for their courteousness and scholarship. All of them perished in Auschwitz.
Translator's Footnotes
Translated by Allen Flusberg
I experience a shiver of reverence when I recall the name Rabbi Shlomo Ḥaim[2], the Head of the Yeshiva, under whom I studied before I left to go abroad. He was a personage with an imposing appearance and many good qualities, someone for whom the only real way to be triumphant in one's life was through Torah study and good deeds. He was of medium height, a bit bent over, his face graced by a thick, black beard. I remember how unobtrusively he would enter the brick building where he lectured to us on Talmud every day. With remarkable simplicity, he would analyze and clarify the most difficult passages of the vast sea of Talmud. His voice was quiet and calm, but also clear and intelligible. He related to us students like a father. Never becoming angry, always maintaining an affectionate smile on his noble face, he would patiently explain everything that we had trouble understanding.
He was extremely modest, never trying to impress anyone with his great erudition and moral stature. Every evening he could be found sitting in a corner next to the Holy Ark, where he would study late into the night.
But his greatest virtue was the way he fulfilled the commandment of honoring his father. He behaved with remarkable love and respect for his father—a great prodigy who was the chief rabbi of Zastavya (a suburb of Kamenetz). I remember how I would always glance at them when they used to pass the Hoif [Szkolna Street in Kamenetz[3]] onto the crossing that connected Kamenetz and Zastavya, where I lived. He would be leading his elderly father by the hand with such love and fondness, discussing Torah matters as they walked together.
He and his household—his wife and two daughters—shared the gloomy fate of all our martyrs.
Translator's Footnotes
by Ch. Z. Mendelson
Translated by Allen Flusberg
The following figure appears on page 413 of this Yiddish article:
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| The Kamenetz synagogue[2] |
Translator's Footnotes
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