A General With a Jewish Heart

It was the second night of the Seder when a splendid coach pulled up to the house of Rav Elyakim Shapira of Hordona. Out stepped Colonel Loryonow, the feared and hated officer whom the Jews despised. Yet he was smiling as he entered the Rav's home. Word soon spread that he had been invited as the Rav's Seder guest, and that he had come to enjoy the Rebbetzin's cooking and to taste the wine and the matzos. How such a strange turn of events came about is almost unbelievable.

There was no doubt that the man the Jews of Grodno (Hordona) feared and loathed most was Colonel Loryonow. The local Jewish mothers had given him the nickname of the wicked Haman, because he was especially harsh on the Jewish soldiers conscripted into the army. He demanded that soldiers stand at full attention, in impeccably clean and ironed uniforms free of wrinkles and stains, with polished brass buttons. Woe to the soldier caught with a stain, a wrinkle or a dull button, and worse still to one whose boots were not properly laced and shined.

If this was hard on the average soldier, it was harder on the Jews. No one knew why, but the Colonel had it in for them. It was therefore no surprise, though a source of extra pain, when they learned that this year all Pesach leave was cancelled for every Jewish soldier, with no explanation given.

The shtadlanim had given up all hope. All but one. Rav Elyakim reasoned that it could not hurt to try shtadlanus (intercession) and meet with the fearsome Colonel. What can he do to me, he thought. Call me names and shame me in public? He already hates the Jews, treats them badly and has cancelled their leave. At worst some gentile will shame me, and so what?

And so he went to see the dreaded Colonel and to reason with him. To everyone's pleasant surprise, the news was that the Rav had succeeded. Pesach leave was granted for both Seder nights and for the last two days of Yom Tov. In addition, no Jewish soldier was forced to eat chametz during Pesach, and all were free to eat matzo.

Now the Colonel was here, as he had promised, on the second Seder night. His magnificent coach, drawn by two powerful stallions, arrived, and after drinking the four cups and tasting the matzos, he withdrew alone with the Rav. From time to time afterwards he would return, smiling, bestow honor and favors, and visit the Rav. His secret visits remained a mystery. Neither the Rebbetzin nor anyone in the household divulged what the two spoke of or why the Colonel kept coming back.

One day Colonel Loryonow arrived in a splendid new uniform that showed his higher rank. "Honorable Rav," he declared, "I have been promoted to brigadier general of Sobolki, and I am moving there. I will miss you, and I wished to thank you for your kindness and your honorable friendship." And so the mysterious relationship came to an end.

It is said that Colonel Loryonow was really a Jew, snatched as a child and conscripted into the army, and that Rav Elyakim Shapira made him a baal teshuvah. The Rav revealed and warmed the Jewish heart of the Colonel who became a General, and his visits were secret lessons in how to keep the articles of the Jewish faith, hidden under his disguise.