A Kiddush Hashem

Rav Shmuel Abba and Rav Pinchos accepted their fate with bitachon and a settled calm. The night before the flogging, two chassidim came to see them: Rav Nota of Chaslivitch, together with Rav David of Vaslikov. Rav Shmuel Abba spoke warmly with the visitors about Torah, as though nothing unusual lay ahead. Then, quietly, he told them what had to be ready the next day. There should be ten men for a minyan, a physician, ice, and lemon juice to clean the wounds. Any blood or fragments of flesh that fell were to be gathered up.

Afterward the two visitors wrote that they stood there stunned. Holy fear gripped them and they could not utter a word, and the memory stayed with them for life. They had seen, they said, Avraham Avinu on the way to the Akeidah, and Rebbi Akiva as his flesh was being combed, each wholly given over to the will of the Creator, without a word and without the slightest disturbance of calm.

In those years soldiers were flogged by a method called spiessruten, which Prussian army officers had brought to Russia. A more elaborate form was known as driving the prisoner through the stroy. Each row held 250 soldiers armed with knouts, and the prisoner was led between them at a slow pace. It was not unusual for a man to die afterward, whether his heart gave out or his blood became poisoned. For 1,500 blows, the brothers would be taken through the rows three times.

On their way to the flogging, the brothers sang a special niggun, and it is still sung today.

Partway through, the yarmulke of Rav Pinchos Shapira slipped off. Long ropes bound to his wrists were pulling him forward, so he could not turn back to fetch it. He would not take another step. He stayed rooted in place, the blows landing on his back, until a bystander set the yarmulke on his head again.

When the brothers woke on Shabbos, they said at once, “We must recite Kiddush.” After Kiddush, Rav Shmuel Abba washed his hands and made Hamotzi, but he lacked the strength to eat any bread. Whenever he spoke of it afterward, he said he still felt sorry for that beracha levatalah, a blessing said in vain.