Rav Avrohom Dov Auerbach

The Talmid Who Heard From Afar

The Chassidim sat spellbound at the table of the Meor Einayim, the Rebbe of Chernobyl. He had finished his Divrei Torah and begun to speak of ordinary matters. All sat still, except one chassid, who slowly crept inch by inch down the table from the far end, straining to hear the Rebbe's words.

This was Rav Avrohom Dov of Avritch, the author of the Bas Ayin. Most of the Chassidim noticed nothing, but one man was annoyed by the slow advance toward the head of the table and objected loudly. “So now you come, eh? The whole time the Rebbe said Torah, you sat content at the far end, and now that he speaks of mundane matters you push your way to the head of the table?”

The Meor Einayim turned, upset, not toward the Bas Ayin but toward the man who had spoken, and defended his talmid. “My talmid's ears are pure. He has corrected them so that they are attuned to the Torah that he needs to hear and less to the mundane matters that he does not need to hear. When I speak Divrei Torah, he can sit contentedly at the far end of the table and still hear and absorb my words. But when it comes to sichas chullin, ordinary talk, even though there is something to learn from it too, he must exert himself and sit close in order to hear.”

The Seudah That Defeated the Samech Mem

It is told that Rav Avrohom Dov and Rav Mordechai of Chernobyl were once invited to a bris milah. The host honored the Chernobyler Maggid to serve as sandak, and the Maggid answered that he would be honored, on one condition: that the father make a seudas mitzvah.

The father explained that he was not a wealthy man. His whole weekly salary came to five gulden (seventy-five kopecks), he had already spent it on his household, and he had not a kopeck left. The Maggid insisted. He told him to borrow an advance from his employer, to be repaid by deductions from his wages week by week, and he counted out a generous sum of his own as a contribution. The father did as he was told, and they held a beautiful bris and a fine seudas mitzvah.

Then the Maggid explained. The Soton is called the Samech Mem, from the initials of his angelic name, and the same letters begin the words seudas mitzvah ein la'asos, that one should not make a feast. The Evil One is crafty, he said. He has already succeeded in preventing many people from making a seudas siyum at the completion of a tractate, and now he had turned to the seudas bris milah. The Maggid declared that he would stand up to him and put out both his eyes.

The Bas Ayin agreed and added that this is how the archangel Michoel defeated the Samech Mem. When the Samech Mem boasts of how people listen to him and sin, Michoel answers that they do not listen wholeheartedly. Has anyone ever heard of a person making a festive meal to mark a sin? But after a mitzvah, such as a bris, the father gathers his friends and relatives and makes a lavish feast. That proves how joyfully mitzvos are done.

The Bas Ayin also had a close, warm relationship with the Maggid's son and with the other Rebbes of the Chernobyl dynasty, including the Rebbes of Trisk and Cherkas. He once told one of his talmidim that this closeness was one of the reasons he decided to leave his birthplace and move to Eretz Yisroel. A kingdom can have only one ruler at a time, and he felt that his own position as Rav encroached on the rightful domain of the Chernobyl Rebbes over the area.

The Stones That Shine Like Diamonds

The Bas Ayin did not let his feelings for the Holy Land grow stagnant. His desire to perceive and experience the kedushah of Eretz Yisroel grew day by day and never stopped. Rav Mordechai of Slonim once related the following.

Soon after the Avritcher Rav settled in Tzfas, he locked himself in his room for a while and allowed no one to enter. When the door finally opened he came out radiant with joy and invited his family to a festive meal. A close chassid, Rav Fischel Bernstein, asked him the reason, and the Bas Ayin explained his seclusion.

While still in the Diaspora he had hosted a shaliach derabbonon, a rabbinic emissary from the Holy Land who collected tzedakah for its institutions. In praising Eretz Yisroel the emissary exaggerated and said that even the plain stones cast by the roadside there shine like brilliant diamonds and gems. After the Bas Ayin came to Eretz Yisroel he saw only ordinary stones. When he met the emissary again he told him, “I searched for those gems on the road and could not find them.” The emissary did not apologize but answered that whoever has pure, untainted eyes can truly see the gems.

“When I heard that,” said the Avritcher, “I locked myself in my room and worked on myself until I succeeded. Now I can say that I see even the stones cast by the wayside in Eretz Yisroel shining as brilliantly as diamonds. Having merited this, I must thank Hashem, and so I made this meal.”

Defending the Berditchever's Honor

Rav Avrohom Dov once heard a Misnagged, who was himself a Rav, speaking against the Avritcher's own Rebbe, the Berditchever. The Avritcher defended the Berditchever's honor and protested loudly and strongly against the opponent of Chassidus.

The Misnagged threatened that if the Avritcher did not apologize, he would never have children. The Avritcher answered, “Even so, I will not apologize, since my Rebbe's honor is at stake.” He did not apologize, and he never had children.

Water From Eretz Yisroel

Rav Avrohom Dov, a talmid of Rav Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, was once visiting Zhitomir. He went to see Rav Aharon of Zhitomir, the author of Toldos Aharon, who was also a talmid of the Berditchever, and found him lying sick in bed. Rav Aharon was very glad to see him. “I will only be cured when I drink water that came from Eretz Yisroel,” he said. “I know that you are planning to travel there. Your thoughts are already there, and wherever a person's thoughts are, there he is. Please take a mouthful of water and place it in a vessel. It will be like water from Eretz Yisroel. I will drink it and be healed.” And so it was.

The Avritcher wondered how Rav Aharon knew of his longing, since he had not told a soul. It was only an idea in his mind, and yet Rav Aharon knew it.

When Rav Mordechai of Slonim told this story, he added that the Bas Ayin discusses this very concept in his sefer. Rashi in Parshas Vayishlach says that the messengers Yaakov sent to Esav were malochim, and the Bas Ayin asks how malochim of the Holy Land could come to Yaakov when he had not yet entered Eretz Yisroel, and had not even reached Sukkos. He quotes the Ramban, who asks the same question and answers that since Yaakov was traveling to Eretz Yisroel, it was as if he had already arrived.

In the printed Ramban the question appears on Parshas Vayeitzei rather than Vayishlach, and the Bas Ayin's own answer does not appear there at all. Rav Yisroel Meir Mendelowitz, in his 2006 notes to the Bas Ayin, suggests that the idea can be found in the Ramban on Eiruvin 17, where he discusses how a person is wherever his thoughts are. See also Meor Einayim (Yismach Lev, Kesubos), Shabbos 102a and Eiruvin 99a.

The Attack on Tzfas

The Druze rebelled against the Egyptian king, Muhammad Ali, and as they passed through they attacked and looted Tzfas, burning and pillaging. The Avritcher himself was in grave danger and his life was miraculously saved. Rav Moshe Reisher told the details in his sefer Shaarei Yerushalayim.

In Sivan 5598 a rebellion broke out against Ibrahim Pasha, the ruler of Egypt and Syria. The rebels came armed with swords to murder the Jews and plunder their possessions. The Jews fled their homes and left everything behind. Many escaped to Ein Zaytun and hid among the holy graves, davening to Hashem to save them.

For three days and three nights the attackers rampaged through the city and left it empty. They defiled the shuls and batei medrash, threw the seforim to the ground and tore them, and closed every road so that no one could leave and no word could reach the authorities on the coast. Rav Reisher recalls that the Jews were left bare and lacking even basic necessities, because the attackers stole even the shirts off their backs and beat them mercilessly.

At that time Rav Avrohom Dov of Avritch was the elder and leader who had come to Tzfas and been appointed chief Rav. He had a Bais Medrash that exists to this day and bears his name. The terrified Jews, men, women and children, fled there for shelter and lay hiding on the floor, weeping bitter tears.

Rav Reisher's father-in-law, who came from Teveria and spoke clear Arabic, wished to speak with the gentile governor of Tzfas, in the hope that he might be persuaded to protect the Jews. They gathered a sum of money and many gifts, came to the governor's home and greeted him with blessings in Arabic. He received them with honor, accepted the gifts graciously and promised to guard the city and protect the Jews. They returned and told the Avritcher Rav, and he and everyone hiding with him were glad.

But the joy was short-lived. The attackers came again, looted whatever they could find and beat whoever they could lay their hands on. The governor himself fled and could not keep his word.

The wicked men came to the Rav's home, seized him, tied his hands behind his back with ropes and took other hostages with him. They brought them to the stronghold known as the castle of Yosef ben Gurion and beat him almost to death. Then they put swords to his neck and threatened his life unless they were given a thousand purses of coins, each purse containing some five hundred grush, equal to fifty silver reinisch. The Jews did not have nearly such a sum.

The holy Avritcher asked for water to wash his hands and, accepting the Divine decree, called out, “My children, allow me to call upon Hashem and bless Him for His true judgment that He has judged me today.” He sat to await the Heavenly decree.

In His great mercy Hashem saved His people. At that moment another Arab burst in and shouted that Ibrahim Pasha and his soldiers were on their way and would leave no survivors. Seized with fear, the captors fled for their lives and left behind all their loot and their hostages. Later another group of Jews arrived and cut the bonds of the Rav and the other hostages and set them free. They returned to find their homes in ruins, and they thanked Hashem for sparing their lives.

The Love of Other Jews

It is told that when Rav Avrohom Dov traveled to take leave of the Chernobyler Maggid, all the Maggid's sons were present except Rav Aharon. On the way back a wagon wheel broke and the coach was stuck, and soon it was nightfall. As they stood davening Mincha, Rav Aharon's own coach pulled up beside them and he joined them. The Bas Ayin saw the hand of Heaven in this mishap. The wheel broke and delayed his journey, he used to explain, so that he could take leave of Rav Aharon of Chernobyl before he left.

After the tefillos Rav Aharon approached and extended his hand to say shalom. “Avritcher Rav, tell me please, why do people make such a big deal out of you?”

“It is because of my love for other Jews,” the Bas Ayin answered.

“I also love other Jews, but the question is where to find such Jews to love.”

“That is the difference between me and you,” said Rav Avrohom Dov. “I have them already and you do not.”

The Bread of the Land

At first the Bas Ayin's family found it hard to adjust to the climate and harsh conditions of Eretz Yisroel, but he did his best to help them accept the hardships with love. The Rebbetzin complained about the flat, dry pitas, because she was unused to baking with the coarse flour she had to grind by hand. The Avritcher Rav reacted in the opposite way. He was delighted to eat such bread and would repeat again and again, with happiness, the pasuk that speaks of eating the bread of the Land. He would break the bread and joyfully share it with everyone around him. His household and followers later testified that they had never eaten bread so tasty as those pitas that the Rebbetzin baked and the Avritcher Rav handed out himself.

One year there was a severe drought and the local people had to use imported grain from the Diaspora. The Bas Ayin refused to eat any bread baked with it. He explained his position from Vayikra 25:20, where the Torah asks what will be eaten in the seventh year. Why would they worry about lacking food in the Shemittah year, when they could simply import grain from outside the Land? The answer lies at the end of the same pasuk, he said: they would not be able to plant or gather their own grain. The emphasis is on their own grain. What do we do if we lack our own grain from Eretz Yisroel? This is a clear proof from the Torah, he concluded, that the primary objective is to eat from the produce of Eretz Yisroel.

Why He Stayed in Tzfas

As soon as Rav Avrohom Dov set foot in Tzfas, the Bas Ayin was moved by the holiness and asceticism he saw all around him. That alone did not convince him to settle there. What changed his mind was something he overheard on Chol HaMoed Sukkos, as a conversation drifted in through his window.

A Jewish mother was calling to her son. “Yerachmiel, come quickly, climb up on the roof with me and help me roll up the straw mats and put them away from the rain. Soon it will be Shemini Atzeres, and all the Jews will gather in the shuls to daven for rain. Hashem hears the tefillos of His people and will surely send rain of blessing at once, and then all our mats on the roof will be ruined. Hurry and help.”

When the Bas Ayin heard this he was deeply moved and decided to remain in Tzfas. He explained that in a city where the Jewish women have such emunah that when they ask for rain Hashem answers with rain, he wished his portion to be counted among them. There and then he cancelled his plans to move to Yerushalayim and stayed in Tzfas.

The Earthquake in the Bais Medrash

The Avritcher Rav survived the earthquake in Tzfas in a miraculous way. He was in his Bais Medrash davening Mincha when the tremors began. As soon as he understood what was happening, he warned his followers not to leave the shul or go outside. Instead he had them crowd around him while he fell down in nefilas apayim, with his hands and feet outstretched, in a gesture of total surrender to Hashem.

The Bais Medrash had a domed roof, and the earthquake brought down most of the dome and the walls. Only the small area where the Bas Ayin lay prostrate, with his followers around him, remained untouched, and they were unharmed. Only two support pillars remained standing, and the dome was left hanging almost in mid-air. To commemorate the miracle a plaque was set up that reads: “Ma nora hamakom hazeh, how awesome is this place, the Bais Medrash of Rav Avrohom Dov, the Admor of Avritch, zecher tzaddik livrocha, who survived the great earthquake in Tzfas in the year 5597, and in his great merit he saved half the shul from destruction. He and all his talmidim survived.”

The Avritcher saw the earthquake as a sign of coming redemption. He took the Hebrew letters of the word for earthquake, ra'ash, and rearranged them to spell sha'ar, a gate, an opening toward salvation. He cites Sanhedrin 98, where the talmidim asked Rav Yossi ben Kisma when Moshiach ben Dovid would come. He answered, “When this gate falls and is rebuilt, and falls again and is rebuilt again, and then a third time, and they will not have the chance to rebuild it again, because then ben Dovid will arrive.” The words sha'ar and ra'ash have the same gematria as Tzfas (shin 300, ayin 70, reish 200, totaling 570, and tzadi 90, peh 80, tav 400, also 570).

There had been two earthquakes that claimed many lives, and the Avritcher predicted that this third one would be the last and that Moshiach would arrive before the final rebuilding was complete.

The Baal Shem Tov's Segulah

During a revolt in the days of the ruler Ibrahim Pasha, the governor of Tzfas offered the Avritcher a safe haven, but he refused, saying that wherever all the Jews would be, he would be with them. When the rebels learned that the Avritcher was present, they captured him and some of his followers and marched them off to be killed.

On the way, the younger captives began whispering about a plan to seize their captors' swords and attack. The Avritcher overheard them and ordered them to abandon the idea. Instead he told them to ask the captors for water. He pretended to be thirsty and was given water, and over it he fervently recited the berocha Shehakol niheya bidvaro. Afterwards he explained to the Chassidim that the Baal Shem Tov taught that reciting this berocha in times of distress is a segulah for salvation from danger.

Just then a well-dressed, respectable-looking Arab approached and began to berate the rebels, asking them to release the Rebbe and his followers, for were they not honorable men, as he had heard? To uphold their new reputation, the rebels released the prisoners and sent them home.

Soon after, word went out that all Russian citizens must leave, and the Pasha wished to expel the Jews from Tzfas to Akko and Haifa. The Avritcher told the Chassidim to sit tight and said that the Pasha would leave before they did. And so it was. Within days the Pasha was deposed and murdered, and Tzfas was quiet and peaceful once more.

The Yahrzeit Seudah

Several friends used to learn together on Thursday nights in the apartment of Reb Shloimke, which stood across from the Mir. They still remember one member of the group who had no children. He poured out his heart to Reb Meilech, Rav Elimelech Biderman, who heard him out in silence.

Reb Meilech then pointed out that the yahrzeit of the Bas Ayin was coming up in a week. His advice was that the man should hold the seudah himself, at his own home. It made little sense to him, yet the friends came to his apartment when the day arrived. Nine months passed, and the whole circle celebrated with him at the birth of his first child, a daughter.

Why the Bas Ayin of all tzaddikim? Nobody knows for certain, but one of Reb Meilech's close talmidim has a thought. Nearly every teaching in the sefer Bas Ayin comes back to hachnaah, submission, and no one takes up less space than Reb Meilech. He is a smile, a voice that calls to courage and hope, someone who claims nothing and demands nothing. He is the same man who dances on tabletops, throws himself over kevarim, and takes a seat on the low wall by the shul entrance once a shiur ends, just to talk with a discouraged fifteen-year-old bochur.

Our Attachment to Hashem Through the Chanukah Lights

In the Bas Ayin on Parshas Vayeshev, the Avritcher reads the account of Yehuda and Tamar (Bereishis 38:24–25) through the Arizal as a picture of Rosh Hashanah, Chanukah and the judgment of Klal Yisroel. The three months from Rosh Hashanah to Chanukah are the time when judgment is sealed. The Soton, the accuser, comes before Hashem, alluded to by the name Yehuda, which contains Hashem's four-letter name, and charges that His kallah, Knesses Yisroel, has been unfaithful and is attached in dveikus to sin. Knesses Yisroel answers that she is attached to the One to whom everything belongs, le'ish asher eileh lo, where the words eileh lo equal seventy-two, the gematria of chessed. Even if the exile and the burden of earning a living cause her to stray, in the depths of her heart she is attached in love to the Creator. Then she presents her proof. The seal is the sealed jug of oil of the Kohen Godol, the threads are the wicks of the Chanukah lights, and the staff, hamateh, equals kli in gematria, the vessel. The mitzvah of the Chanukah lights, with oil, wick and vessel, shows that Klal Yisroel follows Hashem and does His will. And Hashem answers, “She is more righteous than I,” admitting that any straying is because Moshiach has not yet come to end the exile. Rav Elozor Twerski of Faltishan used to say that this teaching was really from Rav Mottele of Chernobyl, the Bas Ayin's Rebbe, and was included in his talmid's sefer without attribution.

Bas Ayin, Bereishis, Parshas Vayeshev (on Bereishis 38:24–25)

Three Middos to Guard

Before leaving for Eretz Yisroel, the Bas Ayin told his chassidim that to emulate the ways and character of another is to be truly attached to that person. Just as Hashem is merciful and kind, so should we be. He had been careful with his own middos since his youth, and he named three he had always guarded against: loshon hora, sheker, and gasus ruach, arrogance and vanity. If his chassidim would accustom themselves to guard these as well, he told them, they would be connected with him truly, face to face.

Introduction to the Bas Ayin, written by his nephew