Rav Dov Berish Weidenfeld
The Tchebiner Rav, a gaon and posek who hid as a coal merchant, survived Siberian exile, and led Kochav MiYaakov in Yerushalayim; his teshuvos are in Dovev Meishorim.
Biography
Early years
Rav Dov Berish Weidenfeld zt"l, known as the Tchebiner Rav, was born on Wednesday, the 5th of Shevat 5641 (1881), in Hrimlov, Galicia (now Ukraine). He was the son of Rav Yaakov "Yekele" Weidenfeld, author of Kochav MiYaakov and Av Beis Din of Hrimlov, and of Rachel. He was a ben zekunim, a child born to his parents in their old age.
His lineage was one of Torah. His maternal grandfather was the seventh link in an unbroken chain of poskim that began with the Shach, and his paternal grandfather was a talmid of Rav Yaakov Loeberbaum, author of Nesivos HaMishpat. His mother was renowned for her genius and wit, and she wrote down a great number of her husband's teshuvos as he dictated them.
His father was his main rebbe. In 1894, within two weeks of Berishel's bar mitzvah, Rav Yekele passed away. The task of raising and educating the boy fell to his mother and to his two older brothers: Rav Yitzchok, who succeeded their father as Rav of Hrimlov, and Rav Nachum, Rav of Dombrova, author of Chazon Nachum and later a great posek in his own right.
Torah and leadership
At the age of nineteen, in 5660, Rav Dov Berish married Rebbetzin Yachat, the daughter of Rav Yisroel Yosef Kluger (HaCharif) of Tchebin. He did not want any rabbinic position. His wife administered a modest coal business to support him, and he himself held a contract as a coal supplier. He learned Torah for half the day and tended to business for the other half, and he spent his nights studying and teaching.
At the age of twenty-four, in 5665, he received semichah from Rav Yitzchok Shmelkes, Av Beis Din of Lemberg and author of Beis Yitzchok.
For twenty years this Tchebiner baal habayis (layman), already known as the Gaon of Tchebin, stayed out of the public eye. Rabbanim, gaonim and talmidim sent him questions, and he kept up a vigorous correspondence with leading rabbanim. His uncle, Rav Yaakov Levi, Rav of Tchebin, sent his own sons to consult with him, especially on difficult matters. Kehillos from many places asked him to become their Rav, but he refused every offer. Out of his love of learning and teaching, he would commute each day to and from Cracow to give shiurim to the local bachurim after business hours.
In 5683, after Rav Yaakov Levi passed away, Rav Dov Berish finally agreed to accept the vacant position as Rav of Tchebin. In 1923, after twenty years of learning, he assumed the title of Tchebiner Rav. He also served as Rosh Yeshiva of Kochav MiYaakov.
He was also asked to serve among the spiritual leadership of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, a position created after the passing of its founder and Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Meir Shapira. Among those who served alongside him were Rav Fromer of Kozhiglov, Rav Friedman of Boyan, Rav Firer of Krasna and Rav Ziemba Hy"d of Warsaw.
Family
Rav Dov Berish and his wife were blessed with six children, two sons and four daughters. Their oldest son, Rav Yekele Hy"d, named for his paternal grandfather, was one of the greatest iluyim (prodigies) and geniuses of Galicia. His brother, Rav Yisroel Yosef Hy"d, named for his maternal grandfather, was chosen as son-in-law by Rav Menachem Ziemba Hy"d, for his daughter Miriam Hy"d.
Their oldest daughter, Mindel, married Rav Shlomo Goldstoff of Krakow. Their second daughter, Leah, married Rav Baruch Halberstam Hy"d, son of Rav Sinia of Zemigrad and Av Beis Din of Zeklikov. Their third daughter, Yuta Hy"d, married Rav Chaim Tannenbaum Hy"d, a Gerrer yungerman. Their youngest daughter, Raizel, married the gaon Rav Baruch Shimon Schneersohn, who became Rosh Yeshiva of Kochav MiYaakov in Yerushalayim.
For years the Tchebiner Rav did not know the fate of his children. After the war the bitter truth became known: his oldest son, Rav Yekele Hy"d, his son Rav Yisroel Yosef Hy"d, his second daughter Leah Hy"d and her husband Rav Baruch Halberstam Hy"d, and his third daughter Yuta Hy"d with her husband Rav Chaim Tannenbaum Hy"d, had all perished.
Teachings and seforim
Rav Dov Berish carefully collected copies of his teshuvos, gathering enough material for ten volumes. In 1937 he published the first and only sefer ever printed in Tchebin, Dovev Meishorim. The other nine volumes were never published.
His son-in-law and successor, Rav Baruch Shimon Schneersohn, a gaon and author in his own right, relates that when he republished these teshuvos some twenty-six years after they were written, he included the Rav's handwritten glosses to the first edition. He found not one correction, only additional proofs for those very answers, which had originally been written without so much as a Gemara in front of him.
Later years and passing
As the war began, the Tchebiner Rav's picture, together with those of the Rebbes of Ger and Belz, appeared in the hate-filled tabloid Der Stuermer, under the caption "The world's greatest Talmudist." Realizing that he was a target, he fled across the Communist border into Lemberg in 5700. There the authorities were systematically erasing religious life, and in late 1940 he, his wife, his youngest daughter and thousands of other Jews were deported to Sverdlovsk, Siberia.
In 5702 he left Siberia for Bukhara, where he married off his youngest daughter, Raizel, to Rav Baruch Shimon Schneersohn. After the fall of the Nazi regime, he reached Persia, where the parnass Rav Yitzchok Meir Levi cared for him in Tehran and arranged passage for him and his family through Turkey, Syria and Lebanon to Eretz Yisroel.
The Tchebiner Rav arrived in Yerushalayim on Erev Pesach 5706 (1946), and it was to be his home for the rest of his life. He settled in the Shaarei Chessed neighborhood. On the 4th of Shevat 5707, his rebbetzin passed away in Hadassah Hospital. He later remarried Rebbetzin Raizel Lieberman-Branfeld, a descendant of the Chasam Sofer.
He was soon recognized as one of the leaders of chareidi Jewry in the Land of Israel and served as a leading member of the Council of Torah Sages of Agudas Yisroel. He established the Kochav MiYaakov yeshiva in Yerushalayim, first in Shaarei Chessed and later in a purpose-built building in Tel Arza.
The Yomim Noraim of 5726 passed uneventfully. Rav Dov Berish went to the mikvah, was in good spirits, told sippurei tzaddikim and celebrated the yamim tovim. In Cheshvan he was diagnosed with pneumonia and his condition quickly worsened. As word spread, Klal Yisroel davened for his recovery.
On Friday, the 10th of Cheshvan, his final hour approached. He remained calm and serene, and asked his son-in-law Rav Shlomo Goldstoff for a glass of milk so that he could recite the berachah of Shehakol Nihiye BiDevaro. He then asked for help to come down from his sickbed and sat on a chair at the table. His face took on an otherworldly glow as his lips began to whisper Nishmas Kol Chai Teverach es Shimcha. At that very moment, it is told, his soul left this world, rising to join Kabbalas Shabbos in Shomayim. He passed away seventy minutes before Shabbos, Erev Shabbos Parshas Lech Lecha, 10 Cheshvan 5726 (1965).
He was laid to rest on Motzaei Shabbos on Har Menuchos, not far from the tzion of Rav Aharon of Belz, at a levaya attended by some forty thousand people. As he had requested in his final will to his son-in-law Rav Shlomo Goldstoff, no hesped was delivered.
Stories
No Shalom, No Derashah
At the age of seven, Dov Berish was already giving a public derashah in shul every Shabbos on the weekly parshah, which his father taught him.
One week a dispute broke out in Hrimlov, and his father, Rav Yekele, as Rav of the town, was deeply involved in helping both sides reach a resolution. He was so busy with the machlokes that he had no time that week to review the parshah or to teach his son a new insight to share.
That Shabbos, a totally unprepared Dov Berish rose in shul and told the entire kehillah: "It says in the Chumash, 'Va'yomer Moshe el kol adas Bnei Yisrael' (Shemos 35:4). Why does it say kol, all of them? This teaches us that Moshe Rabbeinu was able to speak words of Torah only when all of Bnei Yisrael were united and there was no dispute among them. As long as the dispute in Hrimlov continues, and as long as there is no shalom among the Jews of this kehillah, I will be unable to say any new insights on the parshah either."
A Gadol at the Head of the Table
In his youth, Dov Berish's father brought him to the tisch of the Husyatiner Rebbe, Rav Mordechai Feivish. The chassidim were amazed to see the child carried over the heads of the crowd and seated at the head of the table, surrounded by elders, gaonim and tzaddikim.
The Rebbe, uncharacteristically, explained it in the simplest terms: "Here sits a gadol."
The Shinover Rav's Advice
In 5660, Dov Berish married the daughter of Rav Yisroel Yosef (HaCharif) Kluger of Tchebin, one of the most ardent chassidim of the Shinover Rav, author of Divrei Yechezkel. By then Rav Yisroel Yosef was no longer alive, and it was his widow who went to ask the advice of Rav Yechezkel of Shinava whether she should agree to the match.
The tzaddik told her to go ahead with the shidduch. "Although I do not know the boy personally," he explained, "I know his brother Rav Nachum, Av Beis Din of Dombrova, and surely he is similar. If so, the shidduch will be to the satisfaction and nachas ruach of your late husband Rav Yisroel Yosef in the world of emes."
The Mistaken Deposit
Rav Dov Berish once checked the bank account of his coal business and found that, through a clerical error, five thousand zloty had been credited to it. There was no question that he would return the money at once.
What troubled him for several hours was how to return it without causing pain, anguish or trouble to the clerk who had made the mistake. The thought that anyone might suffer a loss or embarrassment because of his actions, even justified ones, worried him greatly. In the end he devised a way to return the funds so that no one would be blamed or lose anything, and his face filled with relief and satisfaction.
The Imrei Yosher's Berachah
Rav Dov Berish's father had a great talmid, Rav Meir Arik, Av Beis Din of Buchach and author of Imrei Yosher, who was considered one of the gedolei hador and one of the greatest poskim in Galicia. When a halachic question was sent from Tchebin to Rav Arik, he agreed to answer it on one condition: that the Gaon of Tchebin, as he called Rav Dov Berish, would agree with the ruling. It was a great honor, since to all appearances Rav Dov Berish was a baal habayis and a working merchant, not a Rav or a posek.
It was Rav Meir Arik who pressed Rav Dov Berish to enter the rabbinate and take up his life's role as a posek and Rosh Yeshiva. For twenty years Rav Dov Berish had kept himself out of the public eye and lived off his coal business, and he refused as long as he could. At last Rav Meir Arik gave him a berachah: "I bless you that you should lose all your money and be forced to finally accept the chair of the rabbinate."
The berachah was soon fulfilled, in a way that showed his fine middos and his love of emes. A coal merchant named Reb Binyamin Filler ordered a large number of railroad cars of coal, a big and profitable order. A few days later word reached Rav Dov Berish that the price of coal was about to plummet. He realized that Reb Binyamin, who had bought at peak prices, would lose a great deal. So Rav Dov Berish did not deliver the coal as agreed. He waited, willingly and knowingly, and watched the prices plunge, and his savings and fortune went down with them.
Reb Binyamin's investment was saved, but Rav Dov Berish was left with almost nothing. With no choice left, he sold his concerns and left the marketplace behind.
Refusing to Be Singled Out
In Lemberg, Rav Dov Berish was a guest in the home of Rav Nachum'enyu Friedman, son-in-law of Rav Yisroel of Husyatin. The house became a hive of Torah as many gedolim came to be near their revered guest. But with every month, life grew harder for the Jews of Lemberg. The Bolsheviks closed and locked the major shuls, forbade the public study and teaching of Torah, and arrested rabbanim, shochtim and other klei kodesh. The Tchebiner Rav continued to learn Torah clandestinely, and his talmidim and yeshivah went underground, until the decree was carried out and all the Jewish refugees of Lemberg were gathered up and shipped off to Siberia.
Eyewitnesses testified that askanim did everything they could to persuade the Bolsheviks to release Rav Dov Berish, and they succeeded. But he would not allow himself to be saved while all his brethren were being deported. He cried out: "I don't want to be singled out from everyone else. I refuse to separate from my congregants and fellow countrymen. I won't leave my fellow Jews behind in their pain and distress." He was returned to the truck that was to take them to the labor camps of Siberia.
While those gathered wept over the fate of the deported Jews, Hashem's hashgachah pratis was at work. Had those good-hearted askanim succeeded in rescuing him, who knows whether he would have survived? Most of the Jews of Lemberg later suffered the bitter fate of millions of others at the hands of the Nazi regime. It was only thanks to his Siberian exile that Rav Dov Berish survived.
Torah on Scraps in Siberia
During the long and bitter exile in Siberia, the Tchebiner Rav warmed himself with Torah. With no seforim, he learned and reviewed from memory. His many chiddushim, pilpulim and teshuvos were written on wood shavings, scraps of paper from packages and torn cement bags that he found in the woods.
Those scraps could have been burned in the stove to warm the home. Instead, the Tchebiner Rav used them to warm his heart and soul with Torah.
The Interpreter's Remark
In Siberia, Rav Dov Berish hid his true identity from the Bolsheviks and pretended to be a simple melamed. A Commissar once asked the Polish gentile interpreter why Rav Dov Berish was dressed like a rabbi. Hashgachah pratis put the right words in the interpreter's mouth, and he answered with contempt: "I guess you have never been to Warsaw. If you had, you might think all the Jews are rabbis, by the way they dress."
The Commissar accepted the remark at face value. The Rav's identity remained a secret, and he remained safe.
Early Days in Yerushalayim
As Pesach 5706 approached, the Tchebiner Rav arrived in Yerushalayim, and his faithful talmid Rav Mordechai Mondshein arranged for him to stay at the Babad hotel, where he conducted the Seder and celebrated Yom Tov. They stayed there for some three months in all. It later came to light that Rav Mordechai had pawned his wife's jewelry and borrowed money from a gemach in Shaarei Chessed to pay for the Rav's accommodations, and that she had agreed wholeheartedly and with love.
When the Tchebiner Rav davened on Shavuos in the beis medrash of the Imrei Emes, the Gerrer Rebbe said: "Today we honor the Ten Commandments with the Torah himself, the Tchebiner Rav."
In 5707, Rav Dov Berish met the gaon Rav Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky in Yerushalayim. Rav Yosef Tzvi remarked: "I seem to remember that your father, Rav Yekele of Hrimlov, had two sons in the rabbinate and one who was a merchant. It was well known that the two rabbanim were gedolim in Torah. I once met the third brother, the businessman, when I was on vacation in Marienbad, and it seemed to me that his genius surpassed that of his two brothers. You are the Tchebiner Rav, so perhaps you can tell me what happened to your brother, the businessman?"
Rav Dov Berish stayed silent, embarrassed and humble, while those present hinted to Rav Dushinsky that the third brother, once a businessman, was none other than the man sitting across from him.
His Last Public Address
About two years before he passed away, the cornerstone was laid for the new building of Kochav MiYaakov, the Tchebiner Yeshiva in Yerushalayim. On the 12th of Tammuz 5723, at a gathering in a hall in the Talpiot neighborhood, Rav Dov Berish made his final public appearance and spoke with great emotion.
He blessed everyone present and spoke about how the Torah is our life, ki hem chayenu: a person without Torah is like a body without a soul, and anyone who loves his children must raise them to Torah, even with self-sacrifice and mesirus nefesh.
He explained the statement of the Yerushalmi in Berachos: "One who makes his Torah itim is considered as if he breached the covenant." Itim means times, and Chazal are usually understood to be speaking of one who learns Torah only now and then, from time to time. But the Tchebiner Rav explained: "Whoever says nishtanu ha'itim, that times have changed and nowadays we do not need to teach our children and raise them to learn Torah, has breached the bris, because the Torah is eternal and not limited to one period of history."
He also spoke of the duty to teach others, and said that talmidei yeshivah must share their learning and not keep everything they have learned to themselves. He hoped to celebrate the chanukas habayis of the new building as well, but that was not to be.
The Coachman's Wheels
Rav Dov Berish did all he could to help yeshivah students obtain exemptions from army service. Some approached him and argued that, to strengthen the IDF and protect the citizens of Israel, yeshivah students would have to be conscripted too. He answered them with a mashal.
A coach was stuck at the bottom of a steep hill. The terrain was so hilly and the load so heavy that the horses could not pull it. The coachman coaxed the tired horses with sugar cubes and carrots. When that did not work, he took off some of the heavy luggage and parcels, and finally emptied the coach entirely, but the horses still could not climb. At his wits' end and ready to give up, the coachman had one last idea. He unlatched the heavy iron wheels and took them off the coach, reasoning that their weight must be what was holding it back.
"You are guilty of the same flawed logic as the coachman," said the Tchebiner Rav. "It is only in the merit of the Torah study of the yeshivah students that you win any wars and gain any victories. Now you wish to take off the wheels of the coach. Without them, the coach will not go anywhere at all."
A Sage Over a Prophet
Rav Moshe Akiva Druck, an editor of Hamodia and a member of Agudas Yisroel, once asked the Tchebiner Rav a pointed question. Since halachic marriage causes so many problems, he wondered, why must it be kept even for secular Jews?
The Rav replied that the law must serve not only this generation but the generations after it. He was certain, he said, that the grandchildren of those who had strayed would one day return to Torah and mitzvos in yeshivos of their own. As long as the laws of marriage and divorce remained grounded in halachah, he explained, one could assume a presumption of kashrus for the families that came back, and he did not want to be the one who had to investigate the lineage of every baal teshuvah when the time came for his chuppah. But if even these minimal laws were abandoned, Heaven forbid, difficult and complicated questions would follow.
It is related that his words proved true: the descendants of those secular families have indeed returned as baalei teshuvah, an example of the saying chacham adif minavi, a sage is greater than a prophet.
Like Putting On Tefillin
The respect that other gedolim and tzaddikim had for the Tchebiner Rav can be seen in a letter sent to him by Rav Itzikel Gevirtzman of Pshevorsk, a rebbe in Antwerp and a descendant of the Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk.
He wrote: "Please believe me that I daven daily for your honor and for the sake of the Belzer, the Gerrer and the Satmar Rav. Just as we put on tefillin every day, I daven for the four of you each and every day, that you should all have long, healthy lives."
Teachings
One Mitzvah, Done Completely
Even in the freezing Siberian exile, the Tchebiner Rav continued to think through questions of halachah. He considered two people in a desert who have only one kezayis of matzah between them. If they divide it, each will have less than the minimum amount. Should one of them eat the whole kezayis while the other tastes no matzah at all? The Rav reworded the question: which is preferred, one mitzvah fulfilled completely, or two mitzvos with neither fully fulfilled? His answer was that even for himself, a person should always prefer to do one mitzvah fully and completely rather than two incomplete mitzvos.
Dovev Meishorim, Siman Yud
There Will Be Your Graves
Rav Dov Berish used to say that at Har Sinai, when Hashem held the mountain over our heads and forced us to accept the Torah, He warned us that if we did not accept it, "there will be your graves." The Rav pointed out that it does not say "here will be your graves" but "there," referring to that time. It is a warning that at any time or place, if one, Heaven forbid, forsakes the Torah, "there will be your graves," because there is no life without Torah.
A saying of Rav Dov Berish for Shavuos
Seforim
- Dovev Meishorim: His teshuvos, published in 1937 in Tchebin as the first and only sefer ever printed there. He had gathered material for ten volumes; the other nine were never published. His son-in-law Rav Baruch Shimon Schneersohn later republished it with the Rav's handwritten glosses.
Family & talmidim
Teachers: Rav Yaakov Weidenfeld (his father), Rav Yitzchok of Hrimlov (his brother), Rav Nachum of Dombrova (his brother)
Talmidim: Rav Mordechai Mondshein
Children: Rav Yekele Hy"d, Rav Yisroel Yosef Hy"d, son-in-law of Rav Menachem Ziemba Hy"d, Mindel, wife of Rav Shlomo Goldstoff of Krakow, Leah Hy"d, wife of Rav Baruch Halberstam Hy"d, Yuta Hy"d, wife of Rav Chaim Tannenbaum Hy"d, Raizel, wife of Rav Baruch Shimon Schneersohn
Also on 10 Cheshvan
All hilulos on 10 Cheshvan ›Historical sources
- Dovev Meishorim