Rav Yechezkel Abramsky
Author of Chazon Yechezkel on the Tosefta, who defied the Soviet government and then raised the halachic standards of the London Beis Din as its Chief Dayan.
Biography
Early years
Rav Yechezkel Abramsky zt"l, also known as Reb Chatzkel and as Rav Yechezkel Alter Abramsky, was born in 1886 in Dashkovichy, in the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (today Belarus). He was the third of the children and the eldest of the sons. His father, Rav Mordechai Zalman Abramsky, was a timber merchant, and his mother was Freydel, née Goldin, of Grodno. The village did not have enough Jews for a minyan, so the boy learned at home.
The family was so poor that Rav Yechezkel would stand for hours in seforim shops, with the owner's permission, memorizing passages from seforim he could not afford. After cheder in the nearby town of Most, he learned in the yeshivos of Novardok, Telz, Mir, Slabodka and Ramailes in Vilna, and above all in Brisk, under Rav Chaim Soloveitchik. His brilliance earned him the name the illui (genius) from Most. While still a teenager he received semicha (rabbinic ordination) from Rav Yechiel Mechel Epstein, the Aruch HaShulchan.
In 1909 he married Hendl Reizel, the daughter of Rav Yisroel Yehonoson Yerushalemsky, who was a son-in-law of the Ridbaz, Rav Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky. In his father-in-law's home Rav Yechezkel advanced in horo'a (halachic decision-making) while continuing to learn in depth with Rav Chaim Brisker.
Torah and leadership
For a time he served as rosh mesivta (head of an advanced class) in the Lubavitcher yeshiva. He then became Rav in Smolyan, and after that in Smolevich, near Minsk, where he stayed for nine years. In 5683 (1923) he became Rav of Slutzk.
Slutzk was already under Communist control. With mesirus nefesh (self-sacrifice), Rav Yechezkel openly practiced Yiddishkeit, encouraged his community and led the way in resisting the government's attempts to suppress Jewish religion and culture. In 1926 he and Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin became members of the Vaad Harabbonim of the Soviet Union, and two years later he started a Hebrew magazine called Yagdil Torah, but the authorities closed it after two issues. It was in Slutzk that he published the first volume of Chazon Yechezkel.
The government refused him permission to leave and take up the rabbonus of Petach Tikva in Eretz Yisroel. In 1929 he was arrested and sentenced, and he was sent to Siberia, where he suffered greatly. Gedolim and Jewish organizations around the world made intense efforts to free him, and the German government also intervened, in what is recorded as an exchange for six communists it held. He was released in 1931 and told to leave the country.
The London Beis Din
Rav Yechezkel arrived in London in late 1931 and became Rav of the Machzikei Hadas community in the East End. He gave many shiurim each week, as well as an advanced shiur at Yeshivas Etz Chaim. Later he became Rosh Beis Din in London.
In 1934 Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz persuaded him to accept the post of senior dayan of the London Beis Din, and he was officially appointed in 1935. He held the post until 1951. Appointing an Eastern European chareidi rav to the London Beis Din was new for the United Synagogue, and it began a tradition that continues today. Through him the London Beis Din became a world-ranking halachic authority.
Other great talmidei chachamim served on the beis din in his time and afterwards, among them Dayan Avrohom Rapoport (Be'er Avrohom), together with Dayan Aryeh Leib Grosnass (Lev Aryeh). But it was Rav Yechezkel above all who set the policies and customs that the London Beis Din follows to this day.
Teachings and seforim
His great work is Chazon Yechezkel on the Tosefta, written between 1925 and 1975 and filling twenty-four volumes. He undertook this monumental task in response to a simple comment of Rav Chaim Brisker, that the available text of the Tosefta was full of errors. Torah leaders hailed the sefer as a magnificent illumination of an area of Torah that had been obscure because of its many difficult passages, and it was praised by rabbanim and academic scholars alike. He also wrote Dinei Momonos and other seforim.
Later years and passing
In 5711 (1951), on reaching the retirement age of sixty-five, Rav Yechezkel and his wife settled in Bayit Vegan, Yerushalayim. Despite his advanced age he traveled every week to Bnei Brak to give shiurim in Yeshivas Slabodka, where he was also counted among the roshei yeshiva. He continued to publish seforim and later served as nasi of the Vaad Hayeshivos. In 1956 he was awarded the Israel Prize for rabbinic literature.
Rav Yechezkel was niftar at the age of ninety on 24 Elul 5736 (19 September 1976). More than 40,000 people attended his levaya, one of the largest ever seen in Yerushalayim, and he was buried on Har HaMenuchos.
Legacy
Rav Yechezkel had four sons, among them Professor Chimen Abramsky, and Professor Samson Abramsky and Jenny Abramsky are his grandchildren. His influence on British Jewry is felt to this day, and in time even secular Jews came to appreciate the values he had brought to their community.
Stories
The Rav Who Went Into Hiding
In 1929, worried about his sons' yeshiva education, Rav Yechezkel sought permission to leave the Soviet Union and become Rav of Petach Tikva. The authorities knew him as a prolific teacher and author of Torah, and instead of granting his request they placed him on a blacklist of people barred from emigrating. Understanding that he was now a marked man, he went into hiding and moved from city to city for ten months.
At one point he dreamed that NKVD officers were on their way to arrest him. Together with his wife, Rebbetzin Reizel, he decided that he should leave right away and find another hiding place. Soon afterwards the police did arrive at their apartment and demanded to know where he was. Reizel invented a tale that the two of them had quarreled and that her husband had stormed out. The ruse worked, but she was deeply troubled that she had told even a made-up story of a quarrel.
Not long after, he was caught and condemned to death. The Rebbetzin and Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzenski then joined forces to persuade leading rabbanim and Jewish organizations around the world to press the Soviet government. Their efforts brought the sentence down to five years of forced labor in Siberia, and in time he was released entirely. In the labor camp he kept working on Chazon Yechezkel, and he cleverly smuggled his writing out on cigarette paper.
Erev Yom Kippur 1931
On Erev Yom Kippur 1931 Rav Yechezkel was released, with a month in which to leave the country. According to Rav Elchonon Wasserman, the Chofetz Chaim used to recite five chapters of Tehillim every day for him. On that Erev Yom Kippur, the Chofetz Chaim did not say them, declaring confidently that the Rav of Slutzk was free.
Rav Mordechai Pinchas Teitz, who later became Rav of Elizabeth, New Jersey, went to meet him at the train station in Riga, Latvia. He searched the platform for a Rav of Rav Yechezkel's stature and saw no one who fit, and he was dismayed. Then he realized that a beardless man, trying to hide his face in his coat collar, was Rav Yechezkel himself. Just before releasing him, as a final humiliation, the Soviet officials had torn out his beard. Rav Yechezkel did not want anyone to see him without it, so Rav Teitz arranged private minyanim in the apartment until the beard grew back.
The Offer From London
In early 1934, Dayan Shmuel Yitzchak Hillman retired from the London Beis Din, where he had been Chief Dayan, and Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz wanted a leading halachic authority to replace him. The leaders of the United Synagogue, though not religious themselves, also wanted someone acceptable to the right-wing Orthodox community, which had grown vocal about the beis din's lax standards, especially in shechitah. They first approached Rav Avigdor Schonfeld, who declined. When Rav Yechezkel's name came up, the other options faded. He stood far to the right of Rabbi Hertz and spoke hardly any English, but his reputation was unmatched.
The official offer came in June 1934. Rav Yechezkel hesitated when a butcher, pretending to ask about a chicken, quietly told him of serious kashrus violations under the beis din's authority. For decades, butchers licensed by the beis din had been selling hindquarter meat in plain view that had not been menukar (porged, meaning cleared of the gid hanasheh and forbidden fats). The customer had to ask for this himself, and many did not, either from ignorance or because properly cleaned meat looked less appealing.
Rav Yechezkel demanded that the beis din forbid its certified butchers to sell hindquarter meat at all. Rabbi Hertz offered instead to certify only butchers who agreed to do the cleaning. Doubting that this would be enforced, Rav Yechezkel turned the position down. The United Synagogue then approached Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, head of the Hildesheimer Seminary in Berlin, but the seminary pressed him to stay, and he withdrew.
Then Rabbi Hertz came back to Rav Yechezkel with a second offer. In the meantime Rav Yechezkel had visited his father in Eastern Europe and met Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzenski. A letter from Rav Chaim Ozer, dated Rosh Chodesh Nissan (4 April) 1935, advised him that if there was hope that the breaches would be repaired, especially in kashrus, he should accept. Rabbi Hertz had also sent the Shechita Board a letter on the subject, and this time it was read and acted upon. Rav Yechezkel accepted, and he was officially appointed Chief Dayan on 20 June 1935.
No More Hindquarter Meat
Within a month of his appointment, Rav Yechezkel placed a full-page notice in the Jewish Chronicle, setting out the strict steps that the beis din was now going to take. He never gave up his aim of ending the sale of hindquarter meat altogether. During the Second World War, with many of the porgers away on war service, he succeeded in obtaining a ban.
The ban met strong resistance. Sir Robert Waley Cohen, who was a vice president of the United Synagogue, feared that it would require more cattle and make British Jews look unpatriotic at a time of rationing. The Shechita Board was also facing a deficit from rationing, and the lost license fees threatened to deepen it. Rav Yechezkel did not back down. His wife Reizel supported him, even offering to open a restaurant to support the family if he had to resign.
In 1941, at a meeting with the Shechita Board, he gave an ultimatum: if the sale of hindquarter meat did not stop, he would leave his post. He rose, handed in his letter of resignation and walked out of the room. Seeing how serious he was, the members voted as one to forbid the sale. The ban has never been cancelled, and British Jews are protected from eating gid hanasheh because of his steadfastness, to this day.
The Catering Hall
Rav Yechezkel had a sense of timing for when and how to act to strengthen halachic observance. A stylish catering hall opened in London, and its management repeatedly refused to be certified for kashrus by the London Beis Din; since much of their clientele did not keep kosher, they saw no reason for the expense.
Rav Yechezkel regularly read the Jewish Chronicle so that he would know what to daven for. One day he noticed a large advertisement for the dinner of a major Jewish institution at this hall, with a member of the royal family as guest of honor. He and the other dayanim at once drafted an announcement that the dinner would carry no kashrus certification, and one of them informed the institution that it was about to be published.
Within ten minutes a lawyer for the hall called and threatened a damages suit against the beis din. Rav Yechezkel replied that the beis din had already hired a prominent attorney. In the scramble for a compromise, the institution's lawyer suggested certifying the hall for this one occasion. Rav Yechezkel refused. Not long afterwards the manager of the hall came to him personally and asked for permanent certification.
The Kohen's Fiancee
Another of Rav Yechezkel's achievements in London was to raise the standards of geirus (conversion). Before him, the beis din required of candidates only a commitment to Shabbos observance and to learn Jewish laws and customs. His contract added that candidates must live in a Jewish environment and show that their workplace would not interfere with Shabbos. He also kept congregational rabbis out of the process except to refer candidates, since a rabbi was often pressured to approve the conversion of a congregant's partner.
After the First World War, social mixing between Jews and non-Jews had grown and the number of people seeking conversion had risen sharply. The beis din generally refused those whose motive was marriage, but it often gave way when pressure came from high places. Rav Yechezkel never allowed any chief rabbi or officer of the United Synagogue to intimidate him into a doubtful conversion.
One prominent member of the community kept asking the beis din to convert his son's fiancee. After delaying for a while, Rav Yechezkel told the family that, since they were Kohanim, a Kohen cannot marry a convert regardless, so converting her would achieve nothing. Asked why he had not said so at the start, he explained that he did not want people to think the young man's status as a Kohen was the only obstacle, and that anyone seeking conversion in order to marry would be turned away. He wanted it clear that there was no favoritism, even for communal leaders. In his sixteen years of leadership the beis din accepted only five converts, compared with twenty-four in 1925 alone.
An Affable Lion
On Rav Yechezkel's ninetieth birthday, the Jewish Chronicle paid him tribute. It wrote that he carried himself like an affable lion and ruled exactly as he understood the law, though he was not always so affable, especially when halachah was contradicted. Even Sir Robert Waley Cohen, a man who had little regard for holy people, stood in awe of him.
A fired shochet once took the London Beis Din to a secular court, and Rav Yechezkel was called to testify. After establishing his name and position, the shochet's attorney asked whether he was the foremost living halachic authority in all of continental Europe. "Yes," Rav Yechezkel answered. "It's true." The judge said sharply that surely some humility was in order. The Rav replied, "Your honor, I am under oath."
Teachings
Be Very Courageous
Chief Rabbi Lord Jakobovits recalled visiting Rav Yechezkel in Yerushalayim, when the Rav drew his attention to the first perek of Yehoshua. When speaking of taking possession of Eretz Yisroel, Hashem tells Yehoshua only to be strong and courageous. But when it comes to keeping the laws of the Torah, he is told to be very courageous. Rav Yechezkel's own life showed this, in the way he stood firm against every opposition to strengthening halachic standards in England.
Yehoshua 1:6-7, as related by Lord Jakobovits
Seforim
- Chazon Yechezkel: His commentary on the Tosefta, written between 1925 and 1975 and filling twenty-four volumes, hailed as a magnificent illumination of a difficult area of Torah.
- Dinei Momonos: His sefer on the laws of monetary matters, one of his other seforim.
Family & talmidim
Teachers: Rav Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk, Rav Yechiel Mechel Epstein, the Aruch HaShulchan
Children: Four sons, including Professor Chimen Abramsky
Also on 24 Elul
All hilulos on 24 Elul ›Historical sources
- Mishpacha, Issue 629, The Affable Lion (Tzivia Meth)
- Hamodia, Day in History: 24 Elul