Daas Torah can often surprise us, but the answers to our questions are often clearer than we could have imagined

Photos: Meir Haltovsky, Flash90, Mattis Goldberg

Never Say No

Rav Pam was too weak to walk down the stairs, but that didn’t stop him from fighting for another school with the strength of a lion

Thirty-three years ago, RAV AVRAHAM PAM, rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, founded the Shuvu movement, cultivating and cherishing it like a precious child for the remaining ten years of his life. I had the zechus of working under Rav Pam for those ten years, directing Shuvu and bringing his dream to life by providing a Jewish education to the children of Russian immigrants here in Eretz Yisrael.

In those years, we had two main annual fundraising events in the States, a dinner in the winter, and a parlor meeting in the summer. Every summer, I would prepare a detailed report on the Shuvu network and send it as a letter to Rav Pam, and he would then use it to describe the situation to our supporters at the parlor meeting.

During the last year of Rav Pam’s life, the financial situation of Shuvu was precarious, and I shared the numbers and details with Rav Pam. I also wrote him that we had received a petition from over 100 parents in the town of Natzeret Illit (today called Nof HaGalil) asking us to open a Shuvu school. “We will be forced to say no,” I wrote. “There is no way we can take upon ourselves to open another school. It is not feasible.”

Those who were with Rav Pam on the night of the parlor meeting told me that he was so weak, it took half an hour just to walk down the steps of his house in order to attend the meeting, which was held at the home of Rabbi Gedalia Weinberger in Flatbush.

At the event, Rav Pam took my letter and started to read it out loud to the donors gathered around the table. He reached the line “we will be forced to say no,” and stopped reading. Then he turned to the others and told them, “There is no cheshbon in the world that can force us to say no! How will we live with ourselves? How will we make bar mitzvahs and bas mitzvahs for our own children if we deprive these parents who have come from Russia and are begging us… they will not be able to make bar and bas mitzvahs for their children. There is no cheshbon in the world.”

With his remaining strength, Rav Pam banged on the table. “Yes, there will be a school in Natzeret Illit, and the Shechinah will rest on that school.” Then Rav Pam looked at the tzibbur and said, “I hope you will back up my decision.”

In the end, we opened up a Jewish school for the immigrant population. It was tough, it was a big headache, but the donors generously responded to Rav Pam’s plea and helped us out.

Twenty-three years after that parlor meeting, when war broke out in Ukraine, the Israeli government settled some of the new refugees right there in Nof HaGalil. Our doors were open wide to their children, and we filled our classes to capacity. I know for a fact that if our Shuvu school was not there, these Ukrainian Jewish children would be in secular schools. We make bar and bas mitzvah celebrations for the children in Nof HaGalil and in all our Shuvu schools, and, as Rav Pam said, with those merits, may we celebrate our own children’s growth in mitzvos.

This week I spoke with the Shuvu principal in Nof HaGalil, who told me she has 40 new families of Ukrainian children in attendance. They are there, learning Torah in a frum school that was already well-established and just waiting for their arrival — and according to Rav Pam, the Shechinah was waiting too.

Rabbi Chaim Michoel Gutterman is the director of the Shuvu school network.