A conversation with Reb Romi Cohen z"l several years back. A lion has fallen.

(Photos: Amir Levy)

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ou can make out two of the great storylines of Rabbi Romi Avrohom Cohn's life by observing him. More than 70 years after the war, he still radiates the strength of a forest warrior; and in his deft motions, you see the precision and swiftness of an expert mohel.

Those two storylines continue to live on in his two classic works: Bris Avrohom HaKohein is a definitive sefer on the halachos and minhagim of bris milah (Rabbi Cohn, one of New York’s foremost mohelim, represented the American Board of Ritual Circumcision at recent governmental bris milah hearings), while The Youngest Partisan (Artscroll/Mesorah) is the captivating tale of a daring teenager who sneaked across borders and fought the Nazis in the forests.

Yet perhaps his most cherished manuscript is one that has yet to be published, but holds the secrets of a nearly forgotten rebbe and miracle worker who had no children to carry on his legacy. When Rabbi Cohn speaks of his rebbe, he seems to shrink, all that power replaced by humility, the resourcefulness giving way to awe.

He waves a sheaf of papers, stories following each other in a flowing river of astonishment. When he created this manuscript, it was with an urgency that if he wouldn’t get the record down, if he couldn’t capture the magic of the tzaddik, tomorrow would be too late. In a few years, who would remember? Who would retain the legacy of the Ribnitzer Rebbe?

“I realized that people might never believe such a person really existed, that he lived the way he did and was able to bring salvation to so many on a personal level. So I started writing, if only to remind myself.”

A New Rebbe

In Rabbi Cohn’s office in the basement of his Boro Park home, the security devices — cameras, grates, and alarms — give the well-appointed room a bank-vault feel.

A child of Pressburg, the city that spawned the glorious path of the Chasam Sofer (whose burial place Rabbi Cohn was instrumental in saving), Rabbi Cohn, 86, wasn’t raised as a chassid. When he eventually settled in New York after the war, he joined the Vienner kehillah — where he’s a member until this day — but as he became a sought-after mohel in various chassidic courts, he grew close to several admorim.

Commercial success added to his popularity, and his trips to Jerusalem were marked by the receiving line of a gvir in his hotel lobby. On one visit back in 1970, Rabbi Cohn was solicited by the director of a Yerushalmi cheder in search a new heating system so that the cheder yingelach might learn in relative warmth and safety. Rabbi Cohn didn’t have much time to listen to the pitch, as he was heading home the next day, but as is his custom, he still responded generously.

The next day, as Rabbi Cohn was rushing through his last-minute errands before traveling to the airport, the Yerushalmi returned.

A bit exasperated, Rabbi Cohn asked why he was back.

“I want to show you something special. Come with me and you won’t be sorry.”

Rabbi Cohn explained that he had no time for sightseeing.

“Listen, trust me, this is a way of thanking you,” pressed the Yerushalmi. “I’m going to introduce you to a new rebbe.”

Rabbi Cohn laughs sheepishly at the memory. “I told him I had plenty of rebbes in New York, that I wasn’t looking for more.”

But the Yerushalmi persisted, not letting up until Rabbi Cohn agreed to join him on a trip to a small apartment in the Sanhedria neighborhood.

“There was a long line, a big commotion, but no one could really tell me much about the tzaddik behind the door.”

Shared Vessels

In Russia, Rav Chaim Zanvil Abramovitz had been known as a “gitter Yid,” someone whose brachos and tefillos always seemed to bear fruit, but he liked to be called simply Chaim Zanvil, preferring the title of friend to that of rebbe. He lived an ethereal existence; as a young man he’d trained his body to accept the dictates of its soul. He fasted regularly, refusing to take his daily meal until after Maariv, which was often well after midnight.

In the frigid Russian winter, he would be seen walking with an ax. The tool was his constant companion, handy as it was in cracking thick layers of ice, so that he might immerse himself in the water underneath. He would relentlessly hammer away until he succeeded in breaking through the frozen water. The Rebbe would be standing in subzero temperatures with sweat pouring from him, so great was his exertion for this mitzvah. It is told that during those frozen Russian winters, he would return home from tevilah with his entire body covered in ice.

Even non-Jews had great respect for him; KGB officers would come with their wives and children to receive blessings from Chaim Zanvil, who could be found learning in shul, his feet in a bowl of freezing water.

And now this figure who’d traversed the forgotten paths of Russia and Romania, offering encouragement and blessing, welcoming children in to the bris of Avraham Avinu and bolstering the faith of their parents as the last of the great rebbes to remain in Russia, was a free man who was given permission to emigrate to Eretz Yisrael.

He sat in the crowded Sanhedria apartment, surrounded by a coterie of devoted gabbaim trying to keep the masses away from a tzaddik unused to the trappings and pressures of a formal court. But Rabbi Romi Cohn, with his newfound Yerushalmi connection, was allowed in.

The Ribnitzer, as he was known, raised his holy eyes and looked at the visitor from Boro Park; he stood up and embraced him. Rabbi Cohn wrote about this first meeting — among his reams of text on his relationship with the Ribnitzer — so that he, and others, would never forget:

Then the Rebbe started to tell me of everything that had befallen me, recalling events and stories of long ago as if he’d been standing there. I understood then that my neshamah was connected with that of this tzaddik. “Remember this?” he asked me, mentioning various moments in my lifetime.

That evening Rabbi Cohn returned to America; not long after, word spread that this mysterious tzaddik was coming as well.

“People vied for the zechus to use him as mohel for their sons. But he needed milah tools, so someone contacted me. I joined the Rebbe at the bris he was performing and shared my keilim.”

Rabbi Cohn, expert mohel, looked closely. He felt that the Rebbe hadn’t completely removed the skin, that the job was somewhat imperfect. From the notebook:

I obviously couldn’t say anything, so I resolved that I would visit the family the next day, ostensibly to check on the baby, but really, to finish the job. The next day, I went to the child’s home, and they recognized that I’d assisted the Rebbe by the bris and let me in. I was astounded. The bris was perfect. It was extraordinary.

From there, Rabbi Cohn went straight to the Rebbe. As he writes:

When I came, he was in the middle of davening Minchah. He was serving as chazzan, and he didn’t see me come in, but when he completed chazaras hashatz, he suddenly turned and walked toward the corner, where I was standing. I figured that he wanted to wash his hands in the sink before continuing, so I moved aside, but he stopped by me. “Nu? Hust gezehn? Bist tzefriden? You saw the bris? Are you satisfied now?” Then he went back to continue davening.