Closed in by corona, Rav Aharon Teitelbaum of Satmar still leads his flock

Photos: Mishpacha archives

Reb Hillel Weiss has seen much over the past 70 years, but even a lifetime in the shadow of the rebbes of Satmar couldn’t prepare him for this sight. The Satmar Rebbe stood in the long, empty corridor, broke down, and cried.

It was Wednesday, the 22nd of Adar. The shuls and batei medrash in Kiryas Joel had all been closed that morning, and aside from a few confirmed procrastinators hurriedly packing their tefillin bags and talleisim at the urging of the gabbaim, the huge main shul was completely empty.

Several shuls had already closed the night before, when a call came directly from the White House, asking the Rebbe, Rav Aharon Teitelbaum, to set an example, knowing that if he would close his shul, hundreds of other shuls would follow.

A White House source perceived that the Rebbe would have to act decisively for the myriad satellite institutions and businesses — schools, slaughterhouses, the kimpeturin home, all of it — to take the ruling seriously.

“We want Rabbi Teitelbaum to understand that the situation here could get even worse than Italy. They laughed at the directives there too at first, and we’re now seeing the results.”

The Rebbe listened, considered, and then accepted the instructions. Completely. He explained what would happen if masses of people were infected all at once. This was an “es la’asos l’Hashem heferu Torasecha” — sometimes you have to take drastic measures, even though they might seem counterintuitive to Torah.

The call from the White House led to an urgent meeting of the heads of the kehillah, the educational institutions, and the local Hatzolah. The decision came to the tzibbur from the Rebbe’s house on Sanz Street: We’re closing the mosdos. The shuls will be locked. The yeshivos will close their doors. There will be no more kabbalas kahal.

The next morning, the Rebbe left his house and took the shortcut to Forest Road, the main street of Kiryas Joel. A short distance behind walked the new attendant who had just been assigned to him, after the regular hoiz bochur tested positive for corona. At that point, no one suspected that the Rebbe himself would test positive just two days later.

The Rebbe headed to the great Satmar shul where his private mikveh is located, adjacent to that of the general kehillah. On regular mornings, the Rebbe would pass by the Heichal HaTorah, a huge learning-only room in every Satmar shul around the world, one of the Rebbe’s innovations which essentially define his leadership and vision. In better times, the Rebbe would converse with the chassidim near the entrance, schmoozing with this one, joking with that one, offering a kind word to a third, and then go on his way. That morning though, his beloved Heichal HaTorah was dark and empty. The corridor, usually bustling with noise and activity, was silent.

But Reb Hillel, the “mikveh Yid” who spends all day learning in his little nook, was at his post, a guard standing sentry to open the door for the Rebbe’s use.

Tears filled the Rebbe’s eyes as he saw the faithful chassid.

“Reb Hillel,” he said, “I’ve finally grasped something that I was never able to understand before. I heard from my father, that when he was returning to Sighet after the Holocaust, he passed through Klausenburg, a city he remembered as teeming with vibrant Jewish life before the war… but he saw it desolate, the beis medrash empty, not a single Jew in sight, and his heart broke. Until today, I didn’t understand why my father placed so much emphasis on the darkened beis medrash after experiencing the crushing war, the Holocaust, and the destruction of Hungarian Jewry — but today, I think I understand.”