I
t’s a sad privilege for me to devote this space to two great personalities, two trailblazers of Yiddishkeit who recently left us: Rav Mordechai Neustadt and Rav Ezriel Tauber, zichronam livrachah — each a veritable Nachshon who jumped fearlessly into the unknown and changed the face of the Jewish world.

Surely more and more will yet be told about the work of these two special men to revive Yiddishkeit in spiritually deprived populations from the Soviet Union to the United States and even Eretz Yisrael. I will only attempt a few words as another marker on their fresh graves.

I was just a child when I first met Mordechai Neustadt. The State of Israel was in its fledgling years, and Reb Mordechai was the madrich of our Agudah youth group in Bnei Brak. Suddenly, he disappeared from the landscape our lives; the energetic young man who’d exerted such a strong influence on us had emigrated to America.

After that I was out of touch with him for decades. Yet despite the years and the thousands of miles that separated us, when I met him again, the spark he’d left within me was immediately rekindled.

Reb Mordechai had been busy during those years. He had infiltrated the Iron Curtain and brought help and encouragement to our brethren whose souls hungered for Torah and mitzvos. It was a dangerous enterprise. Today, we have free access to any city of the former Soviet Union, and the Jewish population that was once trapped there is free to emigrate. But many readers surely remember the secrecy and fear surrounding any attempt to promote Judaism among Soviet Jewry under the Communist reign of terror. Even a visiting American citizen bringing in religious objects for distribution was risking imprisonment or worse. The eyes of the KGB were everywhere, and even a small group learning the rudiments of Hebrew had to outwit them or face harsh punishment. Despite the risks, it was known to the Jews of the free world that such groups existed and that their members yearned to return to their roots. Word would often reach us of arrests, imprisonments, or exiles to Siberian labor camps when one of these intrepid souls was caught in the crime of learning or teaching Torah.

During this time, Rabbi and Mrs. Neustadt, owners of a travel agency, decided to take a trip to the Soviet Union, a journey that would soon change the face of Judaism in Russia. Their first trip, in which they smuggled in four pairs of tefillin (“Two pairs for me, for Shabbos and weekdays, and two for my wife,” he told the Soviet authorities upon entry), led to more such trips, and he soon founded the Vaad L’Hatzolas Nidchei Yisroel, sending emissaries to Soviet Jewry under various pretexts. They would come as innocent tourists, but once inside the country they would elude the prying eyes of the KGB and make their way to the secret meeting places of the Jewish underground refuseniks to give a quick shiur and hand out whatever Jewish articles they’d managed to smuggle in: tefillin or mezuzos, a siddur or a Chumash. (Stories of the mesirus nefesh of the “smugglers” working behind the Iron Curtain are told in the book The Underground, by Rabbi Yaakov Astor.)

Some years later, after the Communist regime was no longer a threat, I was privileged to join a Vaad delegation on a whirlwind trip that encompassed the former Soviet republics of Russia, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania. In all these places, I heard firsthand about the powerful current of change that had pulsed even under the sniffing noses of the secret police, helped considerably through the activities of the Vaad.

As we flew from one corner of the former Soviet Union to the next, I had many long conversations with Reb Mordechai, my old madrich, in which he brought me back in time to those first eye-opening trips to Moscow, and how he’d been drawn into the circle of those in search of their spiritual heritage.

MY CONNECTION TO Rav Ezriel Tauber ztz”l, one of the foremost Torah thinkers and motivators of the generation, a world-renowned lecturer, mechaber seforim, and founder of multiple Torah institutions including Ohr Somayach in Monsey, started when we both took part in Arachim seminars as speakers. During many long trips on the lecture circuit, we had deep and expansive conversations on emunah, and it was a great pleasure to hear his unique perspective. But surely he will be best remembered for the many books he authored, and for founding Shalheves, an organization that held Torah seminar weekends for families around the globe.

Rav Tauber was another Soviet Jewry trailblazer as well, making his first trip to Russia in 1965 in order to bring tashmishei kedushah and other valuable items to the thirsting Jews behind the Iron Curtain. He was also instrumental in securing the exit of dozens of Jews, including the Ribnitzer Rebbe zy”a.

Rav Tauber was an astute businessman, but he preferred to devote his time and acumen to the more pressing matter of drawing Jews closer to their Maker. Over the years he enlarged his focus to include not only kiruv rechokim, but the equally important kiruv kerovim. He realized that even the “frummest of the frum” need chizuk, and until Rav Ezriel opened my eyes to the hard and painful reality, I myself was not aware to what extent so many among us — Jews who wear shtreimels on Shabbos and whose wives modestly cover their hair — are lacking basic Torah, mitzvos, and emunah in their lives.

To that end, he created a dynamic halachah kollel with extreme emphasis on accountability, and together with Ofakim rosh yeshivah Rav Shimshon Pincus ztz”l, founded Shalheves. For two decades, the pair would trot around the globe, inspiring the lives of thousands of Jews, and in recent years (after Rav Pincus’s tragic death), Rav Ezriel would continue to tirelessly hold weekend seminars for chareidim both in America and in Israel, refresher courses in Judaism that would bring many back to a more mature version of the faith of their youth, and back to real, genuine observance.

May these two holy lights serve as a blessing and inspiration for Klal Yisrael.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 760)