Out of the Ashes

According to Rabbi Weingort, perhaps the most special thing about Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg was the fact that he had close ties with the gedolim, rebbes, and rabbanim from every segment of the population. His personal history, briefly described in his introduction to Seridei Eish, took him from Poland, where he was born in 1884, to the famed yeshivos of Slabodka and Mir, on to Berlin, from there to the Warsaw Ghetto and to Nazi prison camps, and finally to the Swiss hamlet of Montreux where he spent the last 20 years of his life — secluded, yet in constant correspondence with gedolim from around the world. Of course, that little biography doesn’t do justice to this brilliant talmid of the mussar movement who straddled the worlds of lomdus and academia and whose piskei halachah tackled head-on a world in turmoil.

When Rav Weinberg was 17, he went to study in the Slabodka yeshivah, where he became a chavrusa of Rav Naftali Amsterdam, the prime student of mussar- movement founder Rav Yisrael Salanter, and studied under the Alter of Slabodka, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel. In 1903, the Alter sent his son Rav Eliezer Yehudah to learn in Mir for five years, and sent Rav Weinberg, who was much younger, along so that his son would have a chavrusa. During that time, says Rabbi Weingort, they learned the entire Shas together.

“Half a century later, when I set off to Eretz Yisrael in the early 1960s, Rav Weinberg asked me to visit Rav Leizer Yudel, who had become the rosh yeshivah of Mir,” Rabbi Weingort remembers. “When he heard who had sent me, Rav Leizer Yudel rose from his chair, beaming with excitement, and exclaimed, ‘You should know that he is the gadol not only of this generation, but of previous generations as well!’”

In 1906, Rav Weinberg, who was just 22, was asked to become rav of the town of Pilwishki, but as part of the arrangement, he was to marry the 16-year-old daughter of the deceased rav, a match that subsequently turned out unsuitable for him.

A few years later, Rav Weinberg, plagued by health issues, traveled to Germany for medical care, but became trapped there due to the outbreak of World War I. After the war ended, he chose to remain in Germany, studying at the University of Berlin and then at the University of Giessen.

He then joined the faculty and became rosh yeshivah at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. In 1934, he was offered the position to head the London Beis Din, but under pressure from his devoted students in Germany, turned the offer down. (Dayan Yechezkel Abramsky then held the position for almost two decades).

Living in Germany during the rise of Hitler and the beginning of Nazi persecution, Rav Weinberg played a prominent role in answering difficult halachic questions that came up under the fast-developing horrific reality. For example, a law enacted by the Nazis demanding stunning an animal before shechitah led him to write extensively on whether such a practice necessarily renders the animal treif.

Rabbi Weingort recounts an incident told by Rav Chaim Chaikel Greenberg — a member of the Rabbinical Council of Vilna and a close associate of Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, who became a rav in Tel Aviv after the war — in which Rav Chaim Ozer sent him to Rav Weinberg to ask him not to publicize the teshuvah in which he permitted, under the extreme circumstances of the time, stunning animals before they are slaughtered.

“Rav Greenberg said that it was the most difficult task he had ever been asked to do,” recounts Rabbi Weingort. “He traveled to Rav Weinberg and told him that Rav Chaim Ozer had asked for him not to publicize the teshuvah, because his conclusion was incorrect. Rav Weinberg grew angry at him and shouted, ‘The teshuvah is one hundred percent correct! I toiled over it for many months! If you tell me that Rav Chaim Ozer doesn’t want me to publicize it as an act of piety, I will accept that. But I am not prepared to say that what I wrote was wrong!’

“When Rav Greenberg returned to Vilna and reported to Rav Chaim Ozer that Rav Weinberg had accepted his request, Rav Chaim Ozer’s joy was indescribable. As a man of truth, Rav Weinberg was not willing to say that his conclusion had been incorrect. Nevertheless, he was willing to follow the instructions of the gedolei hador and to shelve the teshuvah.” (The halachic analysis appears in the first volume of Seridei Eish.)

Kristallnacht of 1938 left Rav Weinberg devastated, and the following year he fled Nazi Germany, leaving behind his immense library and many manuscripts awaiting publication. With no seforim in hand, he fled back to Poland and became trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he took the helm of rabbinic leadership. Because of his Russian citizenship, he was later imprisoned with other Russian POWs, which was actually his salvation as he wasn’t deported to a death camp.

After the war, after his entire world had been destroyed and Rav Weinberg literally felt himself a “sarid me’eish — a remnant of the fire,” a loyal, devoted student named Rav Shaul Weingort brought him to Montreux, Switzerland, where Rav Weinberg lived until his passing in 1966. Yet just a year after his arrival, tragedy struck and Rav Shaul was killed in a traffic accident, leaving a young wife and toddler — Avraham Abba.

Rav Weinberg used to have lunch every day at the home of Rav Shaul’s widow, who was the daughter of Rav Yerachmiel Eliyahu Bochko, the rosh yeshivah in Montreux. “He made an exception only on Shabbos,” relates Rabbi Weingort, who looked to Rav Weinberg as a surrogate father while he was growing up.

“We lived in a fifth-floor apartment, and it was hard for him to climb the steps without an elevator.”

Despite many offers of prominent rabbinic positions across the globe, Rav Weinberg chose not to leave Switzerland. Instead, he gave an occasional shiur to the students of the Montreux yeshivah and a talk for the community on Shabbos. Although he mainly kept to himself and was surrounded only by a few selected students and personal friends, his room in Montreux became the Torah nerve center of a wide circle of religious leaders from around the globe as they grappled with the new technological and social realities of Jewish life in a postwar world.

Spiritual Rescue

While the Seridei Eish had contact with a wide range of both Eastern and Western European gedolim from the turn of the century, no one held a place in his heart like the Chofetz Chaim. According to Rabbi Weingort, when Rav Weinberg would speak about the Chofetz Chaim, his eyes would well up with tears — because when Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg was a bochur who decided to take a break to learn the Russian language, it was the Chofetz Chaim who found him and voiced his concern.

“When I was in the yeshivah in Montreaux, Rav Weinberg would often weave stories about the gedolei Yisrael into the shiur. He would say, ‘You are young — let me tell you a story.’

This particular story took place when he once left the yeshivah in Slabodka to travel to Warsaw by train. In the middle of his journey, he asked the conductor if the train was traveling to Warsaw. The conductor said ‘da’ — the Russian word for ‘yes’ — but Rav Weinberg didn’t speak Russian, and he understood it as the Yiddish word ‘da,’ which means ‘here.’ So he disembarked from the train at the next stop, thinking that he had arrived in Warsaw. He soon discovered, though, that he was in a small village of decidedly unfriendly non-Jews, who pounced on the hapless bochur and began to beat him. They went on pummeling him throughout the night, leaving him wounded and bleeding.

After the ordeal was over, he decided that it was unthinkable that such a thing should happen to him simply because he didn’t speak Russian — and so he decided to learn the language. He traveled to Grodno to learn Russian, and at some point he was notified that the Chofetz Chaim had traveled all the way to Grodno in order to see him. He wanted to bring him back to yeshivah.

“Rav Weinberg clearly understood that the Chofetz Chaim disapproved of what he had done and that he was probably in hot water,” Rabbi Weingort continues, “but he couldn’t ignore the Chofetz Chaim’s summons, and he went to see the gadol.

When he arrived, the Chofetz Chaim rose from his chair to greet him. ‘That meant that it was very bad,’ Rav Weinberg related when he told us the story. But he knew he couldn’t lie to the Chofetz Chaim, so he told him that he’d decided to learn Russian.

The Chofetz Chaim replied, ‘You’re right — but you also need to know Shas, the Bavli and the Yerushalmi, as well as the Ramban, Rashba, Ritva, Ketzos, and Avnei Miluim. For whom did they write their seforim, if not for brilliant bochurim like you?’ And then the Chofetz Chaim burst into tears.

When Rav Weinberg recounted this episode to us, his eyes were filled with tears as well.

“The truth is that Rav Weinberg’s knowledge of Russian saved his life during the war after the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. He rarely spoke about that part of the war,” Rabbi Weingort says.

“The war years were divided into two parts for him. He did speak about the first part of the war, when he was in the ghetto, but he never talked about what happened afterward. In the Warsaw Ghetto, he was appointed to head the rabbinical committee. Later on, since he had a Russian passport, the Germans didn’t deport him to Auschwitz, but rather incarcerated him in a dungeon with other Soviet prisoners.

While he was there, he became friendly with the personal secretary of the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, who was imprisoned there as well. Since they were able to converse in Russian, the secretary was very impressed with Rav Weinberg, and he told the commandant in charge of the prisoners that this Jew was important and should receive special protection — and that’s how he was saved.”

Actions Speak Louder

Rav Weinberg had connections with gedolei Yisrael of every stripe. He had an especially close relationship with the Minchas Elazar of Munkacs and with the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch, as well as with the Imrei Emes of Gur, with whom he used to go for walks for hours at a time when the two of them would meet in Marienbad.

He once related that the Gerrer Rebbe had asked him to speak only in lashon hakodesh on Shabbos.

“The interesting thing about him is that, even though he was a very independent thinker both in learning and in hashkafah and the rabbanim of Mizrachi considered him one of their own because he was also a university-educated scholar, he subjugated his own views completely to the gedolei hador,” says Rabbi Weingort.

“There is an incredible story I heard from my uncle, Dr. Menachem Rottenberg, who was a doctor in Manchester and was also a great Torah scholar. He told me — I suppose that I myself was very young when this happened — that a rav from the Mizrachi movement was once visiting my mother’s home during one of the great battles of chareidi Jewry, perhaps the struggle against the draft for girls or something of the sort. This rav was upset that the Brisker Rav and the Chazon Ish went to battle against the Chief Rabbinate. Upon hearing that, Rav Weinberg, who was also there together with my uncle, exclaimed, ‘There is no such thing as a chief rabbinate for us. There was a concept of a chief rabbi in the past, in the shtetl!’ With that, he left the house, and my uncle followed him and attempted to appease him and convince him to return.

“Another time, a delegation came to him because they wanted to establish a Sanhedrin, and they wanted him to serve as its head. He replied, ‘I will accept the offer, but the first thing I will do is declare you to be a zaken mamrei [a Torah scholar who defies the rulings of the leading sages].’”

Rav Weinberg, however, was never considered a zealot. Still, says his talmid, he definitely had a different, independent approach.

“There was to be an inauguration ceremony for Heichal Shlomo, the seat of the Chief Rabbinate, which the Brisker Rav had fought against. But Sir Isaac Wolfson — whose nephew, Rav Aviezer Wolfson, had learned for several years in the yeshivah in Montreux — had provided the funding for the building’s construction, and Rav Weinberg was therefore invited to the reception.

“He was planning to attend,” says Rabbi Weingort, “but when the newspapers reported that he would be present, Rav Moshe Sternbuch — who happens to be my cousin — brought him a letter from the Brisker Rav asking him not to attend. Rav Weinberg didn’t generally involve himself with politics in Eretz Yisrael, but he agreed to cancel his plans to attend, in deference to the Brisker Rav. He used to say that it is necessary to keep order within the Jewish People and to accept the authority of the gedolei hador.

“But even though he didn’t attend the event, he sent a congratulatory telegram. He later received another letter from the Brisker Rav through Rav Moshe Sternbuch, in which the Rav expressed his horror at the fact that he had sent the telegram. Rav Weinberg said to Rav Moshe, ‘Tell the Brisker Rav in my name that I have a better understanding of political projections, and I know that no significant authority will come from Heichal Shlomo, so there’s no need for concern.’”

Rav Weinberg’s connection with the Brisker Rav went back to Europe, and in fact Rav Weinberg once told Rav Moshe Sternbuch that he was responsible for saving the Brisker Rav, because he saw that the Rav didn’t relate seriously to the danger of the Nazis’ rise to power and he didn’t believe it was necessary to escape from Europe.

Rav Weinberg said to him back then, “I know the Germans better than you do. When they do something, they do it thoroughly. If they say they’re going to kill the Jews, then they’ll make sure to kill every last one.” And that’s what convinced the Brisker Rav to decide to flee.

“Actually, the connection goes back a generation, to the Brisker Rav’s father, Rav Chaim Soloveitchik. Rav Weinberg was once traveling to Warsaw by train, and there was an unfamiliar Jewish man sitting in the seat across from him. That man was Rav Chaim, but Rav Weinberg wasn’t aware of that — he’d never seen him, and of course back then there were no picture albums of gedolim. Rav Weinberg asked Rav Chaim who he was, and Rav Chaim replied simply that he was a Yid from Brisk. Rav Weinberg asked what he did, and Rav Chaim said that he was a teacher.

Rav Weinberg didn’t feel that he had any reason to enter into a further conversation with a simple melamed, but several hours later, when they arrived in Warsaw, he discovered that hundreds of Jews had come out to greet the stranger who had been sitting across from him.

“When Rav Weinberg realized that he had been sitting across from Rav Chaim of Brisk, he was deeply distraught that he hadn’t accorded him the proper respect, and he was even more vexed by the fact that he had missed the opportunity to spend several hours speaking in learning with Rav Chaim, a gadol whom he’d dismissed him as a simple melamed. And so, Rav Weinberg made his way over to Rav Chaim and tried to seek his forgiveness, but Rav Chaim rebuffed him. At a certain point, Rav Chaim took out a pipe, but he was out of matches. Rav Weinberg pounced on the opportunity and offered him a lit match. After that moment, Rav Chaim began speaking to him. Rav Weinberg later asserted that he had learned an important lesson from that interaction: When a person wants to repent, it must take place through action.”

The connection to Brisk seemed natural — after all, Rav Weinberg was a widely respected litvish rav. But how did he forge a connection to the Rebbe of Munkacs, a chassidic spiritual leader considered a zealot?

“I’ll tell you what I know,” offers Rabbi Weingort. “There was a Munkacser chassid in Berlin who claimed that his rebbe had ruach hakodesh. Rav Weinberg said to him, ‘I can attest that he is a gadol hador. I can also attest that he is a tzaddik hador. But I don’t know about ruach hakodesh: He may have it, and he may not.’”

“One day,” Rav Weingort continues, “that chassid returned to Berlin and related that the chassidim of Munkacs had asked their rebbe why he demonstrated such respect to Rav Weinberg. In fact, when the Mukacser Rebbe married off his daughter, all the gedolim of the generation came to the wedding. Before bentshing, the Rebbe announced, ‘All of you are esteemed guests, but the most esteemed of all is Rav Weinberg, and therefore I am honoring him with leading the bentshing.’ In the presence of all the gedolei hador, the Munkacser Rebbe said that Rav Weinberg was the most esteemed of them all!

“In any event, this same Munkacser chassid from Berlin went and asked the Rebbe how he could show so much honor to Rav Weinberg, when he had a secular university degree. The Rebbe acknowledged that Rav Weinberg had a degree, but he explained that he had studied for his degree because he was in a place where it was forbidden to study Torah. When Rav Weinberg heard that, his response was: ‘If that is what the Rebbe said, then I know that he does not have ruach hakodesh.’

“Rav Weinberg was a man of truth. You see, in those days it was impossible to command influence from people in Germany without a university degree, so he felt that he had no choice but to obtain one, as the other rabbanim in Germany did in those days. But really — and I heard this corroborated by Rav Moshe Sternbuch — the bond between Rav Weinberg and the Munkacser Rebbe was actually quite confounding: They lived in two completely different worlds, but both of them possessed brilliant minds, and whenever they met, they found a common language as if they were soul mates. Rav Moshe once told me that Rav Weinberg was visiting the Munkacser Rebbe in his home, deep in discussion about Torah matters, when the Rebbetzin entered the room to inform them that lunch was ready. The Rebbe felt that they should continue learning, but Rav Weinberg said that if the Rebbetzin had called them, then they should honor her — and the Rebbe complied.”

Only the Truth

While he held dear his relationship with the Minchas Elazar of Munkacs, Rav Weinberg was also a devotee of mussar, having learned together with Rav Naftali Amsterdam as a bochur.

“I think his fierce commitment to truth stemmed from a story he told us about an encounter with Rav Amsterdam,” says Rabbi Weingort.

“Let me share with you the story as I heard it directly from Rav Weinberg. When he was a bochur, he was a talmid of Rav Naftali and of Rav Itzele “Peterburger” Blazer, the foremost students of Rav Yisroel Salanter. He once went to Rav Naftali for advice about a problem he had: Sometimes he’d get so preoccupied and engaged in his Torah learning that he’d forget to daven Minchah. (Rav Weinberg would become so engrossed in his learning that he was once seen eating an egg while still in its shell — he simply hadn’t noticed).

“Rav Naftali was horrified. ‘Do you mean that you don’t daven Minchah at all, or that you don’t daven with a minyan?’ he asked. Rav Weinberg was so taken aback by Rav Naftali’s reaction that he claimed that he merely forgot to daven with a minyan, even though the truth was that he hadn’t davened at all. Afterward, he felt bad that he had told Rav Naftali a half truth, and he went to the Alter of Slabodka and told him the story. He could not have anticipated the Alter’s reaction. ‘You lied to an adam gadol?’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t want to see you again until you go back to him and ask for mechilah!’

“Rav Weinberg tried to extricate himself from that predicament, but the Alter was adamant and refused to continue the conversation. And so, he began walking on foot from Slabodka to Rav Naftali’s beis medrash in Kovno, but suddenly he noticed that there was a young man following him. When the bochur caught up to him, he told Rav Weinberg that the Alter wanted him to come back immediately. Rav Weinberg didn’t understand — he’d already arrived in Kovno. But the bochur was insistent, so Rav Weinberg turned around and went back. When he arrived, the Alter said to him, ‘All I wanted to do was to remove the falsehood from within you. Now I saw that you had mesirus nefesh and that you were prepared to go to Rav Naftali and to ask for his forgiveness, and that is sufficient. You don’t need to embarrass yourself as well.’

“That was the Alter’s chinuch, and I believe that was when Rav Weinberg first internalized the absolute dedication to honesty that continued to accompany him throughout his life. Part of his gadlus was that he never got caught up in externalities, and that’s really what enabled him to maintain correspondence and relationships with those who might have even been far from his ideology. Because despite his broadness of scope and outlook, he was the quintessential man of Torah, and that was his ultimate truth.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 748)