“Mein Shtetele Belze”

A group of about 32 strapping young men quickly came together — Reb Moshe among them — and fled from the city, planning to escape into Russia through the forests. “We didn’t have cars or buses to take us there. Even horses and carriages had been taken by the government for the war effort, and we had to flee on foot, covering hundreds of kilometers almost without a break.”

Reb Moshe pauses to fill a glass with water and recite the brachah of shehakol nihyeh b’Dvaro. As he says these words, he places a special emphasis on them, lifting his gaze upward as if to say, “The story I’m about to tell will prove just how much everything comes from the Word of Hashem.”

“The accursed Nazis,” he relates, “had already begun to make their way toward eastern Galicia. Due to the dread that they had succeeded in sowing, panic gripped the town of Belz and the bochurim who learned under the Rebbe were sent home in order to be with their parents. For that reason, the number of people present in Belz for Rosh HaShanah that year was relatively small.

“After two difficult weeks of traveling, we reached the town of Belz just a few days before Rosh HaShanah. The Germans were at a distance from this area, so the sounds of battle were not yet heard. But it was a tense sort of quiet; it was enough for us to take a break from our journey and to remain there until after Rosh HaShanah.

“We stayed in the home of one of my acquaintances, who treated us warmly and graciously. Even though not all of the bochurim were chassidim, and some of them were even members of more liberal groups, we all davened in the Rebbe’s beis medrash. I remember that on the first night of Rosh HaShanah, the Rebbe davened with us, but on the second night, he did not come into the beis medrash. Instead, he davened in what was called the groisse shtub, where the tisch was held.

“The Poles didn’t sit by idly. The atmosphere of war created antagonism toward the Jews, and the Poles wanted to play a role in the wave of hatred, explosions, and rivers of blood. The gentiles in Belz were no exception. They began plundering everything they could take from the homes of the Jews. The Jews’ hair stood on end in fear. They couldn’t do anything to oppose the thieves because they feared reprisals.

“The gentiles began physically attacking Jews in addition to robbing them of their belongings. The Jews of Belz hurried to the Belzer beis medrash, where a large crowd had gathered, and begged for help. But the many mispallelim were afraid to intervene, fearing retaliation from the gentiles. No one knew what to do. After davening, we went to have the Yom Tov meal at our inn. When I poured the cup of Kiddush for myself, I suddenly felt a soft touch on my shoulder. A voice whispered in my ears, ‘Moishe! Moishe! The Rebbe is calling for you!’

“I turned around to see who it was who knew my name. After all, I was not a Belzer chassid; I was born a Ropshitzer chassid. [Ed. — Reb Naftali Tzvi Ropshitz lived in Lancut at the end of his life and is buried there.] I found myself facing my father’s good friend Reb Ephraim Zwiebel, who also hailed from Lancut. He was the one who had brought me the message.

“Before I even had a chance to answer him, he turned around quickly and left. I followed him and tried to ask if he knew the reason for the urgent summons, but instead of answering me, he simply urged me, ‘Nu, faster, faster!’

Reb Moshe recalls that as he ran through the streets, the city of Belz was plunged in darkness. Due to wartime regulations, the municipal authorities had deliberately turned out the streetlights to prevent a bombing, in the event that German planes might pass overhead.

“I entered the Rebbe’s home and found him seated in his chair, wearing his fur coat, immersed in contemplation, and singing to a Belzer tune the words, ‘A person who saves one Jewish life is considered as if he had saved the entire world.’ Reb Ephraim was standing on the side, his posture bespeaking awe and reverence, not uttering a word. The Rebbe repeated the tune again and again, and I stood there in complete confusion, not knowing why I had been called. I am not a doctor, after all, and I did not know how to save lives.”

At that point, the Rebbe turned to Reb Ephraim and said, “Nu, the bochurim must do something about the matter!” Reb Moshe stared at Reb Ephraim, not understanding the Rebbe’s intent. Reb Ephraim motioned that the Rebbe was referring to the pillaging of Jewish homes and that he expected Moshe to contribute to a solution.

“Rebbe, there is nothing I can do,” Moshe said deferentially. “I have no weapons, and Chazal tell us that it is forbidden to rely on a miracle.”

“Think, think,” the Rebbe said and continued to sing, “A person who saves a single Jewish life …”

The young Schliffstein obeyed the Rebbe’s command. He contemplated the matter, devising plans and rejecting them, until he finally came up with an original strategy.

False Artillery

After a brief debate and a consultation with Reb Ephraim, Reb Moshe came up with a plan that didn’t seem realistic but, in the absence of an alternative, was at least something.

“We have neither sticks nor metal poles with which to fight them, while the attackers are certainly armed with axes and knives. But maybe we can take down the large copper chandeliers from the municipal shul, which are not being used because of the blackout forced upon the city’s residents, and we can go out to ‘war’ with them. We might be able to deal a blow to the hooligans with the chandeliers.”

The Rebbe indicated his agreement. Reb Moshe quickly returned to his friends and told them to accompany him. Quickly and efficiently, they climbed atop the tables in the shul and took down the chandeliers that hung from the ceiling. The group then headed outside, carrying the chandeliers, which, in Reb Moshe’s estimation, weighed at least 30 kilo (66 lb).

In the darkness, which was intensified by the fact that it was a moonless night, the chandeliers appeared, from afar, like some sort of monstrous weapon, some new kind of artillery. The group of young men was quickly joined by dozens of other Jews who joined the mission. Two hundred men marched boldly through the streets, led by Reb Moshe, toward the marauders who were in the process of looting Jewish homes.

The gentile thugs, terrified at the sight of the group of “armed” Jews, fled, scattering in every direction. Reb Moshe told his friends to return most of the chandeliers to the shul, keeping only a small quantity in case of emergency. The Jews’ property had been temporarily saved, thanks to the Rebbe and to Reb Moshe’s quick thinking.

Reb Ephraim had been standing outside the Rebbe’s home, waiting anxiously for the group to return. Reb Moshe rushed to brief him on what had transpired. Reb Ephraim took the opportunity to tell Reb Moshe about what had taken place immediately before the Rebbe had sent Reb Ephraim to find Reb Moshe.

The Rebbe had summoned Reb Ephraim and asked if there were any courageous, strong bochurim who were prepared to do battle against the marauding thieves. Reb Ephraim replied that Belz was a small town. If the Jews attempted to fight them, the gentiles might be able to identify them the next day and retaliate against anyone who had dared defend themselves.

The Rebbe then asked, “Perhaps there are visitors from outside Belz, whom the locals will not be able to identify?” It was then that Reb Ephraim replied that there were a number of bochurim from Lancut in Belz, who appeared to be bold and powerful. The Rebbe asked to see the leader of the group. Since Reb Moshe was the only one that Reb Ephraim knew personally, he was the one who was summoned and was given the responsibility of defending the Jews of Belz.

Reb Moshe and his friends returned to their Yom Tov meal. At the end of the seudah, Reb Ephraim appeared again at the threshold. “The Rebbe is in the middle of the small tisch that he is holding in his room. He wants to give you shirayim,” he told Moshe. When Reb Moshe returned to the Rebbe’s home, the Rebbe took Moshe’s hand in his own two holy hands and said to him, “Yasher koach.”

The Rebbe did not stop there. He continued to hold Moshe’s hand in his grasp, whispering words that Moshe could not understand. After a few minutes, the Rebbe gave him a piece of challah from the large loaf that he had cut, along with additional pieces for his companions, and Moshe took his leave of the Rebbe.

Reb Moshe and his father, who both survived the murderous Nazi onslaught, later moved to Eretz Yisrael. There, Reb Berish became close to many gedolei Yisrael, including the Chazon Ish ztz”l.

A Beard without a Jew

That incident did not mark the end of Reb Moshe’s connection with Reb Aharon of Belz.

“One day, my father wanted to visit the Rebbe at his home in Tel Aviv. The Rebbe’s gabbai, Reb Shalom Foigel ztz”l, wrote the names of my father’s children on his kvittel and read them aloud to the Rebbe. When my name was mentioned, the Rebbe turned to my father and said, ‘You have a son named Moshe? How is he?’ My father told him that I had survived the war and I was also in Eretz Yisrael.

“After receiving the Rebbe’s brachos, my father returned home and told me about the incident. ‘Why did the Rebbe ask about you?’ my father asked. I had never told him about what took place in Belz. After I related the incident to my father, I realized that if the Rebbe had taken an interest in me, I should go visit him. I had yet to do so.

“When I came to the Rebbe’s home, my former partner, Reb Chaim Stern z”l was there as well. Reb Chaim was considered to be one of the most affluent Jews in Poland and a close associate of the Rebbe. When Reb Chaim saw me, he told me excitedly, ‘If you are going to go in, I am going with you!’ When we entered the Rebbe’s sanctum, he stood up, turned to me, and announced, ‘Baruch Hashem that we are meeting!’ I was later told that any Jew who had survived the Holocaust was treated by the Rebbe with the utmost care and respect. The Rebbe then inquired about my welfare. ‘How are you, Reb Moshe?’

‘He is a good yungerman,’ Reb Chaim answered in my place, ‘but he has only one fault.’

‘What is that fault?’ the Rebbe asked.

‘He doesn’t have a beard.’

“The Rebbe wasn’t disturbed by that. ‘You know, Chaim’l,’ he said, turning to Chaim, ‘sometimes a Jew without a beard is better than a beard without a Jew.’

For a moment, I thought about reminding the Rebbe about the incident that had taken place a decade earlier on Rosh HaShanah, but it wasn’t necessary. As if he was reading my thoughts, the Rebbe said, ‘Yasher koach,’ and took his leave of me. I understood the meaning of that ‘yasher koach.’

“Reb Chaim was frightened by the Rebbe’s rebuke. As we left, he said, ‘I don’t know what sin I committed to be addressed in that way.’ I explained to him that during the war, many Jews had been forced to shave off their beards but had remained good, committed Jews. The Rebbe therefore found no fault with that.

“For example, Reb Yehoshua Englander, who served for many years as the gabbai of the beis medrash of the Pshevorsker Rebbes in Antwerp, told me that he had managed to retain his impressive beard throughout the Holocaust years, but after the war he had been forced to shave it due to his fear of the Polish anti-Semites.

“I am certain,” Reb Moshe says, concluding this chapter of his life story, “that I have enjoyed many long years, baruch Hashem, in the zchus of the brachos that the Rebbe whispered during that tisch in Belz.”

That may be one explanation for Reb Moshe’s longevity, but there may be another reason as well.

The Blessing of Reb Elimelech

On his mother’s side, Reb Moshe is related to the Bnei Yissaschar of Dinov. His name Tzvi, in fact, was given to him after the Bnei Yissaschar.

“My mother’s name was Langsam, just like the Bnei Yissaschar’s original family name. The Bnei Yissaschar changed his family name during his youth. At that time, all young men were required to enter the army, and it was very difficult to evade the draft. When they came to draft him, it was Shavuos. The soldiers came to look for him in his home and, when they didn’t find him there, they went to the beis medrash.

“When the soldiers arrived, the chazzan was in the middle of reciting Akdamos. They scrutinized all the mispallelim and asked the young Bnei Yissaschar his name. He looked down and found himself gazing at the words minan u’man hu rechimach, shapira b’revsa. ‘My name is Tzvi Elimelech Shapira,’ he responded, and they left him alone.”

Reb Moshe’s great-grandmother, who was also the grandmother of the Bnei Yissaschar, was the sister of the Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lyzhensk. According to Reb Moshe, Reb Elimelech once became angry at his sister and rebuked her strongly for something specific. She began crying bitterly out of fear of his anger. In order to assuage her distress, Reb Elimelech wished her a long life. That blessing appears to have been applied to her progeny as well. “Baruch Hashem, many our family members have experienced that blessing. I had an uncle, Reb Yaakov Langsam, my mother’s brother, who was a Gerrer chassid. He lived in Haifa and used to deliver a daf yomi shiur. I have a picture of him dancing energetically at the mitzvah tantz of one of his descendants. He was 102 years old at the time.”

Reb Moshe retells the well-known story of the birth of the Bnei Yissaschar, when his uncle, Reb Elimelech, ordered him to be given his name. But he adds some important details that were preserved in the annals of family tradition and passed along from father to son.

The holy brothers Reb Elimelech and Reb Zusha of Anipoli once came to stay at his great-grandmother’s home for a few days during the period of their self-imposed exile. Reb Moshe’s great-grandfather, who earned his living as a melamed, was not a particularly wealthy man. As the holy brothers prepared to leave, they decided to give Reb Moshe’s great-grandmother a gift to demonstrate their appreciation for the hospitality they had enjoyed.

“The Bnei Yissaschar was born to my great-grandmother’s daughter, as a result of Reb Elimelech’s brachah at that auspicious time. She had already lost a number of children, who had been born sickly and were unable to survive. The Rebbe Reb Zusha, for his part, gave her a Megillas Esther as a gift. As far as we know, their visit took place close to Purim and this megillah was written by Reb Zusha himself.

That megillah was preserved and handed down from generation to generation. When the Nazis invaded Lancut, where his mother’s family also lived, Reb Moshe’s uncle, Reb Yaakov Langsam, hid in a dank cave for a period of two years. He kept the megillah with him throughout that time, guarding it with his life, and it may be in that merit that he was saved. Reb Moshe’s grandfather, Reb Zelig Langsam Hy”d, was captured by a Nazi soldier and murdered.

“They say that Reb Elimelech once said that anyone who harmed a relative of his would suffer a bitter fate. That soldier was captured after the war and placed on trial. He was sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad. Reb Elimelech’s promise was fulfilled,” Reb Moshe relates.

The megillah later came into Reb Moshe’s possession, and he would read from it every year on Purim in Tzfas’s Romanian shul, where he served as the gabbai. The megillah is no longer in his possession, since it is now on loan to a museum in Eretz Yisrael.

Secret Mission in Lyzhensk

Over the years, as many of the members of Moshe’s minyan passed away, the congregation began to dwindle. A few years ago, it was infused with new life when a group of Chabad chassidim revived the disintegrating shul.

Reb Moshe comments that Chabad has specific traditions instituted by the founders of the Chassidus regarding how the megillah should be written. For instance, the Shefa Chaim of Sanz was in possession of the megillah written by the Tzemach Tzedek of Lubavitch, which he had received as a gift from a Lubavitcher chassid. That megillah contains the words “v’ish lo omad lifneihem,” as opposed to bifneihem, the usual way that the verse is written.

The first time that the megillah was read by a Chabad chassid in Reb Moshe’s shul, a number of the members commented on the deviations from the megillah reading to which they had been accustomed.

“When I checked my own megillah,” Reb Moshe relates, “I discovered that Reb Zusha had written it in a way that was very similar to the Lubavitch tradition. I feel that this tradition was derived from their shared rebbi, the Maggid of Mezritch.”

These recollections about Reb Zusha and Reb Elimelech lead naturally to a discussion of a famous story that occurred during the war concerning Reb Elimelech’s kever.

“During the Holocaust, after most of the Jews of Lyzhensk were deported by the Germans, the Germans decided to dig up the Jewish cemetery where Reb Elimelech is buried,” Reb Moshe explains. “The Germans thought that the wealthy Jews of the city had buried their money and property in the cemetery, and they asked a few gentiles to help them search for hidden treasure.

“The local residents were seized by terror. They were well aware of the tzaddik’s kedushah, and they refused to take part. Ultimately, a few bold gentiles gave in to the Nazis’ demands, after being promised a portion of the spoils, and they opened the grave. When the Poles, along with the Nazi accompanying them, saw that the tzaddik’s body was still intact, as if he was newly buried, they were terrified and fled from the spot. Some gentiles asked the few Jews who were still in Lyzhensk to cover up the open grave.

“Halachically,” Reb Moshe adds, “in such a situation, two Jews — the oldest and youngest — should be the ones to preserve the niftar’s honor. Indeed, two Jews who answered to those criteria came to the cemetery and covered up the burial plot with great respect and sensitivity. These Jews both enjoyed great longevity. After the war, the accursed Poles tried to take the lives of the 38 surviving Jews in Lyzhensk by throwing grenades into the house where they were staying. Twenty people were killed by the explosion and the rest were wounded. Only these two Jews escaped unharmed.

“The younger one realized that there was nothing for him in that anti-Semitic town and he moved to Krakow, where I was staying at the time. When he arrived, he told me the entire story with great excitement. I understood from his account that the ohel itself had not been restored, and he had only covered the actual grave. I asked him to join me in completing the job but he demurred, fearing that he might meet his death if he returned to Lyzhensk. I therefore took three Poles with me and disguised myself as a gentile, and in this way we traveled to Lyzhensk.

“As I approached the cemetery, following directions from local residents, I met the man who guarded the grave from harm and from unwanted visitors. I saw that the door of the ohel had been broken down and that the entire area was neglected, so I took a substantial sum of money from my pocket and handed it to the guard to persuade him to fix the door. After he made the initial renovations, I left. I didn‘t want anyone to discover my Jewish identity.”

After Reb Moshe moved to Tzfas, he met Reb Shlomo of Bobov ztz”l while the latter was visiting Eretz Yisrael. During the course of their conversation, Reb Moshe told the Rebbe about his actions in Lyzhensk. The Rebbe, for his part, told him that he had visited Lyzhensk with an American passport.

‘Bobover Rebbe,’ I said to him, ‘if you want to do something effective, have the fence around the cemetery rebuilt and finish the work that I began by restoring the ohel.’ The Rebbe agreed to the challenge and instructed his chassidim to take action.

“If Jews visit Lyzhensk today,” Reb Moshe says emotionally, “it might be said that I had the privilege of preparing the area for them.”

The city of Tzfas seems to answer Reb Moshe, its rustling of its trees whispering, “Yes, Reb Moshe, the city of mekubalim is, indeed, fortunate to have your presence.”

“The Jews of Belz hurried to the Belzer beis medrash, where a large crowd had gathered, and begged for help. But the many mispallelim were afraid to intervene, fearing retaliation from the gentiles”

“Reb Chaim was frightened by the Rebbe’s rebuke. As we left, he said, ‘I don’t know what sin I committed to be addressed in that way’

“The Rebbe Reb Zusha, for his part, gave her a Megillas Esther as a gift. As far as we know, their visit took place close to Purim and this megillah was written by Reb Zusha himself”

“I understood from his account that the ohel itself had not been restored, and he had only covered the actual grave. I asked him to join me in completing the job but he demurred, fearing that he might meet his death if he returned to Lyzhensk”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 420)