A wealth of new stories about past gedolei Yisroel
from the treasury of HaRav Gavriel Ricklis zt'l in
the work "Zichron Gavriel"
*
A new compilation of chiddushei Torah was released
last year in memory of HaRav Gavriel Ricklis zt'l a
survivor from the dor dei'ah in Ponovezh and Telz in
Lithuania, and in his latter days, in Eretz Yisroel. He
passed away four years ago in Bnei Brak.
His biography appears at the end of the work, written up by
his son-in-law HaRav S. M. Jungerman, head of the yeshiva and
other institutions in Zichron Yaakov. In this biography we
found many facts that were heretofore unknown regarding his
brilliance, key kernels of which we shall present before the
reader. The stories are translated from the book, with slight
changes in style, but not in content.
*
One of R' Gavriel Ricklis' ancestors studied in Volozhin
under Maran R' Chaim Volozhin zy'a. It is told within
the family in his name about the time he was present in the
yeshiva on Chol Hamoed Succos, in 5558 (1798). The yeshiva
held a Simchas Beis Hashoeva and the singing and
celebration were extraordinarily exuberant.
Suddenly, R' Chaim went over to the bimah and pounded
it with his fist, hushing the tumult of the celebrants. You
could hear a pin drop. R' Chaim stood for some time,
engrossed in his thoughts. Finally he said, "In these very
moments, the Gaon of Vilna just passed away." (The distance
from Volozhin to Vilna was several days travel time, yet
HaRav Chaim was able to sense the loss through his divine
intuition.)
R' Dov Ricklis zt'l, rosh yeshiva Ponovezh in
Lithuania of the younger students, was one of R' Gavriel's
uncles. He was a genius as well as a tremendous
masmid. During World War One he fled to St.
Petersburg, where he made the acquaintance of Maran, the
Rogatchover Gaon ztvk'l. They decided to study
together and one night, they encountered a difficult passage
which neither could resolve. It was getting very late and
they decided to retire for the night, leaving the question
still hanging.
In the middle of the night R' Berchik (R' Dov) awoke and
suddenly, he was struck by the answer to their impasse. He
quickly washed his hands, recited the blessing for the Torah,
and sat down to review the subject in depth. He then got
dressed and made his way to the Rogatchover.
It was wartime, and bands of armed men roamed the streets,
pillaging and killing ruthlessly and squaring off their own
vicious accounts with private enemies. It is not difficult to
imagine the terror that struck the hearts of the members of
the Rogatchover household when they heard knocks in the
middle of the night.
"Who is there?" someone asked timorously.
"Ich," was the simple reply.
If the man speaks Yiddish, the Rogatchover immediately
paskened, we must let him in. So someone opened the
door and in walked R' Berchik. The Rogatchover scolded him
for coming at that unearthly hour. "Why couldn't it wait till
morning?" he asked. "There is shooting going on all the
time!"
R' Berchik defended himself. "I had to come. Whenever I heard
shots, I hugged the wall of a house. When they stopped I
continued. I continued to walk in the intervals between
shots. And boruch Hashem [I am here] with the
teirutz."
In 5663, R' Gavriel studied by HaRav Abba Grossbard
ztvk'l, from whom he learned about the battle that
Maran R' Yisroel Salanter zy'a waged against the
Maskilim, who demanded control over Jewish education and the
introduction of a full curriculum of secular studies. The
latter hired a venerable and very respectable-looking Jew to
castigate R' Yisroel and shame him in public.
The day came when R' Yisroel was invited to address a large
audience in Vilna. When he went up to the podium, that man
strode forward and shouted, "Who are you, you baal
gaavah, to come and address this gathering?"
An uproar ensued as people rushed towards him with violent
intentions, but R' Yisroel would not let anyone touch him. He
bade everyone be silent and listened to the man's tirade with
bowed head. The man ranted on, accusing R' Yisroel of being a
"hypocritical scoundrel" and so on. R' Yisroel nodded in
acquiescence at every insult hurled at him. But when the man
accused him of being a thief, R' Yisroel turned to him and
said in all innocence, "Please tell me whom I cheated so that
I can make amends and pay him back."
When word of this incident reached R' Yisroel's disciple,
HaRav Simchah Zissel of Kelm, he remarked, "R' Yisroel
conducted himself like Dovid Hamelech, who said, `When
enemies rise up against me, I bend an ear' (Tehillim
92,12). It is advisable for a person to listen to what his
enemies accuse him of so that he will know where to improve
himself."
R' Gavriel would often tell about HaRav Yeruchom Levovitz
ztvk'l, who served as mashgiach in Ponovezh
before coming to Yeshivas Mir. In 5678 (1918), at the end of
World War I, refugees began returning to Lithuania, among
them R' Yeruchom together with a group of his students.
(These included Maran HaRav Dov Povarsky ztvk'l, later
rosh yeshivas Ponovezh in Eretz Yisroel.) They reached
Slobodka, only to find the beis hamedrash in partial
ruins. R' Yeruchom sent his disciples out in search of some
basic furniture and seforim from local shuls for the
yeshiva building.
"Tomorrow," he announced, "we will begin studying here."
On the following days, hundreds of students flocked to the
building and R' Yeruchom delivered shiurim, as well as
mussar talks. When Maran the Alter of Slobodka
returned, he was surprised to find hundreds of students
deeply immersed in study, with the regular study sessions
carrying on as if nothing had ever happened.
R' Yeruchom went over to him and said simply, "Here, take
your yeshiva back."
And he picked himself up and went off to Ponovezh, where he
stayed until his return to Yeshivas Mir in 5684 (1924).
Maran HaRav Eliezer Gordon of Telz ztvk'l passed away
in 5670 (1910). The Mashgiach in Telz was R' Shmuel Fondiller
zt'l, Hy'd, rov of Ritiva. He worked hard to bring
HaRav Yosef Leib Bloch ztvk'l back to Telz to fill the
place of his father-in-law, but the laymen of the community
feared that he would be too exalted and removed from the
common folk and would be unable to relate to them well. R'
Shmuel convinced them to take a rabbi who would also be able
to serve as baal tefillah during the upcoming Yomim
Noraim.
And so it was that R' Yosef Leib Bloch led the prayers in the
large central synagogue in Telz using the special
nusach that he brought with him from Volozhin.
Immediately after Yom Kippur, the community presented him
with a formal writ of rabbinate, signed by the members of the
kehilloh. From then on, he only delivered lectures on
Shabbos Shuvoh and Shabbos Hagodol, which were attended by
all the young students of Yeshivas Telz as well as by the
members of the kollel and all the Yeshiva alumni.
When the gabboim went to him and asked him to speak at
a more common, simple level, R' Yosef Leib reassured them by
saying, "Even if you don't understand what I am saying, your
souls understand!"
R' Gavriel once told an audience that during the controversy
that raged in Vilna over the rabbinate, Maran the Chazon ish
ztvk'l left his home in Vilna and went to stay in a
flour mill in Telz for half a year, just to get away. The
owners of the mill had no inkling of his stature but they
instinctively felt that he was a figure of caliber and
quality. They saw, for example, how careful he was concerning
the prohibition of chodosh, new wheat, and they
treated him with great deference.
Before he left, R' Gavriel continued, the Chazon Ish said
that as a measure of gratitude for their kind hospitality, he
wished to divulge a secret and give them good advice. He said
that soon an iron broom would begin sweeping across all of
Europe, and it would destroy everything in its path. He
advised them to pick themselves up and move to Eretz
Yisroel.
When R' Gavriel finished his speech, a young man rose from
the audience and said to him, "My mother was a member of that
family. She was the only one who believed his words and
followed his advice by emigrating to Eretz Yisroel. And she
was the family's sole survivor. I, her son, can testify to
the veracity of this story."
*
When he reached Eretz Yisroel, R' Gavriel taught in several
yeshivos, including Tel Aviv and Herzliya. One particular
student was an exceptionally unruly and disruptive young man
who made teaching very difficult. R' Gavriel tried every
means and method he knew to win him over, but was
unsuccessful.
Finally, he went to the Chazon Ish and asked him what to do.
Who should make way for whom? The Chazon Ish ruled that if he
had, indeed, made every possible attempt to improve the
student and gain his favor but had failed, he should eject
him from the yeshiva for the sake of all the other
students.
After the Chazon Ish passed away, R' Gavriel was faced with a
similar, though opposite question. A student who had been
studying with him wished to continue with Torah studies but
his parents insisted that he go on to high school and receive
a matriculation degree. His mother said she would get a heart
attack if he thwarted her wish.
R' Gavriel went to R' Kanievsky ztvk'l who sent a
messenger to the mother with these words: "Let's make a
bargain. Your son shall continue in yeshiva and I'll pray
that nothing will happen to you." The mother capitulated and
today her son is a distinguished Torah scholar who
disseminates Torah on a major scale.
Aside from these stories, there are many that revolve around
Yeshivas Ponovezh in Lithuania, involving HaRav Yosef Shlomo
Kahaneman ztvk'l and HaRav Osher Kalman Baron
Hy'd, the mashgiach of Ponovezh, as well as
about Yeshivas Telz. This volume also includes chiddushei
Torah from rabbinical figures and students of Yeshivas
Zichron Michoel from Zichron Yaakov, which is headed by R'
Gavriel's son-in-law, HaRav S. M. Jungerman shlita.
