Opinion & Comment
Four Hundred Years Postmortem

A book was released about a year ago entitled, Reb Velvel -- Der Eidel-man, containing mussar talks, amazing facts and wondrous practices of HaRav Zeev Eidelman zt'l and his teachers. We bring here a sampling from this fascinating work which is packed with deep content and exalted concepts belonging to tzaddikim of earlier generations.

This work also incorporates illuminating vignettes about many Torah sages who were the author's contemporaries: those who lived in Brisk and its environs, studied in Yeshivas Kamenetz and in Eretz Yisroel. The following is a translation of material from the sefer.

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Once, during excavations made by the local government in the city of Brisk, some human remains were unearthed and it could not be determined if these were Jewish or gentile. Further excavations revealed a human corpse completely intact with shrouds, which proved without doubt that the remains were Jewish and that the site of the digging had served as an ancient cemetery of the city. The members of the Chevra Kadisha investigated the matter and learned that some four hundred years before, this cemetery had fallen into disuse.

The members of the Chevra Kadisha gathered up the bones and the earth surrounding them into dozens of sacks and on the seventeenth of Tammuz, held a mass funeral attended by the townspeople and headed by Maran HaRav Yitzchok Zeev ztvk'l of Brisk. Eulogies were said by the rabbis and at the end of the ceremony, the procession left the central synagogue, heading for the current cemetery, a walk of several miles.

R' Yitzchok Zeev found the walk difficult, for even in his youth he was physically weak and frail. And so, a wagon was procured for him. He nonetheless refused to ride, preferring to walk the entire distance on foot, despite his debility, saying, "Who knows who I am escorting to a final rest? Who knows what great, righteous and saintly men these were?"

From time to time, people repeatedly offered him a ride on the vehicle which was proceeding at his side, but he maintained his refusal until they all reached the cemetery. There, all the remains were duly interred in one mass grave.

The body that had been found intact, which R' Yitzchok Zeev saw himself, was buried in a separate place, by itself. (H.A.R. and R.S.M.)

The Bach's Complaint Against the City of Brisk

The Bach was a former rov in Brisk. An epidemic broke out one time and inquiries were made into the spiritual condition of the city to ascertain the cause behind this plague, but nothing could be pinpointed. Who knew, people feared, what terrible sin could be hidden from the leaders to be causing such havoc? What horrible commission or omission could be bringing on such wholesale death?

A general meeting was called and G-d-fearing, scholarly supervisors were appointed to scour the city and be on the lookout for anything seriously amiss. They searched in every likely area, but could not find anything -- no cause to which they could possibly attribute such a severe Heavenly retribution. It seemed that all spiritual matters, observance of all the mitzvos, were in order. They decided to make a search at night and perhaps discover something that had been hidden from their sight during the day. They searched the city, but again failed to come up with anything substantial to report.

Suddenly, however, they realized that the house of their rabbi was plunged in darkness. Could it be? In this city, where no scholar of stature simply whiled away his nights in sleep? How could it be that the very rabbi of the city was not pursuing his own Torah study at nighttime? If this was the case, they thought they had hit upon the source of the town's punishment!

They called another meeting and told the people what they had discovered. The participants reached the faulty conclusion that their rabbi was lax in his devotion to Torah and this was the reason for the raging epidemic. Something must be done urgently to remove the Heavenly wrath from their midst!

And from here -- to the matter of the fires that proliferated in Brisk:

A huge fire once broke out at night in Brisk, consuming half the houses in the city, precisely the very half that had been spared from a previous fire. The fire broke out right past the house that had bordered upon the last house where the previous fire had been extinguished several years before. Only one single home remained untouched by both of these fires, the one in the very middle. This was the home of one ger tzeddek. (R.Y.K.L. and R.Y.S.)

(In the end of his days, R' Velvel told the story from the times of the Bach, former rabbi of Brisk, to explain why fire had been prevalent in this city. This story is brought in the chapter, "Stories from Previous Generations.")

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For relatively the long time that it took to reconstruct the homes, many families remained without a roof over their heads. Throughout this entire period, R' Chaim, who was rov of Brisk at the time, did not once retire at night to sleep in his bed! When he tired and needed to sleep, he would go off to the central beis knesses where he had prepared a mattress under the stairs leading to the women's gallery. (R.S.M.)

R' Chaim's own home was always open to one and all and served as the personal residence of a good many homeless paupers, both transient and permanent. These `residents' made themselves very much at home and took all kinds of liberties, but the real family members never rebuked them in any way. "And the poor shall be the members of your household" was taken very literally, amidst great personal sacrifice and a genuine will to help others. (R.S.M.)

Maran HaRav Boruch Ber Returns From America

When Maran HaRav Boruch Ber and his son-in-law, HaRav Reuven Grozovksy ztvk'l, returned from a fundraising trip to America on behalf of the Kamenetz yeshiva, all the townspeople went to greet them at the train station in nearby Brisk (since this small town did not boast its own station). R' Zeev Eidelman, yet a student in Yeshivas Imrei Moshe, was there as well and very excited over the event. He, too, wished to participate in the great honor of receiving the Rosh Yeshiva.

Being a resident of Brisk, he was familiar with the ins and outs of the station, and knew exactly where to go in order to reach the train directly. Thus, he managed to be the very first one to greet the Rov.

In later years, he was to tell of this moving experience: Within moments of the train's arrival, dozens of bochurim converged from all sides and surrounded their beloved Rosh Yeshiva. When R' Boruch Ber saw them all about him, he roused himself and said, "I see all of my students here before me. What an opportune time to say a shiur!" And without preparation and no further ado, he launched into a fiery dissertation, as was his manner, in the subject being learned then in the yeshiva, then and there, in the very train station, which had never, in all its history, been witness to a shiur klolli such as this!

The guards of the station became alarmed at this strange convocation and rushed to disperse the crowd of yeshiva students. But as soon as they beheld the strikingly holy figure of R' Boruch Ber in its center, they felt a palpable fear and awe, and shrank back. The students saw, enacted before their very eyes, a concrete example of the Torah's promise, "And all the nations of the earth will verily see that the Name of Hashem is called upon you and they will fear . . ."

From the train station, R' Boruch Ber headed straight for the home of the moro de'asra, Maran HaRav Yitzchok Zeev of Brisk. He reached the Rov's home just as the Rov was reciting Krias Shema. Not one to waste a precious moment, R' Boruch Ber, surrounded by his talmidim, resumed delivering the shiur he had begun at the train station. When the Brisker Rov finished the Shema and R' Boruch Ber broke off to greet him, the former urged him repeatedly to carry on with his shiur. (R.A.P.)

The Personal Munificence of R' Chaim

R' Chaim was famous for his lavish generosity. Within two weeks of his having received his salary, nothing was left for his rebbetzin for buying food. The gabboim decided to make a pact with the Rebbetzin that she get the salary, but nonetheless the Rov continued to dispense right and left. Not having any cash, however, he began doling out pillows and covers, so the needy could sell them to procure money for their needs.

In the beginning of the winter, the community trustees prepared a storeroom full of kindling wood to heat the Rov's home in the cold season ahead. What did he do? He issued a public notice that whoever needed firewood and could not afford to buy it, should come and take for free.

Seeing the entire supply being depleted so quickly, the trustees came and put a padlock on the storeroom, entrusting the key to the Rebbetzin. But R' Chaim did not permit her to use the wood, even though it was freezing inside.

"If it is locked to the poor," he declared, "it is locked to us, as well." (R.Y.S.)

Your Fish Fell Out, Grandpa

During the austerity period in Israel right after the founding of the State when the basic necessities were rationed, there was no fish to be had in all of Petach Tikva and people ate sardines for Shabbos, for want of anything better. R' Zeev would not forego the mitzvah of fish for Shabbos and decided to go further afield in search for a more substantial fish. (Rebbetzin Schwartz)

One week, a curfew was announced and people were forced to remain at home. R' Zeev was not one to be stymied by such an order and, despite the lack of any form of transportation, he decided to violate the curfew and make his way on foot to the big city. In Tel Aviv however, he was also unable to find any fish. And so he headed for Jaffa, by the sea, where he hoped to find something. There he was rewarded for his efforts with a fish for Shabbos.

He began walking all the way back to Petach Tikva. As he neared Bnei Brak the bag, which was slung over his shoulder, burst and the fish slipped out. Immersed in his thoughts, he did not notice anything until some children cried out, "Hey Grandpa, your fish fell out!"

He was only in his thirties at the time, but his beard was already snow white! (Told by himself)

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