"And the entire community of Yisroel shall slaughter it in the afternoon." This does not mean that the entire Klal Yisroel, one by one, sacrificed their korbon Pesach, for if so, it should have stated "slaughter them" and not "it." It goes to say that every korbon which an individual brings is considered to be a sacrifice of the entire body of Klal Yisroel, as stated above. This also includes the fact that if one Jew is killed, it is considered as "the entire community of Klal Yisroel."

And for this shall all the anguished, those who keep Torah and mitzvos, feel upon this terrible blow as if the entire body of Jewry was murdered on Shabbos Kodesh (parshas Bo). And if this was so decreed in Heaven, there must be a great wrath. For not even a fingernail of a Jew can be hurt if not for the overall Providence upon all, and is there not the Heavenly conduct that "for the Guardian of Israel does not sleep nor slumber"?

In the midst of a sea of troubles and tragedies, there is a story which I heard from the original source, a story to reinforce our emunah:

Five years ago, on the seventh day of Chanukah, Reb Mordechai Artzi, a Jew who strengthened himself greatly in Yiddishkeit and was befriended by a Ruzhiner chossid, passed away. In his last years, he lived in the Vishnitz Senior Citizens home in Bnei Brak, and in the very last months of life, his Chassidic mentor convinced him to being putting on Rabbenu Tam tefillin.

This mentor, A.K., told me the following:

"Towards the end of Chanukah this year, on the day following Reb Artzi's yahrtzeit, a man who was also close to the deceased, came to me, very excited. He told me that on the preceding night, Reb Mordechai appeared to him in a dream and said that the Rabbenu Tam tefillin which he had used were not his own. He had received them on loan and asked A.K. to return them for him to their rightful owner, but he did not provide the name of the man.

This extended historical series about the battles over the rabbinate in Vilna was originally published in 1995 (5755).

Part IV

This series has discussed the background of Vilna, the Yerushalayim of Lithuania, and its rabbonus. We saw that the real position of Chief Rabbi of Vilna was left unfilled for more than a hundred years, out of respect, until the secular authorities insisted on the appointment of a rav to administer the registration of demographic information such as births, deaths and weddings. The community was required to appoint such a "rav meitaam," and the choice came down to a test of strength between the traditional side lead by HaRav Chaim Ozer, and the reformers and maskilim. Before his election, Rav Rubinstein, a former yeshiva student, promised Reb Chaim Ozer that he would stay clear of any involvement in Vilna's communal institutions. In return he was backed by Reb Chaim Ozer and elected. However, he did not keep his promise after his election in 1910.

Later, Reb Chaim Ozer's forced absence from Vilna during the First World War enabled Rav Rubinstein to greatly increase his sphere of influence in Vilna's communal affairs, in direct violation of the promise he had given Reb Chaim Ozer upon his election. When the Polish government required the Jews to hold new elections in 1919, the chareidim were in a minority against the combined forces of secularists, Zionists and religious Zionists and they were powerless to prevent Rav Rubinstein's accession to the seat of the Vilna Rabbinate.

This chapter chronicles the protest campaign led by the Chofetz Chaim to redress the terrible wrong that had been perpetrated against the honor of Reb Chaim Ozer and of Torah itself.

The Storm Breaks