AN APPRECIATION OF THE BAIS YISROEL OF GUR

As many people may know, today, ב אדר, is the yahrzeit of the Gerrer Rebbe known as the Bais Yisroel. He became Rebbe three years after the end of the Second World War which we now refer to as the Holocaust. He was Rebbe for almost 30 years.

I am going to attempt, today, to give an appreciation of his rebuilding virtually from the ashes, not only the Chasidus of Gur and Polish Jewry in toto, but he also having a tremendous effect on the whole of Charedi Jewry. I will also attempt to outline a small flavour of his personality from my perspective.

I believe that the first thing I ought to do is to commence with the final Dvar Torah from his Sefer that was published after his petireh containing Torahs he pronounced from Shabbos to Shabbos during those years.

כאן נתבשרו שעתידין לחטוא, אבל משה רבינו לא נתרצה בזה ופעל שיהי׳ הישועה ע״י השי״ת לא ע״י מלאך וכן נתמלא בקשתו, לכן השמחה בזה למי שחטא יוכל לשוב בתשובה ולהתקרב להשי״ת וזה בשורה טובה לכל בני ישראל.

The Torah tells us towards the end of Parshas Mishpotim that Hashem told Moshe that he was going to send a malach to guard the Jews. Rashi explains that this was, in fact, an indication to Moshe that the Yidden were going to sin. What the Rebbe says is that Moshe Rabbenu was not happy with this and he managed to persuade Hashem, as it says in the Sedra Ki Sisa, that Hashem himself and not a malach should always lead us. Therefore, the simcha embodied therein is that even somebody who sins can do teshuva, become near to Hashem Yisboruch and he concludes, this is a בשורה טובה, good tidings for all the Bnei Yisroel.

This was one of his major projects, namely, to impress on everybody that whatever they had done in the past, they could do teshuva and improve and Hashem would accept it and they could draw near to Hashem Yisboruch.



To just give some historical background, Reb Yisroel of Gur was born to his father, the previous Rebbe of Gur, who is now known by his sefer as the Imrei Emess, approximately 115 years ago. His famous grandfather, the Sfas Emess, was the Rebbe at the time and he had the privilege of knowing his grandfather until he was approximately 10 years of age and imbibed a considerable amount from the Sfas Emess.

When his father, the Imrei Emess, took over as Rebbe before the First World War, he redefined the Chasidus of Gur in various ways. For instance, he instructed his followers to daven strictly according to the times of tefillah, that is Shacharis early in the morning, Mincha before Shkia etc. He also instituted an hour learning Friday night before the tefillah of Maariv and again after Shacharis before the leyning on Shabbos morning.

He concentrated considerably on the youth. He could see how the various isms that were then around, communism, socialism, bundism, Zionism etc. were unfortunately tearing away the youth from Yiddishkeit and, he, therefore, was mekarev the youth in particular.

In addition, he was a Manhig Yisroel, a leader who was instrumental in the formation and success of Agudas Yisroel.

He was also staunchly in favour of Eretz Yisroel and decided that he wanted to go and live in Yerushalyim which he visited on a number of occasions between the two world wars.

A few years before the holocaust, he decided that he wanted to move to Eretz Yisroel permanently but his Chasidim pleaded with him and he acceded to their request to stay in Gur in Poland.

He was reputed to have 100,000 Chasidim. Certainly he had the greatest number of Chasidim of any Chasidus of that time or any other time before or after.

All this was brought to an abrupt halt in the Second War World. He, together with the Bais Yisroel and other members of their family, made a miraculous escape by train from Poland to Trieste in Italy and then by ship to Eretz Yisroel, but the Imrei Emess was a broken man and he eventually passed away on Shavuos תש'ח, that is 1948 a month after the formation of the State of Israel.

Of the multitude of Gerrer Chasidim, before the war, there were only a pitiful number who remained alive worldwide. I think one could say that if there were 1,000 Gerrer Chasidim, I mean Chasidim in the full sense of the world, alive and functioning immediately after the war ended, that is, if anything, an overestimate.

The Bais Yisroel had, before the war, already commenced helping his father, particularly in directing the activities of the young Gerrer Chasidim, the unmarried men and newly married all over Poland. The Bais Yisroel himself lived in Warsaw but he did travel here and there and he discreetly, at his father’s request, assisted considerably in attracting and retaining the youth in the derech of Gerrer Chasidus.

Nevertheless, it was a surprise to many people when his father left the mantle of leadership to the Bais Yisroel, who had preferred to always be in the background.

The Bais Yisroel when appointed Rebbe was faced with the churban, the Holocaust, with thousands of broken neshomos, not only in Eretz Yisroel, also in Europe, in America and worldwide. People who had fled after the horrors and atrocities of the Second World War, who did not have parnosso and the majority were certainly not concentrating on their Yiddishkeit. The Bais Yisroel set about changing all this in his own unique manner, despite living in a state which frowned on Chareidim.

I was friendly with a gentleman called R’ Dovid Perkovitch who was brought up with the Bais Yisroel before the war in Poland but had emigrated to Yerushalyim before the war. R’ Dovid was not a Gerrer Chosid, but was friendly with the Bais Yisroel, nevertheless. He told me that a few weeks after the Bais Yisroel was appointed, he decided that he would go and wish him Mazel Tov. So he turned up in Gur. The Rebbe discussed with him how vibrant Yiddishkeit had been in Warsaw, in Gur and in Poland generally before the war and then opened a door from his room to the Bais Hamedrash and said, “Look at what my father has left me”. He looked around the Bais Hamedrash where there were a few old Yidden with beards, a few bochurim who were learning in the Yeshivas Sfas Emess and there was a whole generation missing in the middle.

Despite this, the Bais Yisroel energetically and with his own charisma dedicated himself, day and night, and I mean day and night, to building up Torah with a Chasidishe Bren as had been the norm in Poland, once again. When I say day and night, he reputedly did not sleep more than two or three hours a night and whenever one saw him awake, he was always fully awake and not half asleep despite the lack of any lengthy sleeping hours.

He commenced again with the youngsters and was mekarev anybody who was attracted to him. It did not matter to him whether bochurim were from families of Gerrer Chasidim, of Polish Chasidus or for that matter of any Chasidus. Anybody who wanted to experience the holy and dynamic personality of the Bais Yisroel, he took under his wing. He gradually built up first the Yeshivas Sfas Emess, then a Yeshiva in Tel Aviv, the Chidushei Harim, and gradually the numbers increased from 10’s to 100’s to 1,000’s of followers.

He lost his own wife, children and his one grandchild all in the war but he put all that to one side and concentrated on rebuilding Torah and Chasidus anew.

By the time he passed away almost 30 years after having been the leader of the Chasidus, he had built up Gur into a vibrant, growing community. He had also worked strenuously to steer Agudas Yisroel forward and helped countless other Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva build up their own communities and organisations.

I heard, that the Ponevezher Rov who built the famous Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, was stuck for money when about to build the Yeshiva and it was the Gerrer Rebbe to whom he turned and who gave him a substantial sum which enabled the project to go forward. In fact, the Ponevezher Rov when he had any major questions asked the Gerrer Rebbe and relied on his advice. Numerous other gedolim had similar stories to tell. He was a Rebbe for the whole of Klal Yisroel.

The Bais Yisroel did not, of course, forget or ignore, the older generation of Chasidim and the broken Yidden who had gone through the holocaust, many of them losing their affinity with Chasidus and Yiddishkeit. He comforted them all and brought many back to the fold. Through that, he managed to influence their children and grandchildren. He used to exclaim “Breng mere de kinder”, bring me the children.

The Bais Yisroel was a Godol בתורה עבודה וגמילות חסדים. In pure learning he was an illui, a genius. In avodah his tefillah and דקדוקי המצות were exemplary. His gemilus chasodim, namely to help people not only in a spiritual way but actually giving them money, clothes etc. was outstanding. He was known in Yerushalyim for the way he visited famous tzaddikim and hidden tzaddikim, what we term ל'ו tzaddikim, whom he managed to locate and visited at odd times of the day and especially the night, (as well as sick people) leaving behind money, food clothes etc.

He, of course, saw people who came for advice and with kvittlach. Normally the door was open for such visits twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon. People of all types and descriptions turned up, not only Chasidim and Bnei Torah, as we would term them nowadays, יהודי עמך, whether they were Ashkenazim or Sephardim all found a listening ear and a compassionate heart. He gave brochos and aitzes (advice). What we would describe today as mofsim, were quite commonplace, but I want to stress that in addition to all this he was a חכם, a wise and clever person who understood the ways of the world and he, therefore, could deal with not only individuals but organisations, politics, etc. and deal with all matters with incredible speed as well as acumen and common sense.

He really had an extraordinary mixture of so many middos tovos in addition to a magnetic personality and charisma which he used to the utmost to benefit Klal Yisroel. He had in him the sharpness associated with Kotzk and the ahavas Yisroel epitomised by Vorka.

He did build up his own Chasidus and mould it into vibrant Yiddishkeit akin to that which had existed before the war in Poland, but he also understood and supported other organisations which differed in detail. He was just interested in building up more and more Yiddishkeit in Eretz Yisroel and throughout the world. He took everybody according to his particular level and cleaned out that person’s neshomo and indicated the way forward for each individual in his own way. However, he did have guide lines which he concentrated on and these included the following. He was insistent that in his Bais Hamedrash in Yerushalyim nobody, and I mean nobody, talked at all during davenning. And I mean during davening, from the time it started to the time it finished with no exceptions even where one may normally speak say, for instance, during the korbonos right at the beginning of davening. If he caught anybody talking, woe betide. He also had a genius for knowing that somebody was talking.

I myself witnessed the following incident. The Bais Yisroel used to daven next to the Baal Tefillah right at the Mizrach vant of the Bais Hamedrash, he did not have a chair (at least not until the last five years, subsequent to a serious operation) but stood the whole of davening like a general with his troops. There was then a gap where nobody davened around him being sort of a half circle, say ten foot away from him. After that, there were the bochurim and yingeleit who made a wall round him which could be at times four or five rows deep, further back there were other people davening as well. One Shabbos morning as Azehu Makomom was being said, the Bais Yisroel suddenly looked fixedly at a spot where these young men were congregated like a wall and because he was looking so fixedly the wall split like magic and there was an empty path and one could see right to the back of the Bais Hamedrash. I noticed that two people had come into the Bais Hamedrash, obviously talking and were standing right near the back door and they had not quite finished their conversation. After a few seconds, one of the two noticed that the Bais Yisroel was looking in their direction fixedly, he realised what had happened and stopped talking. The other one had not noticed and therefore carried on until he suddenly realised that something was happening and also caught the eye of the Bais Yisroel. The two of them, to put it mildly, were so embarrassed that they almost slunk out of the Bais Hamedrash.

How on earth the Bais Yisroel could have sensed that these two were talking when he could not have seen it in a physical way? It must have been a purely spiritual, pnemiasdike sensation that made him look there and stop the conversation. This was not the only time it happened, I have heard of many such incidents. The fact is that he was very, very strong on this point. He was reputed to have said that the reason why the churban of the Second World War took place in the Ashkenazi communities, whereas, relatively speaking, the Sephardim of North Africa etc. were not touched, is because the Sephardim gave great kovad, honour and dignity to their Shuls and the way they davenned and learned therein.

I think that this is a lesson for everybody nowadays as well.

This was one point that he was very strong on.

Another point that was his speciality was that bochurim, especially in Sfas Emess, the Gerrer Yeshiva in Yerushalyim should get up what was called “fartugs”, before daybreak.

In the first years that he was Rebbe this meant getting up at say 6.00 in the morning to learn for an hour before davening at 7.30 after having gone to Mikvah etc. By the time 25 years had gone by we are talking about getting up at 3.30 or 4.00 in the morning.

In order to encourage this, he used to invite these youngsters into his private rooms at any time between 4.00 and 6.00 in the morning for tea, a vort of Torah and an occasional discussion etc. This worked wonders in getting people up and learning at that early time of the morning. It made these people feel that they had a special affinity to the Bais Yisroel.

He was insistent on Kedushah, pure holiness.

He was forever pushing people to reach a higher level of kedushah and taharah. Not looking out of their Dalet Amos, not reading secular newspapers or books etc.

One of his most famous methods of building up Yiddishkeit and warmth was the tischen on Friday night and Shabbos Shalosh Seudas. There were a few privileged people, maybe 30 or 40 who actually sat round the table by invitation. To get an invitation to sit at the tisch, this had to be issued by the Rebbe himself, often via the gabbai, and naturally members of his family were among those who frequently had tisch. As far as the Chasidim were concerned, it was, of course, a great privilege and honour to be able to sit at the tisch or even stand inside, what was virtually a reinforced area.

Especially in his earlier years and on Friday night, the Bais Yisroel used to come into the Bais Hamedrash before a tisch and there were hundreds of people standing around. He would walk between the rows of people and throw out a remark or tell somebody he should go into the tisch and it was an amazing sight which I find difficult to describe in words.

Immediately adjacent to the tisch the bochurim and yingeleit formed a solid phalanx standing four or five and sometime even six or seven rows deep, behind which were the baalebatim. The Rebbe did not stop working the whole of the tisch. If he was not giving out shirayim, he was passing messages to people, there was zemiros being sung and l’chaims being called out. Something was going on all the time and the atmosphere was electric.

His divrei Torah, which were given at that time and are printed in the sefer Bais Yisroel are replete with words of Chasidus, Yiras Shomoyim and especially mussar as to how one should behave and strive to grasp the holiness of the particular Shabbos or Yom Tov, with a view to the spiritual uplift continuing.

I don’t think that I mentioned that he had what was equivalent to a computer in his brain. He remembered everything and anything, whether it was Torah or whether it was things that happened and concerned individual persons. I will just give you one example that happened to me. I mentioned earlier on that there were opening hours when one could visit the Bais Yisroel, usually twice a day for half an hour to an hour or so. During that period, many people went in and out and he dealt with them very quickly indeed.

Because when one asked him something he answered so quickly, it was difficult to ask more than a few questions. This was because it was difficult to assimilate all the answers and go away remembering everything clearly. Therefore, one had to come in a second or third time. In addition, the Rebbe was always in a hurry because he knew that other people were waiting outside.

This was especially true over the period from Selichos through Tishrei.

At the time of this story I am going to mention, very few people went to Eretz Yisroel, air travel was still in its infancy, most people still travelled by ship. Therefore, when I went over, I was asked by numerous people to take with kvittlach or ask for berochos, questions etc. I went before Rosh Hashona and came back after Succos. What happened was that I went in once, twice, three times or more and got through a considerable amount of the enquiries for other people as well as something for myself.

I then realised that Succos had ended and I was going back home a couple of days later. I decided that I had better do something different to ensure that I would remember to ask all the outstanding questions. Therefore, I jotted down points on a piece of paper so that if I got stuck I would be able to refer to them.

Lo and behold, I went in the day before I was going back and the first question the Rebbe asked me was how long was I staying, and I told him that I was in fact, travelling the next day. I then proceeded to ask him a couple of things and he answered me in his normal quick manner. At that stage, I decided that I had better refer to my list and therefore, fumbled in my top pocket near my lapel and took out my list. The Rebbe asked what I was doing. I told him what was happening, namely that every time I came in, as soon as I went out of the door, I realised that I had forgotten to ask something. I, therefore, decided that I had better write down a list to make sure that I remembered to mention everything, especially as I was going abroad.

The Rebbe approved and I went through my list and he then asked him, “have you got anything else”, I said no and he wished me l’chaim u’l’sholom and that was the last time that I saw him for a year or two.

A few years later, I was also in Eretz Yisroel for Rosh Hashona until after Succos and I went in after Succos for a final visit to him. Once again I had not exhausted my list of questions and had decided to write a list to make sure that I would not forget anything.

The Rebbe asked me when I was going and I said the next day and I asked him one or two things. Before I could continue, he asked me “have you got anything written down”, to which I smiled and took out of my pocket the piece of paper which I then went through in detail.

I am just trying to explain the computer in his head. Remember it was about five years after the first incident and he had seen thousands of people meanwhile but he knew that Yosef Sugarwhite is a person who comes in with a piece of paper on which he writes down a list just to make sure that he does not forget anything. This was, of course, on the final occasion before going back home.

Occasionally, the Bais Yisroel travelled to meet other Gedolei Yisroel about important matters which he felt were best discussed face to face. These trips usually took place at night, so that the whole matter was kept secret. He very, very rarely spoke on the telephone and, therefore, either dealt with matters himself in the above mentioned manner or had numerous sheluchim, people who worked on his behalf in respect of numerous individual matters and for that matter national and international matters, politics etc.

I heard the following story from the driver of the car concerned. I must explain that the Bais Yisroel did not use public transport or taxi drivers but utilised the services of his wide circle in Jerusalem. At that time, 40 or 50 years ago, the gentleman who told me the story was his driver, especially for these late night episodes.

He received a phone call around 4.00 in the morning. “Can you please come round with your car”. He tumbled out of bed and got to the Rebbe’s residence a few minutes later. Drive out of town, he was told. At that time, there was only one way out of town, down the main road to Motza which then goes past Mevasseret Tzion and out towards the airport and Natanya, where, in fact, the Rebbe was heading. He wanted to have a private conversation with the Klausenberger Rebbe who had arrived to take up residence in Natanya and they were going to discuss sensitive issues concerning chinuch etc.

The car drove down the winding hill, much like a Swiss mountain road, which leads down from Yerushalyim and reached Motza which is in the valley before turning up again a steep hill towards Mevasseret Tzion. It was just after daybreak. As they rounded the bend at Motza and commenced their ascent, the driver noticed a car which had broken down with its driver was under the bonnet. The Rebbe also noticed and told the driver to pull in at the side of the road. By the time he did this they were 30 or 40 yards on. The Rebbe told the driver to stay with the car, he took off his hat, left it in the car and walked down to the broken down vehicle. The Rebbe’s driver watched with curiosity as he saw a conversation was taking place between the Rebbe and the person under the bonnet. He then saw that tools were being passed by the Rebbe to that person, handed back and other tools replacing the first ones. After a few minutes, the Rebbe said something to the gentleman concerned, got a reply and then turned around and walked back very quickly to the vehicle which was waiting for him 30 or 40 yards up the road, got in and said “Drive off”. Meanwhile, the Rebbe’s driver looked around and saw that the person under the bonnet had by this time appeared and was looking round for his guardian angel. The Rebbe, in fact, had helped him solve his problem and once he was satisfied that the car was in working order returned to the vehicle waiting for him.

The Bais Yisroel remarked with satisfaction in his voice, “it is marvellous to carry out, a gemilus chesed, a kind deed, for a fellow Jew especially without the person knowing who carried out that good deed”. This was one of thousands of incidents where he helped people in all types of ways and in many cases, the recipients of the kindness never knew that the Rebbe was behind it or even involved in the acts of kindness.

As the Chasidus grew, the Rebbe appointed leading young men to assist him in his chinuch activities but nevertheless, everything was under his direct and strict control.

Monies flowed through his hands in large sums. Although, he refused as a general rule to take any money with a kvittel, nevertheless, certain people did manage to get him to agree to accept money (I among them) and there were projects such as building new Yeshivas etc. where substantial monies were involved.

The Rebbe was extremely careful with all monetary matters and had his own books of account which he kept scrupulously.

He was known for his stringency in kashrus for all things that he ate or drank and during the week, other than Shabbos and Yom Tov, he did not eat a lot. He also fasted on numerous occasions.

All this was done without any publicity or fanfare. People who were not involved in actual incidents had little or no awareness of the manifold activities carried out and the extreme kedusha and sensitivity that the Rebbe put into all projects and private matters.

Although the Rebbe did not leave any direct descendents as they all perished during the Second World War, I think that the most fitting tribute to him was given by his brother, and successor, the Lev Simcha. The first Shabbos that the Lev Simcha made a tisch some months after the passing of the Bais Yisroel was on parshas מסעי. The sedra starts אלה מסעי בני ישראל , these are the journeys of the Bnei Yisroel. He looked at the assembled crowd of thousands and remarked “we are all “Bnei Yisroel”, namely the generations that had been created by the Bais Yisroel, who were standing there. One can understand the חז''ל who tell us כל המלמד בן חבירו תורה כאילו ילדו whoever teaches another Jew’s child Torah, it is as if he himself gave birth to him. The Bais Yisroel gave birth to whole generation which has now been followed by a further two generations since and is still growing, very much in his זכות.

זכותו יגן עלינו ועל כל ישראל אמן