We often hear the term mesiras nefesh. It means, of course, to invest one’s entire soul in something. Most of the time, we use it much too lightly. True mesiras nefesh, as we will see below, is above normal human capability and can accomplish what seems impossible.
My goal in this article is not to give a summary of the life of the great Rav, Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz, zt”l. Rather, I will recount one episode that shows us what can be accomplished when great people are willing to be moser nefesh. My information is taken from a recently published ArtScroll biography, A Blazing Light in the Darkness by Avrohom Birnbaum.
I will begin in the 1930s when Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz was the Rav of the city of Tiktin, Poland. My father, Meyer Oberstein, a”h, was born in Tiktin and used to tell me of the great scholarship of even the common folk in Tiktin. He said that they were called am hasefer, the people of the book, and he was proud that his father Elchonon was recognized as one of those who knew Torah through and through. My father left Tiktin in 1924, before the Tiktiner Rav assumed that position, but his landsman, Chaim Shapiro, of blessed memory, wrote the following vignette:
I vividly remember one motza’ei Shabbos when a fire broke out in Tiktin. The Jewish firemen still seemed half-asleep. The Polish firemen were half-drunk. Most of the houses were constructed of wood, so fire posed a major threat to the town.
Soon, Rav Avrohom, the Rav of the town, appeared on the roof of a house near the blaze. Like a field marshal on a battle field, he stood erect. With a single command, he dismissed the fire chief, and took personal charge. Pole and Jew alike obeyed his orders instantly. Amid the panic and confusion, the Rav stood out as a tower of calm stability and authority.” (Reb Chaim Shapiro in the Jewish Observer, March 1972)
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Rav Avrohom may have been the Rav of Tiktin, but, he was also the president of the Mirrer Yeshiva. The Rosh Hayeshiva of the Mir, Hagaon Harav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, on the advice of his father, the Alter of Slabodka, had asked him to help develop the yeshiva and put it on a sound financial footing. Rav Kalmanowitz’s devotion to the Mirrer Yeshiva led to one of Jewish history’s most amazing rescues, one that has had long term positive consequences for the Jewish people.
On 17 Elul 5699, September 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland. On erev Yom Kippur 5700, 1939, as had been secretly arranged between the Germans and the Soviets, the Soviet Union took over Titkin city and that part of Eastern Poland from the Germans. Someone heard on British radio that Stalin would soon be transferring Vilna from Poland to Lithuania. In brief, there was a short time period when those who managed to get to Vilna would be away from both the Nazis and the Communists. But time was of the essence, and a way had to be found for Jews caught in the pincers to journey further away from the war zone.
I will not repeat in detail the miraculous saga of how the Mirrer Yeshiva and many others were able to get documents that enabled them to travel through the USSR and to Japan, from where they were eventually sent to Shanghai. It is well known, and there are many books that tell that story. But would any of this hatzala (rescue) have been possible without Rav Avrohom Kalmanowitz? With the blessings of Rav Chaim Ozer, Rav Avrohom and his family left Vilna and journeyed to Stockholm, Sweden and from there to the USA. Because of his fundraising position, he actually had a passport and the ability to get out. He went to America to secure the means to save the Torah world as much as possible.
Upon his arrival on American shores, Rav Avrohom immediately began to raise a hue and cry. First he tried to unite all the disparate American Jewish groups and impress upon them the call of the hour: to procure visas for the students stranded in Vilna. He wrote, “When I came to America, in the middle of the war, I was greatly pained by the indifference displayed by the majority of American Jews. I undertook to save 3,600 of the greatest talmidei chachamim of the generation.” Unfortunately, Rav Avrohom’s efforts to get emergency visas were foiled by several people (he does not mention the names of these “Jewish leaders,” who said, “We cannot place such a burden on the generosity of the United States by having them change the immigration laws.”
Through the miraculous help of two righteous gentiles, Jon Zwartendik, the Dutch consul in Vilna, and the Japanese consul, Chiune Sugihara, zichronam livracha, the Mirrer students and many others got documents. But they needed money. The Soviet Union took advantage of the situation and raised the price of railroad tickets on the Trans-Siberian Railroad from 20 dollars to the then-enormous sum of 170 US dollars, in cash. To compound the situation, their exit visas from the Soviet Union would expire in a short time, upon which they would all be stuck in Russia.
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If, as our Sages tell us, each person has his hour, we now come to that hour in the remarkable and very accomplished life of this great man, Rav Avrohom. Many telegrams arrived at his home on a Shabbos in 1941. All of them said the same thing. “If we do not produce the astronomical sum of money demanded by Intourist in a few days we will lose the right to leave the Russian Gan Eden.” The sum we are talking about was around $50,000, the equivalent of close to $923,600 in today’s dollars.
When the telegrams arrived, Rav Avrohom was not at home. He was spending Shabbos in Manhattan, where he was slated to speak at a large, wealthy shul in an attempt to raise funds for the Vaad Hatzalah, the organization set up to rescue people. Rav Avrohom’s son, Rav Shraga Moshe, received the telegrams and determined that it was a matter of piku’ach nefesh. Somehow, he found out that there was a candy store located next door to that shul. The candy store owner was a warmhearted, albeit Jewishly ignorant, person. Rav Shraga Moshe asked him to run next door and summon his father to the phone. The man found that the rabbi was in the middle of his speech and he didn’t want to disturb him, He reported back to Rav Shraga Moshe, who told him to go back and tell the Rav that he should come now in the middle of his speech, it was a matter of life and death.
Now, put yourself in the place of Rav Kalmanowitz. What would you have done? How would you have gotten $50,000 immediately? Would you have given up?
Rav Avrohom dashed to the phone and upon hearing of the crisis, he ran back to the shul, took three of the wealthiest, most influential members of the shul with him and journeyed on Shabbos in a limousine to the home of the head of the Joint Distribution Committee. This organization existed to help Jews in need in foreign lands.
When the butler, who opened the door, claimed that his employer was not home, Rav Avrohom didn’t believe him. He forced his way into the house, followed by the three wealthy balabatim. He strode through the house in search of the owner, who was indeed at home. With tears in his eyes, he pleaded with him to help the stranded Jews of Europe. When the Chairman of the Joint made excuses for being unable to release such a large sum of money, Rav Avrohom, with a sense of urgency that brooked no compromise, commanded him to approve the transfer of the required amount of over $50,000 and wire it immediately to Kovno. Pointing to the three balabatim, Rav Avrohom said, “These three Jews will be co-signers on the loan. Embarrassed by the presence of the wealthy Jews who had accompanied Rav Avrohom, the head of the Joint Distribution Committee had no choice but to approve the loan.
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But the story is far from over!
With the approval in hand, the next hurdle was to get the permission of the Treasury Department to wire such a large sum of money abroad. This is a bureaucratic process that would normally take more time than the expiration dates of the visas. Rav Avrohom set out immediately, on Shabbos, for Washington, D.C., where he contacted Mr. John Pehle, later the head of the War Refugee Board, and explained the urgency of this life and death request. Mr. Pehle, a non-Jew, was so impressed by the Rabbi that he immediately arranged the wire transfer.
The money procured with such tremendous mesiras nefesh ensured the survival of the entire Mirrer Yeshiva and hundreds of others, as well as the ga’onim, Harav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, Harav Aharon Kotler, Harav Reuvain Grozovsky, Harav Avrohom Yaffen, and an additional 100 rabbanim. It was these great gedolim who succeeded in transplanting the Torah centers of Europe onto the soil of Eretz Yisrael and America after the war.
Harav Kotler, Harav Grosovsky, and Harav Yaffen traveled across Siberia to Japan and from there to America. Harav Finkel reached the Russian port of Odessa and journeyed on to Eretz Yisrael. The Mirrer Yeshiva reached the Japanese port city of Kobe in March, 1941.
Throughout the war and afterwards, Rav Avrohom sent funds to the Yeshiva in Shanghai, even though, by that time, Shanghai was under Japanese occupation, and the United States was at war with Japan. At one point, FBI agents questioned him about his blatant violation of the law prohibiting the transfer of money to a hostile country and warned him to stop or he would be prosecuted.
“These are my children,” Rav Avrohom cried. “Yes, I have sent them money and I will continue to send it. Do what you like with me, but I will not stop helping my children.” This emotional outburst stopped the FBI agents in their tracks. They turned around and left without another word.
Many of those reading this story today do not realize 1) how much more valuable a dollar was in the 1940s than today, and 2) how most American Jews and big shot leaders of Jewish organizations possessed little appreciation for lomdei Torah. The sums needed to sustain the Mirrer Yeshiva in Shanghai were three quarters of a million dollars. Another quarter of a million was needed after the war to bring them from Shanghai.
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This is but one episode in the remarkable life of Rav Avrohom. He showed us what real mesirus nefesh is. It is not just trying your best; it is going beyond what is possible to do because it must be done. The Jewish people lives on today because, throughout the ages, we have had such people. If you start to name the great men and women who saved klal Yisrael in our times and laid the groundwork for the renaissance of Torah Judaism that we are now witnessing, realize that each of them faced obstacles but never gave up.
By the way, my son Avrohom Yeshaya is married to Bracha Basya Friedman, whose grandfather, Rabbi Yehudah Dickstein, was one of the last surviving Alte Mirrers. When we were in Atlanta for their wedding, Rabbi Dickstein told the story of his own survival miracle. When the Americans bombed Shanghai at the end of the war, he was not feeling well and was lying in his bunk bed on an upper floor of a building. A bomb hit the building and it collapsed all around him. Somehow, he found himself still in his bed at the bottom, unhurt. There were many nissim (miracles) that enabled this entire yeshiva to make it through the war, even while living in a city under the control of the Japanese, allies of the Germans, who nevertheless, did not harm the Jews under their control. Today, we are able to look back with gratitude to the One Above for enabling us to live to this time.
