MAN OF PEACE AND MAN OF WAR - Part 2

The continuation of the life story of R’ Yerachmiel Benjaminson, a distinguished Chabad rabbi, who was one of the first to be mekushar to the Rebbe MH”M and did much to ensure that the Rebbe accept the Chabad leadership. * Part 2 of 2

By Yisroel Yehuda

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Jewish community dwindled from day to day with the “help” of the authorities. It was clear that it was a matter of time before the Yevsektzia found the time and right reason to lay their impure hands on the rav, thereby completely cutting off Jewish life in the town.

R’ Benjaminson and his family began looking for ways to leave Russia. There was only one legal way to leave Russia, and that was by going to OVIR, the Russian emigration office, and submitting a request.

If one succeeded in entering and leaving the OVIR offices in peace, without a KGB escort, he had to stay holed up in his home and wait in fear for the response, which could come in various forms. Sometimes, the response was a delegation of police officers to his home and his arrest on some pretext. In any case, a person who did not love Mother Russia and wanted to leave would not be able to serve the public in any position whatsoever and was immediately fired. He was stripped of all his rights (as few as they were), ranks and titles. If the person received a negative response from OVIR, he had no possibility of procuring a job and supporting his family and the police might then arrest him for being a parasite who did not work and earn his keep.

A Jew like R’ Benjaminson had no chance of getting a positive answer from OVIR and submitting a request would only exacerbate his problems. So the Benjaminsons tried looking for other, illegal, methods. 

In the meantime, matters began coming to a head in the town. The principal of the communist school was Jewish and the rav, with Jewish pride, forbade him from entering the shul. This was a slap in the face of one who surely had a ranking in the party, but the rav did not care.

The man, who apparently was taken aback by the rav’s courage, sent him a letter asking for permission to enter the shul, but the rav refused. The man began pressuring the rav to send his children to the communist school. The rav tried to dodge the issue but could not do so for long. In the end, his son had to attend school. The principal took advantage of the situation and made a big commotion in town about the rabbi’s son who attended the school. The child was there for just one day where he cried bitterly and when he returned home he was sick for weeks.

LEAVING PARADISE

One other way to leave Russia was to meet with Kalinin, the president of Russia, and hand him a letter with a request to leave. Requests that he received this way were generally approved.

At this point, the rebbetzin suffered from an eye ailment and it was urgently necessary for her to be operated on in Riga. It seems that the rav’s initial plan was to travel to Eretz Yisroel but because of his wife, it was decided they would go to Riga.

Having no choice, R’ Benjaminson decided to try meeting with Kalinin. He made the trip to Moscow and waited near Kalinin’s office in the hopes that he would get to meet Kalinin outside his office. Thank G-d, after a few days he met Kalinin and handed him the papers.

On his way to the president, he met the “rabbi” of Kovno who was a government appointee. The rabbi asked him why he wanted to leave and R’ Benjaminson told him that his wife needed an operation which could only be done in Riga.

The man laughed at him. “What do you lack in the Russian paradise? Why leave here?”

In any case, three weeks later their request was answered in the affirmative and the Benjaminson family received the greatest possible gift that the typical Russian citizen wished for – red passports that enabled them to leave the Russian paradise.

They immediately began getting ready. Even with permission to leave, it wasn’t so easy to do so. The person leaving Russia had to submit a list of belongings he wanted to take with him and the government did not allow anything of value to be taken.

The main problem was the rav’s library which, you might remember, included the s’farim of the Vilda rav which were valuable. The government allowed him to take s’farim worth up to 200 rubles while his library was worth fifty to seventy times that amount.

What could he do? Family and friends like R’ Mordechai Shusterman, who was a ben-bayis by the rav, were enlisted and they fabricated prices for the s’farim. In this way, they were able to take them out of Russia.

LIFE IN RIGA

R’ Benjaminson and his family left Russia for Riga at the end of 5694. Thus ended one of the illustrious periods in the life of the rav, who was moser nefesh to uphold Jewish life in Russia, despite the communist, anti-religious, persecution.

Upon arriving, the rav sent a letter to the Rebbe Rayatz who was in Otvotzk at the time, about their leaving Russia. In Riga, the rav and his family were awaited by many friends from the great Chabad Chassidim of the time, including the celebrated askan, R’ Mordechai Dubin and the Rogatchover Gaon, rav of Dvinsk.

R’ Nachum Yosef, a son of R’ Yerachmiel Benjaminson, describes what he remembers of the Rogatchover Gaon. The Gaon was staying in a country resort near Riga. On Shabbos he went to shul and was given the third aliya and on Motzaei Shabbos, since he was sick, he made Havdala on milk and R’ Nachum Yosef held the candle for him.

At this time, there was a significant correspondence between R’ Benjaminson and the Rogatchover Gaon.

The rav’s friends were thrilled that he was able to leave Russia and they helped him settle in. R’ Dubin suggested that he take the position of rav of a shul and that he, R’ Dubin, would supplement his income.

R’ Benjaminson for some reason did not take the offer and he began thinking of immigrating to London where his sister lived. This line of thinking later turned out to be providential, since if he had settled in Riga he is likely to have been murdered along with most of the Jews in Riga who were massacred in the Holocaust.

After making inquiries, he received a visa from England and the rav made plans to immigrate to London a year and a half later. The Rebbe Rayatz wrote him a letter in Tishrei 5696 in which he blesses him with success on his trip to London and urges him to get visas for his family to join him.

MOVING ENCOUNTERS WITH THE REBBE RAYATZ

R’ Benjaminson’s trip to London began via Otvotzk where the Rebbe was. There are no words to describe the rav’s feelings as he was about to meet with the Rebbe to whom he was utterly devoted.

At the train station in Otvotzk waited some bachurim who had been sent by the Rebbe to welcome the rav.

The Benjaminson family stayed in Otvotzk for some time. During this time, there was a family simcha in the Rebbe’s family and the rav was tremendously happy. While inebriated, the rav went up on the table and danced with great joy. The Rebbe took hold of him and kissed him. On that occasion, the Rebbe showered many blessings upon the rav and his son and it seemed to be that this was his parting blessing before the trip.

The time the rav spent in Otvotzk near the Rebbe was a most pleasurable time after the years of suffering he endured. But this period of time ended too and he had to move yet again, far from the Rebbe. The Benjaminsons made the trip to London via Berlin where the burgeoning anti-Semitism was already prevalent. Fortunately, any possible troublemakers did not approach the train and they arrived uneventfully in England.

HOSPITALITY
UNDER THE BLITZ

The rav and his family settled in London where they remained until the end of the war. The Rebbe Rayatz sent him a letter of blessing on the occasion of his settling in and also sent a letter to the members of the Poltava shul so they would take him, apparently as a mashpia. We do not know whether he put this letter of approbation to use; we know that for a period of time he worked as the head of R’ Unsdorfer’s yeshiva.

When the war began, London began filling up with refugees. The rav opened his home to them and there were dozens of Jews in his home throughout the war. Some people did not even know who their host was and they sometimes met him on the street and recommended the home of the Zhlobiner rav. The rav himself did not know all of his guests.

When the peace agreement with Germany failed, London also began to suffer. During the aerial attacks, which were called the Blitz, the Germans bombed London nearly every day. Thousands of bombs and shells exacted a steep price with more than a million homes damaged or destroyed and tens of thousands of civilians killed.

During this time, R’ Benjaminson was very devoted to his guests. There were distinguished people, Admurim, many Chassidim, and people from Agudas Yisroel who were guests in his house. The Rebbe’s brother, R’ Yisroel Aryeh Leib, also spent a brief time in his home when he came from Eretz Yisroel.

He did not hesitate to give his bed to guests while he spent the night without a bed. One time, as he was walking around in the house, one of the guests noticed him and asked whether he had a bed to sleep in. R’ Benjaminson did not want to lie, nor did he want the guest to feel uncomfortable and so he answered with a question: I am the balabus here. Don’t you think I have a bed?

After his son married, his daughter-in-law would cook large amounts of food for the guests. Since he did not want to burden the young woman, he would go into the kitchen every Friday and help with the cooking. When she did not feel comfortable having a distinguished rav like him involved in the cooking, she asked him to stop. He said: I don’t want the mitzva of hospitality to be at the expense of your hard work. Either I will stop inviting guests or you will let me continue helping with the cooking.

After the war, the rav was one of the people responsible for sh’chita in Ireland. The situation was that Ireland had donated three tons of cattle to Eretz Yisroel and shochtim, bodkim, and rabbanim were needed.

R’ Binyamin Gorodetzky, who was the Rebbe Rayatz’s representative and the one who ran the European Office for refugees, took this matter on and appointed R’ Benjaminson as one of the people in charge.

The rav was constantly in touch with the Rebbe and his son-in-law (later, our Rebbe) by letter. One of the well known letters of the Rebbe from that time was about the Chassidic view of tzimtzum which was written in response to R’ Benjaminson. In a letter from the end of 5700, the Rebbe Rayatz informed him of his successful arrival in New York.

A SPECIAL SIMCHA FOR THE REBBE RAYATZ

R’ Benjaminson and his family immigrated to the United States at the beginning of 5710. Upon arriving, he had yechidus with the Rebbe Rayatz. Later on, R’ Eliyahu Simpson, the one in charge of yechidus, told him that when he went into the Rebbe’s room after R’ Benjaminson’s yechidus, he saw that the Rebbe was especially happy, the likes of which he had not seen in a long time.

R’ Benjaminson settled in Miami. In a letter dated 26 Teves 5710, less than a month to the histalkus of the Rebbe Rayatz, the Rebbe sent him a letter in which he “complained” that R’ Benjaminson did not inform him of how he had settled into his new home, giving no details about whether there were shuls, shiurim, chadarim and a yeshiva etc.

Two weeks later, on 10 Shevat, the Rebbe passed away and left a stunned flock of Chassidim who felt like children without a father.

I WILL ALWAYS HOLD
THE YOUNG ONES

5710 was a difficult year. The Chassidim were bereft without a leader. There was much uncertainty and confusion.

R’ Benjaminson was one of the first to become mekushar to the Rebbe MH”M as he had been mekushar to the previous Chabad leaders, with utter bittul, like a servant before his master. As usual, he expressed his view forcefully and directly. At the seuda held on Acharon shel Pesach in the presence of the Rebbe it is told, “During the farbrengen, R’ Eliyahu Simpson distributed l’chaim to everyone and the Rebbe answered, ‘l’chaim v’livracha’ to each one. When R’ Yerachmiel Benjaminson of London was given some mashke to say l’chaim, he loudly said that he would say l’chaim when the Rebbe said ‘dach’ (divrei Elokim chaim, i.e., a maamer, which would indicate that he accepted the nesius).”

It was also related, “They say that lately, the Zhlobiner rav, R’ Yerachmiel Benjaminson, went to the Rebbe several times to ask him to agree to accept the nesius.”

One of the times he discussed this with the Rebbe, who adamantly refused, R’ Benjaminson said that the Rebbe had to accept the nesius. The Rebbe said, “I don’t know about the older ones but I will always hold the younger ones.” R’ Leibel Groner adds that when R’ Benjaminson left the yechidus, he happily addressed the young Chassidim and said, “Chevra, you have a Rebbe!”

The most significant step that R’ Benjaminson took was on 15 Elul 5710. That is when R’ Benjaminson took ten elder and distinguished men and went with them to the gravesite of the Rebbe Rayatz where he read a general pidyon nefesh on behalf of all of Anash (which he wrote) in which they asked the Rebbe Rayatz to see to it that the Rebbe be willing to accept the mantle of leadership officially and completely.

We have no knowledge of what transpires in the heavenly realms, but Chassidim say that after the pidyon nefesh was read, the Rebbe stopped expressing his opposition to accepting the nesius. R’ Mordechai Shusterman, who was one of the ten men, said there were others who wrote similar panim but the Rebbe did not accept them.

After the Rebbe’s acceptance of the nesius, R’ Benjaminson went to the Rebbe for Tishrei and other special occasions and was one of the men invited to eat at the Rebbe’s table.

After a short while, he moved to Montreal where he was appointed as member of a beis din, rav of a Nusach Ari shul, and rosh yeshiva in Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim.

He passed away on Rosh Chodesh Shevat 5715/1955 at the age of 71. As per the instructions of the Rebbe he was buried near the Ohel. After his passing, his son gave the Rebbe all the bichlach (written pamphlets of Chassidus) that his father had. The Rebbe wanted to pay for them but of course he refused. Around this time, the Rebbe published the collected Likkutei Dibburim in book form and in one of them, he printed a dedication in his own name l’ilui nishmas R’ Benjaminson.