I visited R’ Yisroel Grossman in his home in Battei Warsaw. When I walked in, he was learning Gemara but he immediately stopped and held out his hand in greeting and began talking as though he had all the time in the world for me. * Memories and personal stories from R’ Yisroel Grossman a”h.
Rabbi Issur Yehuda Unterman visiting Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim in Lud.
The Rebbe says, in the sicha of Yud Shvat 5710, that the Chassidic practice is not to eulogize but to tell stories about the deceased.
Rabbi Yisroel Grossman passed away on 23 Adar 5767. I don’t know enough about his history to write about it and there were surely many great things in his life that I am not aware of. However, I would like to share some things about him from a personal perspective.
I learned by R’ Grossman for several years when he was rosh yeshiva in Kfar Chabad. Afterward, I was part of the first group of talmidim-shluchim who opened Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim in Migdal HaEmek with him, the yeshiva started by his son, rav of the city, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Grossman.
I visited him in his home in Battei Warsaw in Yerushalayim a number of times and heard a lot from him. I consider it an obligation and privilege to tell the little that I know about him, both personally and what I heard from him, especially in connection with the special relationship the Rebbe had with him, and he with the Rebbe, even though he did not consider himself a Chabad Chassid.
A number of months before he passed away I visited him in his home and when I walked in he was learning Gemara. As soon as I entered he immediately held out his hand and began talking to me as though he had all the time in the world.
He spoke a lot about his fight to save the souls of children from Yemen and Morocco, how he traveled from place to place and “turned over worlds” to ensure that the children would attend Torah schools and not fall prey to the “new education” as the government wanted. He told about a meeting with government and Jewish Agency representatives who were rather frightened by his screaming that it wasn’t possible for children whose parents were religious to be taken to be apostatized and receive a heretical education.
Mr. Yitzchok Ben Tzvi (later the second president of Israel) who was, I think, the head of the Jewish Agency at the time, responded: And if we give you the children, do you have where to put them? You don’t even have a proper building!
R’ Grossman immediately grabbed this offer and promised to personally see to finding places for the children. During the following weeks, he was constantly busy with traveling (he did not dream of using taxis, he used public transportation and walked, even though the public traveling conditions of those days were difficult) from place to place to find places for the children. But the situation was indeed extremely difficult. The buildings in Eretz Yisroel, especially the buildings of Torah institutions, were mostly not fit for living quarters.
One place after another was ruled out by Agency representatives who, of course, made tough demands. In addition, many directors of mosdos were unwilling to turn their places into absorption centers for those from primitive countries. Not many options remained. For weeks and months he traveled around and managed to get another boy and then another bachur into Torah institutions, but sadly, his accomplishments were minimal.
Despondent, he went to one of the geonim of Yerushalayim, R’ Velvel of Brisk (1886-1959), and poured out his heart: I did all I could do. Many more children can be saved. It’s only money that is stopping us. I think this is the obligation, privilege, and responsibility of you, g’dolei ha’dor. You cannot sit and learn while tens of thousands of Jewish children are being sent to heretical schools. You must drop everything, because this is pikuach ha’nefesh for thousands, tens of thousands. Go on a fundraising trip to America and bring back money so we can take in the children.
One of R’ Velvel’s sons-in-law was there and he was horrified by how R’ Grossman was speaking and the demands he was making and nearly threw him out of the house. But R’ Yisroel did not give in. He was very close with the Brisker gaon and never dreamed of talking to him in this way, but at that moment he simply cried out from the depths of his heart to the point that his words bordered on outright chutzpa.
The gaon said to him, “I don’t think salvation will come from the Litvishe roshei yeshiva. We are not suited for this and will not be able to accomplish this. Try some of the Chassidishe Admurim, like the Rebbes of Ger and Belz, and maybe salvation will come from them.”
R’ Grossman was bitterly disappointed and said so but he listened to this advice and went to speak to the Beis Yisroel, the Gerrer Rebbe (1885-1977). Once again, he cried out and demanded that the g’dolei Yisroel get involved and travel to America and bring back money to absorb the children. He finally managed to squeeze out a promise that if he got R’ Aharon of Belz (1877–1957) involved, he would make the trip.
He went to Belz and the plan nearly was implemented, but in the end, the Belzer Rebbe could not go because of his health.
R’ Grossman continued traveling from place to place and tried to convince the roshei yeshivos and directors of mosdos to take in immigrant children.
He met with R’ Efraim Wolf, menahel of the Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim in Lud. When he made his pitch, R’ Efraim told him that the yeshiva in Lud was in dire financial straits, but he would make every effort to take in a large number of children if R’ Yisroel would succeed in providing the basics, such as beds and bedding. R’ Yisroel Grossman, together with R’ Zushe Wilyamowsky, R’ Yisroel Leibov and R’ Sholom Ber Lifshitz, went from place to place, held fundraising drives and worked like mad. They brought the necessary equipment and turned the yeshiva in Lud into a yeshiva for Russian and Yemenite immigrants, as it said on the yeshiva’s letterhead and official seal.
As he was recounting his memories, R’ Grossman suddenly turned to me and said, “Tell me, did the Rebbe really say that we can turn to him today through the Igros Kodesh? And how did the Rebbe say that?”
I told him some sichos about the horaa about opening a holy book as though by chance, and the sicha of 5710 that “the Rebbe will find a way to answer.” He went wild over this. “Just like that! The Rebbe is so humble that he did not say anything about himself and only about holy books in general and about his father-in-law!”
He went on to say, “The Rebbe’s answers in the Igros Kodesh are an amazing thing, mamash a gilui Elokus. I would not believe that such a thing could happen if I did not see it with my own eyes. A couple came to me with an instruction from the Rebbe in the Igros Kodesh to speak to me so I could be the go-between for them in shalom bayis. I saw what the Rebbe wrote in the Igros Kodesh and I’m telling you, it is literally ruach ha’kodesh if not more than that. The Rebbe writes to the husband exactly what needed to be explained to him, and to the wife, what needed to be explained to her and it’s all by ‘chance,’ by opening a book.”
He went on to say, “I have heard the debates within Chabad. I heard them say the Rebbe is Moshiach and the Rebbe is chai v’kayam. Of course, I don’t understand these things and I can’t get involved. I assume they say this based on things the Rebbe said which I don’t know, which is why I can’t say an opinion. But these answers of the Rebbe in the Igros Kodesh are something not of this world. It’s an actual revelation of G-dliness through tzaddikim! It’s more than ruach ha’kodesh; it’s incredible!”
I saw then what the Rebbe means when he says that the world is ready. Jews just need to see that the Rebbe says things clearly and then it is accepted.
R’ Yisroel told us a number of times that some of his friends chose to become roshei yeshiva and not rabbanim and poskim. They said it entailed too much responsibility to say whether something was kosher or pasul and to know that if you made a mistake that the person’s sins were on your head.
“I say,” said R’ Grossman, “that the responsibility of a rosh yeshiva is far greater than the responsibility of a rav. This is actual dinei nefashos (matters of life and death). If you don’t treat a talmid properly and as a result he stops learning and G-d forbid, he can even go off the derech – your responsibility is far greater because all his future behavior is a result of your actions!”
This is why R’ Yisroel did not take part in any situation which involved sending a talmid away from yeshiva, even in extreme, exceptional cases when it was necessary to do so for the sake of the other talmidim. He preferred having others do it and did not want to have any part in it. “How can I raise my head if I meet someone with long hair on the street and he says to me – remember me? I am so and so from yeshiva. I look like this because of you, because you threw me out of yeshiva …”
R’ Yisroel taught his children the same spirit of mesirus nefesh for chinuch and the spreading of Torah. His son, the famous R’ Dovid Grossman, went to a development town, Migdal HaEmek, to work as the rav of the town and be mekarev Yidden. Today, this is an accepted thing in the frum world, but back then, it wasn’t at all the norm; on the contrary, some spoke sharply against him and quoted the verse, “Fortunate is the man who did not go in the counsel of the wicked.”
With his father’s advice, help, and encouragement, R’ Yitzchok Dovid then founded a high school yeshiva in Migdal HaEmek. When the talmidim were old enough for the next stage, discussions were held about what to do so that they would remain religious. R’ Yisroel Grossman firmly maintained that to achieve this they needed to become Chassidim, because they would not all attain great heights in the learning of Gemara, and if everything was built on Gemara there was a likelihood that some of them would drop out. He said there was hardly a chance they would become Karlin or Vizhnitz Chassidim and therefore, since he thought they had to become Chassidim in order to be G-d fearing, they should work to make them Chabad Chassidim!
At first, R’ Yisroel offered to bring all the talmidim to Kfar Chabad but that turned out not to be feasible since the talmidim had spent a long time in a Litvishe atmosphere and had absorbed a strong opposition to Chassidus in general, and Chabad in particular, from their teachers.
The Litvishe teachers decided to open a yeshiva g’dola as a Litvishe yeshiva in Kfar Yona. R’ Grossman was opposed and they went to the Steipler for a din Torah. The p’sak din was they had to do what the talmidim wanted and R’ Grossman had to finance it. The talmidim, who were under the influence of their teachers, chose Kfar Yona and the yeshiva opened there on Rosh Chodesh Elul 5737. But divine providence worked it out so that within a few days the yeshiva fell apart – the local municipality opposed it and the talmidim were dissatisfied. The roshei yeshiva told R’ Yitzchok Dovid Grossman that they could not continue and they had to send the talmidim to various yeshivos.
“You have no authority to do that,” they were told, and R’ Yitzchok Dovid was called in and he immediately went to the yeshiva in Kfar Chabad as his father told him to do. The hanhala of the yeshiva convened and both Grossmans, father and son, asked that bachurim from Kfar Chabad go on shlichus to Migdal HaEmek to learn with the rest of the talmidim and bring them the Chabad spirit. After the hanhala in Kfar Chabad accepted this suggestion, they came to talk to us T’mimim: Yosef Yitzchok Zalmanov, Boruch Levkivker, Chaim Shlomo Diskin, Yitzchok Gruzman, Shimshon Halperin and myself, about this shlichus.
R’ Yitzchok Dovid Grossman went to Kfar Yona, entered the beis midrash and announced, “Whoever is interested, come with me. We are opening a yeshiva g’dola in Migdal HaEmek!”
All the talmidim packed their bags and took taxis to Migdal HaEmek. R’ Grossman had a truck bring all the yeshiva equipment there and he called R’ Shimon Zaguri of Migdal HaEmek and told him to break some walls and set up an improvised zal for the new yeshiva. The talmidim began learning that same day, 7 Elul, while we, the group of bachurim from Kfar Chabad, arrived the next day. That is how I was part of the first group that opened the yeshiva Tomchei T’mimim together with R’ Yisroel Grossman. In yechidus that we had in Nissan 5738, the Rebbe called it, “a branch of Tomchei T’mimim.”
R’ Yitzchok Dovid Grossman took it a step further and he wrote to the Rebbe that he wants to open a permanent yeshiva in Migdal HaEmek. A few days later he received a reply:
If R’ YD Grossman does not promise to stand firmly against those who oppose Chabad that have arisen and will arise to oppose him, he needs to retract from his plans.
His father should say shiurim four or five times a week.
Fortunate is the lot of the talmidim of Tomchei T’mimim of Kfar Chabad who traveled there and may they continue there with enthusiasm and overflowing energy (as was said on 18 Elul). And may it be fulfilled in them that Hashem illuminates the eyes of both of them. I will mention it at the tziyun for outstanding success.
R’ Yisroel carried out the horaa literally and devotedly. He stayed at the yeshiva in Migdal HaEmek without his family from the beginning of the week until Wednesday afternoon and said a shiur every day, aside from shiurim in Yore Dei’a that he gave in the evening. On Wednesday he would go to give a shiur klali in the yeshiva in Kfar Chabad and then go home to Yerushalayim at the end of the week. He did this for over half a year, from Elul until Pesach.
(Then he said he did not have the strength to continue with this schedule and that is when debates began to rage over the character of the yeshiva. More than once we considered leaving and returning to Kfar Chabad but the Rebbe foresaw this and invited us at the expense of the secretariat for the month of Nissan in 770. We had a special yechidus with specific instructions, including holding a farbrengen in the city and traveling to the Kosel “with Rabbi Grossman and all those who pertain to this,” and reviewing inyanim in Nigleh and Chassidus there that we heard from the Rebbe.
In the end, considering that the Rebbe called the yeshiva a branch of Tomchei T’mimim, R’ Mendel Futerfas got into the act and he put in much effort so that the shluchim-rabbanim R’ Yitzchok Goldberg, R’ Yitzchok Gorewitz, R’ Yisroel Yosef Hendel, and R’ Yosef Yitzchok Segal wrote to the Rebbe about Migdal HaEmek as a possibility for a permanent shlichus. The Rebbe answered, “onward to Migdal HaEmek.” And then the yeshiva turned into a Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim in every respect. It has since gone through many transitions but this is not the place to go into that. I just told the part that had to do with R’ Yisroel from the perspective of my personal experience.)
As one of the shluchim, I would give a Tanya shiur every day. Although I was a young bachur and he was a famous gaon, R’ Yisroel would sit and listen to the shiur that I gave. He explained to us that he wanted the talmidim to be Chassidim and he wanted to set an example of listening closely to the Chassidus classes.
His son, Yossele, who was there the entire time with his father, would excitedly tell us every Sunday how his father would repeat at home that which he heard in the Tanya class, that every Jew is a literal part of G-d above, about the differences between chochma, bina, and daas and the special quality of Torah and mitzvos. There were things that he did not agree with at first, but he did not say anything to disturb the shiur and only afterward did he sometimes come to us with questions and complaints. (For example, the explanations in the gloss in chapter two about the views in emuna held by the Rambam and Maharal. He was shocked. How could one ask questions on emuna? Simple faith is required without any philosophizing. Or when he heard that in Tanya it says that someone who can do even a minor sin is called a rasha. He literally was up in arms. How could you say that someone who could speak idle talk is a rasha?! I think that the mashpia, R’ Mendel Futerfas can speak idle talk – is he a rasha?! He is a tzaddik! A perfect tzaddik! The demands are so high that nobody can live up to them!)
His son, Yossele, was not so well and the Rebbe responded several times about finding some suitable physical labor for him. In Tishrei, R’ Leibel Groner called to ask, on behalf of the Rebbe, whether work was found for him. R’ Yisroel could not hold back from loudly expressing his amazement many times: See the true greatness of a real Jewish leader! The Rebbe bears on his shoulders the burden of all the Jewish people and in Tishrei, as is known, he is busy with holy work over his head so that he hardly responds to any letters and he still found the time to inquire whether Yossele Grossman found work yet!
Although he did not consider himself a Lubavitcher Chassid, he was enthusiastically involved in all of the Rebbe’s projects. He was always the first to sign on the mivtzaim, Mihu Yehudi, shleimus ha’aretz, etc. and he heatedly defended and even fought for the Rebbe’s positions on these subjects at the Moetzes G’dolei HaTorah and at the beis din of Agudath Israel.
In general, the honor of Chassidus was very precious to him. Being a member of the Moetzes G’dolei HaTorah of Agudath Israel, he once spoke there and said that it is known among Polish Chassidim that the Baal Shem Tov expanded the Gan Eden. One of the Litvishe roshei yeshivos got up and retorted, “He expanded the Gehinom.” R’ Yisroel stopped in the middle of his speech and walked out of the room in protest. Afterward he complained to his colleagues about their not protesting and standing up for the honor of the Baal Shem Tov.
May his soul be bound up in the bond of life and continue up above in his non-compromising war to spread Torah in the derech of Chassidus and yiras Shamayim and arise and sing those who dwell in the earth and he among them. May he merit, along with all of us, to welcome the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach with the true and complete Geula.