Parshas Vayeira

R. Eliyahu’s hos­pi­tal­ity was leg­endary. He kept an open house, avail­able for any­body who wished to stay.

A typ­i­cal ex­am­ple of the ex­tent of his hos­pi­tal­ity: in the year 5715 (1955), some years af­ter his ar­rival in Toronto, his fam­ily was still liv­ing in a small dwelling. All five of his chil­dren slept in one small room. That year, a large Mo­roc­can fam­ily ar­rived in Toronto on the eve of Pe­sach. At the con­clu­sion of the ser­vice, the shul’s rov stood up and in­formed the com­mu­nity about the new ar­rivals. He sug­gested that it was in­cum­bent upon the wor­ship­pers to take this fam­ily into their homes and to pro­vide them with their fes­ti­val needs. Es­pe­cially on the hol­i­day of “who­ever is hun­gry let him come and eat. ”

Af­ter the ser­vice, the com­mu­nity mem­bers dis­persed to their homes to cel­e­brate the Pe­sach seder. No­body re­sponded to the rov’s ur­gent re­quest to take this fam­ily into their home. R. Eliyahu was the only in­di­vid­ual who ac­com­mo­dated them. He took this fam­ily of seven into his home for the en­tire du­ra­tion of the fes­ti­val. He en­sured that they lacked noth­ing. Hos­pi­tal­ity was not the only area of chessed in which R. Eliyahu ex­celled.

Per­haps the area in which R. Yis­roel most dis­tin­guished him­self was his care for Rus­sian Jews. In 5724 (1963), af­ter R. Mendel Futer­fas left Rus­sia, he im­me­di­ately went to 770 to meet with the Rebbe. At that time, he ap­pealed to the chas­sidic com­mu­nity: “There are chas­sidim in Rus­sia who lack ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties. Some sim­ply do not have what to eat. Oth­ers have al­ready re­ceived per­mis­sion to leave Rus­sia, but they don’t have the money for tick­ets. Why are you all sleep­ing?”

R. Mendel’s words stirred ac­tion. To­gether with sev­eral of other chas­sidim who had Rus­sian roots, R. Yis­roel founded Lishkas Ezras Achim, an or­ga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to help­ing Rus­sian Jews. R. Yis­roel put his soul into these ef­forts, rais­ing many thou­sands of dol­lars for these ac­tiv­i­ties. “I don’t un­der­stand spir­i­tual mat­ters, ” he would say humbly. “I un­der­stand ma­te­rial things. I want an­other Jew to have food to eat, a bed to sleep in, and for him to re­ceive this with a warm, invit­ing smile. ” R. Yis­roel re­mem­bered what he had gone through in Rus­sia and the dif­fi­cul­ties he ex­pe­ri­enced af­ter leav­ing, thus he re­solved to do what­ever he could to ease oth­ers in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions.

When the gates of the So­viet Union opened and Jews were al­lowed to em­i­grate to Eretz Yis­roel, it was only nat­u­ral for Ezras Achim and R. Yis­roel to help them set­tle. For this pur­pose, he made fundrais­ing trips, giv­ing tire­lessly of him­self so that oth­ers could have what they needed.

In the course of these ef­forts, he de­vel­oped a re­la­tion­ship with Dr. Yir­miyahu Bra­nover. Be­fore Dr. Bra­nover left Rus­sia, R. Yis­roel had been in­volved in help­ing ar­range his exit from the coun­try. When Dr. Bra­nover founded Shamir, an or­ga­ni­za­tion to help Rus­sian im­mi­grants in Eretz Yis­roel, R. Yis­roel part­nered with him, and to­gether they raised large sums and or­ga­nized many projects for these im­mi­grants.

Dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, R. Eliyahu was drafted into the Red Army, and sent to the front. He was wounded in bat­tle, and was there­fore al­lowed to leave Leningrad in or­der to re­ceive med­i­cal treat­ment out­side the be­sieged city. Ad­di­tion­ally, he was per­mit­ted to choose one in­di­vid­ual to ac­com­pany him be­yond the block­ade. The lot fell on Rochel, the daugh­ter of Schneur Zal­man Duch­man, a woman knowl­edge­able in med­i­cal mat­ters.

Af­ter many rig­or­ous dif­fi­cul­ties, R. Eliyahu reached Tashkent, Uzbek­istan, where they were mar­ried. Af­ter their mar­riage, R. Eliyahu adopted is dis­tin­guished fa­ther-in-law Reb Zal­man as his own fa­ther.

At the time, many mem­bers of Anash resided in Tashkent, hav­ing sought refuge there due to the war. The gen­eral con­di­tions in the city were ex­tremely dif­fi­cult. Peo­ple were starv­ing in the streets, and sick­ness raged with­out respite. R. Eliyahu’s wife Rochel was stricken with ty­phus.

Those in­fected with the dreaded dis­ease were most mis­er­able, as no­body could treat them. The ill­ness was ex­tremely con­ta­gious , and all who came into close con­tact with an af­flicted in­di­vid­ual were in turn tainted with the ma­lig­nant mal­ady.

R. Eliyahu noted his wife’s dire sit­u­a­tion. Rochel was all alone, with­out her par­ents and close rel­a­tives. He sought to treat her, pro­vid­ing her with some emer­gency as­sis­tance. Soon enough, R. Eliyahu also fell vic­tim to the aw­ful ail­ment. Their con­di­tions be­came crit­i­cal.

There was a Chas­sid in Tashkent called R. Yis­roel Kon­son, who aided and as­sisted the cou­ple to the best of his abil­ity. He would cook por­ridge for them and de­liver it to the hos­pi­tal. When he was re­fused en­try due to the dan­ger of con­ta­gion, he would leave the food on the win­dowsill, sus­tain­ing them and sav­ing them from cer­tain death.

Be­fore pass­ing away, the renowned chos­sid R. Yaakov Mordechai Bez­palov said, “For 30 years I slept on a chair! To put on tefillin once is more pre­cious than sleep­ing 30 years on a chair. ”⁴⁷

Chas­sidim com­mented: to ex­pe­ri­ence the pre­cious­ness of tefillin in such a man­ner, one must first sleep on a chair 30 years.

47. Though he maintained a regime of self-denial to “break” himself, at the end of his life he ↩