TAMUZ, 5738 I JUNE, 1978 VOLUME XIII, NUMBER 4 THE EWISH ONE DOLLAR The Bluzhever Rebbe X"U'':nv Remembers Heroism in Churban Europe - Reminiscences overheard by Rabbi Nasson Scherman Who Shall Render Decisions? The Training of Poskim by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan The Master Race and the Chosen People - A Torah Study of the Roots of Nazism by Rabbi Yaakov Feitman Rabbi Pesach Pruskin of Kobrin "":it - Rebbe of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein X"U'r,W a biography by Chaim Shapiro THE JEWISH BSERVER THE JEWISH OBSERVER is published monthly, except July and August, by the Agudath Israel in this issue of America, 5 Beekman Street, New York, N.Y. 10038. Second class postage paid at New York, The Bluzhever Rebbe11<"~''nu Remembers: N.Y. Subscription: $7.50 per year; Embers Midst the Ruins, two years, $13.00; three years, $18.00; outside of the United Reminiscences Overheard by Rabbi Nasson Scherman .............. .3 States, $8.50 per year. Single copy, one dollar. Who Shall Render the Decisions? Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan .................... 8 Printed in the U.S.A. The Master Race and the Chosen People, Rabbi Yaakov Feilman ..................................................................... 12 RABBI NISSON WOLPIN Editor Reh Pesach Pruskin ,r,"!il'T of Kubrin, Chaim Shapiro ..................... 18 Books in Review Editorial Board DR. ERNST l. BODENHEIMER Strive for Truth .............................................................................. 22 Chairman TheWayofG-d ............................................................................. 23 RABBI NATHAN BUI.MAN RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS Dear Reuvain, I Was Only Getting to Know You, JOSEPH FRIEDENSON RABBI MOSHE SHERER Nissan Wolpin ................................................................................. 24 The Torah Scholar, a poem by E. Yisraeli ............................................ 25 THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not assume responsibility for the Second Looks at the Jewish Scene Kashrus of any product or service Reassessing Alien Cults, Rabbi Elchonon Oberstein ................ 26 advertised in its pages. Postscripts Copyrighl 1978 STaM Controls ............................................................................... 29 Reh Reuvain Grozovsky r,"!il't ................................................... 31 JUNE, 1978 VOL. XIII, No. 4 Typography by Compu-Scrlbe ar Art5croll Studios, ltd. Rabbi Yisroel Spira, the Chassidic Rebbe of The Bluzhever Rebbe Bluzhev, is heir to the dynasty of the B'nai Yisos' char, Harav Zvi Elimelech of Dinov and Remembers: the grand rabbis of Bluzhev. Before the war, Rabbi Spira was rav of Prochnik. Then came World War ll. His rebbetzin, and their only child - a daughter, her husband and their children were among the Six Million, Rabbi Spira suffered for nearly five years in a suc­ cession of labor, concentration, and death camps. His personal travail began in the ghet­ to in Lublin, a camp that was commanded by a notorious sadist. Out of perhaps half a million people who passed through the Lublin Ghetto, there are only fourteen known survivors. Rabbi Spira has many memories, They are a panorama of tribute to the Jewish people, They are tales of strength, courage, faith, resistance, self-sacrifice, holiness. They are expressions of people - great and simple, men and women, religious and non-religious - who knew that their cause, and not the Embers Midst murderers', would ultimately prevail, people whose great wish was that they not lose their inner strength and that they not be forgotten. the Ruins The following columns recount a few of those memories - just a few. They are isolated in­ - Reminiscences overheard stances, perhaps, but they paint a picture in which pride overcomes pathos and light by Rabbi Nasson Scherman banishes darkness, IN THE Bluzhever Rav's beis midrash, as in hundreds crowded together in the ghetto square waiting for their of others, each Yorn Tov ends with Neilas HaChag, a own Final Solution. The Bluzhever Rav was one of soulful, joyful gathering of refreshment, song and them. The Gerrer Rebbetzin, wife of the late Reb Yisroel Torah. But the Bluzhever Beis Midrash in Brooklyn is 7"?1YT and her son Rabbi Leibel ,,,,;r were there. They different. Neilas HaChag always concludes with a live­ and other great and ordinary people spoke to one ly singing and dancing of l,~)17 7~ 1'hJ<'1, May they all another, giving each other strength as they prepared to come to serve You, from the Rosh Hashana - Yorn go together in sanctification of the Name. (After the Kippur liturgy. That V'ye'esoyu goes back to 1941 in war, the Bluzhever Rav wrote to the Gerrer Rebbe in­ the ghetto of Lublin. Tens of thousands of Jews were forming him of the greatness of spirit with which his nearest ones faced their end.) RABBI YISROEL SPIRA, B/uzhever Rebbe X"u•7tv, is a member of the /'v1ocfzes Cedolei liaTorah (Council of Torah Sages) of Agudath Another person in that group was Rabbi Yehuda fsn1d of America. Leib Orlean ,,,,;r who was one of the key figures in the RABBI NOSSON SCHERMAN is co-editor of the ArtScrol/ Tanach establishment and growth of the Bais Yaakov move­ S1·ries 1111d !'di ts Olorneinu, Torah Umesorah's magazine for children. ment. Tiu' ]f'Wish ()bserver I June, 1978 3 Rabbi Orlean said to the Bluzhever Rav, "Tonight is (work supervisor) in Lemberg was a Jew named Shimini Atzeres. We have no sefer Torah with which to Schneeweiss. Like many Jews in his position, his fawn­ rejoice, but at least we can say the Atta Horeiso ing desire to please his masters in return for an extra prayer." portion of bread or an extra day of life often made him seem even more cruel than they. The Nazis, in turn, en­ With that, Rabbi Orlean raised his beautiful, power­ joyed the spectacle of Jew persecuting Jew. ful voice in the words that had always signaled the out­ break of joy, the tingle that was the prelude to the Now, Yorn Kippur was on the way. Fasting could be hakafos (Torah circuits) of Shimini Atzeres and managed. It would mean placing oneself in mortal Simchas Torah. danger, because the ·foul rations were below the sub­ sistence level in any case and the labor required even 11::i7n px nip1:n<n K1il 'il i:i nYi7 nixiil nnx ,,y more than the nourishment that had been normal in "You have been shown to know that Hashem - He is pre-war days. The rabbis who were frequently called G-d. There is no other beside Him!" upon to decide such questions always answered in ac­ Thousands of voices repeated after him in a cordance with the halacha: "The Torah requires us to crescendo of devotion. If this was indeed to be their last eat even on the holiest of fast days because to do Yorn Tov, then they would surrender their souls with otherwise is to invite death of starvation - and Hashem the unflinching proclamation that there was none but Yisborach wants us to exert every effort to live. We are Him; that Hashem, the G-d of mercy might assume the forbidden to surrender to death even though we are too attribute of Elokim, the dispensor of uncompromising limited to understand the purpose of our living under justice, but He still remained the G-d of Mercy whether such circumstances." or not we understood His ways. Nevertheless, there were always those to whom a The verses continued: first Rabbi Orlean, serving as Yorn Kippur, a smuggled pair of tefillin, a blast of the cantor; the largest congregation he had ever led, shofar on Rosh Hashana, a secretly-baked morsel of repeating after him. Tears flowed like a river. Atta matzah, a bit of oil for a Chanukah flame, a minyan, Horeiso was concluded, but Rabbi Orlean had another were worth an encounter with a bullet or, worse, a thought. Again he turned to the Bluzhever Rav. whip. A group of such people approached their spiritual leader in the Yanovsky camp of Lemberg. "The Nazi soldiers saw us and heard us. They think we were crying because we fear them. Let us show them "Rav Spira, Yorn Kippur is coming. What are we to the truth." do? How can we desecrate the Holy Day working as if it were any other day?" He began singing V'ye'esoyu with a living infectious tune. What a beautiful liturgical poem! It foretells the The rabbi was moved as he often was by the devotion End of Days when everyone, including the most distant of his fellow Jews. He would try to help them. of nations, will come to the Mountain of G-d to pledge The Bluzhever Rav went to the hated Schneeweiss, their devotion to Him, to serve Him, to proclaim Him as "Herr Ordenungs Dienst. As you know, it will soon be King. It concludes ;i~17r,i ,D~ 1ll)'1, and they will '1'? Yorn Kippur. I am a rabbi and it is important for me to give You the crown of sovereignty. observe this day as properly as possible. A group of my He sang and others joined. Hands clutched one disciples in the camp wish to do the same. We do not another and feet began to dance. It was Shimini Atzeres ask to be freed from labor, all we ask is that for that one and Jews rejoiced. More - under the muzzles of day we be given work which will not force us to violate German rifles they sang that even the hated murderers, the law of the Torah. We are willing to do extra work the most degraded and bestial of men, would one day on other days to make up for any labor which goes un­ acknowledge the kingship of Hashem. They sang and done." danced until the SS commandant arrived and the death march began. That simple request was in itself an act of great heroism, for Schneeweiss, no friend of observant Jews, Hardly anyone survived that horrible night.