This year, the month of Elul started with deep sadness. During the first days of Elul, the American chareidi community lost two massive spiritual giants. Each differed from the other in nature, temperament, and the way they impacted their respective kehillos, talmidim, and chassidim, but there was a common denominator. They each transcended themselves, often with mesirus nefesh, to help and be mashpia on others. Sadly, there was another common denominator as well. Both were towering figures at the height of their spiritual hashpa’ah and were taken from us at relatively young ages, leaving deep, gaping voids.
The shocking passing of Rav Avrohom Ausband zt”l, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva of Telshe Alumni of Riverdale, this past Thursday, followed by the passing of the Skulener Rebbe, Rav Yeshaya Yaakov Portugal zt”l, on Motzoei Shabbos are devastating losses that both the American yeshiva community and the chassidishe community have sustained. They have both left their kehillos bereft. There is no natural “filler” for this profound void.
A Rebbi and Father for Life
Rav Ausband, a scion of the great malchus of Telshe and a grandson of the Telsher Rov, Rav Avrohom Yitzchok Bloch, carried not only a mesorah from the past, but, in his own right and in his own zechus, was a trailblazing rosh yeshiva. Born an illui, with a brilliant, incisive mind, he never relied solely on his heavenly endowed abilities. Rather, he symbolized yegiah in Torah and yirah. There were no shortcuts. That is how he lived and that is how he was mechanech talmidim for nearly 45 years.
Nowadays, when bochurim spend minimal time in one yeshiva under one rebbi, it is truly difficult to cultivate and preserve a true rebbi-talmid relationship. One of Rav Ausband’s unique qualities was that he was a true rebbi and madrich for talmidim. This was true when they were in the yeshiva under his tutelage, but it was equally true after they left the yeshiva. He was a rebbi for life, a rebbi who cared, guided, and stood behind his talmidim throughout their lives, beginning when they were still bochurim, continuing through their early years of marriage, and lasting even when those talmidim were themselves grandparents.
Rav Ausband didn’t just care. He went to bat for them. He guided them as to which yeshiva to attend after they left Riverdale. He was intimately involved in their shidduchim and then guided them as yungeleit on how to live a life of kedusha and devotion to limud haTorah simultaneously. If they needed assistance with parnassah, medical matters, getting their child into a yeshiva or school, and just about anything else, he was there for them.
He was their rebbi, but he was equally their father. Virtually every one of his talmidim could paraphrase those hallowed words that Elisha Hanovi said when Eliyahu Hanovi went up to Shomayim. Every talmid felt, “Avi, avi, my father, my father,” because, as much as he was a rebbi who brought each talmid to chayei Olam Haba, he was also a loving, caring, devoted father who never ceased to care for his talmidim even while demanding that they continue on the path he had set for them when they had been in the yeshiva.
Demanding and loving were in no way contradictory. He loved them and therefore demanded from them.
The depth of the loss is impossible to depict, not just because the entire Klal Yisroel had so much still to gain from this gadol on the macro level, but especially for talmidim to whom he was so deeply devoted b’lev v’nefesh. He was unique in the way that he forged a true rebbi-talmid relationship and maintained it for life.
A Tzaddik from the Past Who Lived in the Present
In a similar sense, the Skulener Rebbe was a scion of a great, holy past. Born in communist Romania, the rebbe grew up under the watchful eye of his grandfather, Rav Eliezer Zusia, and his father, Rav Yisroel Avrohom, two exalted, holy tzaddikim who were moser nefesh on behalf of their fellow Jews and risked their lives umpteen times, even incurring torture, to teach Yiddishkeit and Torah to their fellow Yidden suffering under the communist jackboot.
Rav Yeshaya Yaakov witnessed all this as a child being raised in Romania. On a personal level, he was himself ridiculed as a child because of his attachment to mitzvos even at a young age.
Perhaps most importantly, he inherited from his father and grandfather a unique combination of the highest levels of Torah, avodah, tefillah, and kedusha, while “coming down” from his own holy path in avodas Hashem to try bringing Yiddishkeit into the lives of the common man, understanding the daily problems that Yidden faced and helping alleviate their suffering. He might have only served as Skulener Rebbe for five years, but his lifetime of avodah and his unique kochos as a “gutte Yid,” a Yid who cared about others and was willing to be moser nefesh and give everything—even his own ruchniyus—to help a Yid, was manifest decades before he became rebbe.
In fact, those who knew him could not help but marvel at how a Yid born after the war in communist Romania could so embody the tzidkus and madreigos of his father and grandfather. I once heard from a great gadol that the yeridas hadoros between the pre-war generation and the generation born after the churban wasn’t just a drop of one dor, but a drop of a minimum of five doros.
With the Skulener Rebbe, Rav Yeshaya Yaakov, you couldn’t detect that precipitous decline. He was a worthy mamshich of his father and grandfather. He barely slept and barely ate. He spent his days and nights engaged in Torah, tefillah, and chesed, in the sense that he truly embodied the tzidkus and kedusha of those pre-war rebbes. In this, he was a great chiddush.
He was that “tzaddik of old” who could cry with every Yid, while also moving worlds to assist any Yid who came to his door with financial assistance, medical help, and anything else.
The Heartbreaking Void
If Hashem took away these great gedolim just days apart and took them away when they were at the height of their spiritual hashpa’ah, He is certainly telling us something.
For us in America, losing such greatness from both the yeshiva community and the chassidishe community is a terrible blow. We have so many spiritual challenges in this country. The rosh yeshiva and the rebbe were both there for us, protecting us and standing watch over Klal Yisroel. Now, there is suddenly a gaping, seemingly unfillable void.
In all truth, there is no way that any one person can fill such a void. It is too large. The only way to try to recover from this spiritual blow is with the koach of the rabbim. If each and every one of us tries to improve in some minute way, learning from the ways that these gedolim were so outstanding, perhaps we can collectively try to seal the hemorrhaging wound of their loss.
Perhaps we can try to think about the hashkafos that Rav Ausband so eloquently and passionately embodied and spoke about. Perhaps we can try to get rid of some of the “American-ness and goyishkeit” that he so despised. On the positive side, if we could just try to care a bit more about our fellow Yid the way his great heart cared about others, this will perhaps be a hatzolah purta.
If we think about how the Skulener Rebbe cried over the spiritual korbanos and the suffering of fellow Yidden, the pain he felt over every Yid who suffered financially or physically, and, on the other hand, how he had such a unique ability to rejoice in every simcha, and we try to emulate him even to a tiny degree, this would, hopefully, be another small step in the right direction.
A Prayer for the Souls of Two Great Giants
We can only pray that the loss of these two great gedolim will spur us all to change in whatever way we can, to carry on their legacy, to hold onto the lessons they imparted, and to try to fill some of that huge void that their absence has created.
May their holy and exalted neshamos intercede on behalf of all of us and ask that the Eternal One protect us and guide us. May Hashem be mechazeik each one of us and may He, in His great mercy, have compassion on Klal Yisroel and grant us the ultimate geulah soon in our days.
Yehi zichrom boruch.
