A KIDDUSH HASHEM
The brothers accepted their fate with bitachon and equanimity. The night before their beating, they were visited by two chassidim, Rav David of Vaslikov and Rav Nota of Chaslivitch. After speaking enthusi-astically in Torah, as if nothing unusual was about to happen, Rav Shmuel Abba quietly told them, “Tomorrow, we will be beaten and it should be arranged that there is a minyan, a doctor, ice, and lemon juice [as an antiseptic]. Also, any blood or fragments should be collected.”
The two visitors recorded the impact upon them: “We stood there astounded. Holy fear overwhelmed us and we could not say a word. The impression was so powerful that it will never be erased from our memory all our lives. Before our eyes, we saw, as it were, Avraham Avinu before the Akeidah, totally devoted to do the will of his Creator, and Rabbi Akiva before they combed his flesh, without saying anything and without ruffling their tranquility a hairsbreadth.”
In those days, military beatings were administered by spiessruten (knouts), a punishment introduced to Russia by Prussian army officers. A more sophisticated method of administrating this punishment was “driving one through the stroy (line-up).” This meant running (or rather, being slowly led through) a gauntlet of two rows of 250 soldiers armed with knouts. Resultant death from heart failure or blood poisoning was not uncommon. To receive 1,500 blows, the brothers would pass between the rows three times.
As the two brothers approached the place of their sentence, they sang a special niggun, which is preserved until this day.
During the beating, Rav Pinchas Shapiro immortalized his memory by refusing to move on after his yarmulke fell off. Unable to go back and pick it up because he was being led along by two long ropes tied to his hands, he simply stood stock still as blows rained on his back until someone replaced the yarmulke on his head.
The two brothers regained consciousness on Shabbos and their first words were, “We must recite Kiddush!” After saying Kiddush, Rav Shmuel Abba washed and said Hamotzi, but was too weak to eat a morsel of bread. Whenever he recalled this incident in later years, he said that he was still sorry about this beracha levatalah.
It took them months to recuperate enough to begin walking in chains to Siberia and, by the time they arrived in Moscow, at the end of 5600/1840, they were too ill to proceed. After months of recuperation, officials petitioned that the brothers be permitted to return to Slovita, but Czar Nicholas I insisted that “if they are ill, they should be left in Moscow in a bogadelnia (old age home), but they must not be returned home.”
Even after fifteen years, the brothers were still not allowed to return to a normal Jewish community.
As Bibikov, now Minister of Internal Affairs, explained, “They can exert a harmful influence upon those Jews among whom they will settle and, in addition to this, it can also inspire in other criminals a hope for such types of ameliorations.”
The brothers’ only consolation was that, in 5607/1847, their sons won the tender to open the Russian Empire’s second authorized Jewish printing house, in Zhitomir. The first was the Romm Printing House in Vilna. All other Jewish printing establishments had been closed down.
The brothers were only released in June 5616/1856 by Czar Nicholas I’s more liberal son, Czar Alexander II, who is famous for his emancipation of the Russian serfs.
Surprisingly, Rav Shmuel Abba did not greet the news joyfully.
“I fear that I am now losing my freedom,” he moaned. “There, at home, when they greet us as martyrs, will my strength be sufficient to weather the test? When will they demand of us that we become gutten Yidden (rebbes)? I implore Hashem to protect me from that path ...”
His fears materialized after Rav Aharon the Second of Karlin handed him a kvittel. Admirers insisted that he become a rebbe in Shepetovka and both brothers were revered as rebbes for the rest of their lives.
Nowadays, their memory is immortalized not only by their martyrdom, but also by their holy sefarim. As Rav Aharon Roth, the Shomrei Emunim Rebbe writes in his sefer, Taharas HaKodesh: “Therefore every G-d-fearing person should strive to acquire sefarim of old prints ... especially from the print of Slovita and Zhitomir, [of the Shapiro brothers,] the grandsons of the holy Rav of Koretz, who were exaltedly holy men.”
(Chief source: The Drama of Slovita, by Saul Moiseyevich Ginsburg, University Press of America, Inc. 1991. Translated from the Yiddish by Ephraim H. Prombaum)
http://strangeside.com/printing-press-the-slovita-controversy/
THE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
When the grandsons of Rav Pinchos Koretzer, who ran the Slovita Press, were libeled and falsely accussed, many tried to prove their innocence, that all the accussations against them were false, to no avail.
Finally the authorities agreed that if three prominent Jewish leaders and rabbis would testify as to the innocence of the Shapira brothers of Slovita then they would be exonerated and cleared.
One of the selected leaders was none other than Rav Pinchos Koretzer's prominent disciple, Rav Raphael of Bershad, who inherited his rebbe's penchant for truth and emes at all costs. So much so that they nicknamed Reb Raphael der Emesser! They used to say that he was so truthful and so careful not to utter even a doubtful truth or a possible falsehood that if for example it was raining outside, and you asked him once he came in doors if it's raining out there? He would reply: "When I was outside it was raining." Since perhaps in the interim when he came in doors it had maybe ceased to rain, therefore he could not answer in the present tense to something he could not directly see right now!
This was the very same elder chassid who had been bentshed by none other than the holy Baal Shem Tov's blessing for arichas yomim - a long life. (Kovetz HaTamim VIII Letter 284). When he was asked to come testify on behalf of Rav Pinchos Shapira he did not know what to do. On the one hand it was a matter of life and death and therefore fell under the heter for pikuach nefesh. On the other hand, although he was sure that Rav Pinchos was innocent and that the libel was a fabricated falsehood, he could not bring himself to say with certainty an out right lie, that he had personally witnessed this innocence when the truth was that he was sure of it but had never seen so himself.
Initially he agreed to testify, yet as the date approached he began to daven to Hashem: Master of the World! I have never let a false word cross my lips, and I have never uttered a lie my entire life! I have never testified to a certainty that I cannot verify, nor have I ever resolved a doubt that I myself did not know its veracity! Ribono Shel Olam! I ask of You please, with every expression of pleasing I plead, please take away the blessing for long life so that I not be forced to say something that I myself did not witness!" His prayers were answered, the very next day he passed away, and when they needed his testimony he was no longer among the living. . .and since Rav Raphael's testimony was one of the three, the entire matter was null and void and the judgment of the Shapira brothers of Slovita was a sentence of torture and exile. (Shmuos VeSippurim Volume I pg 243)
HURRAY WE ARE JEWS REJOICE!
The chabad chassid Rav Raphel Kohen heard this from his father Rav Baruch Sholom Kohen:
During the time that the two Shapiro brothers of Slovita were imprisoned they did their best to daven and recite Tehillim. There was among the prisoners, an apostate and heretic who knew enough Jewish law and halachah to try to harm the brothers. His hatred of all Jewish matters led him to act, and so he filled the chamber pot and befouled the cell to prevent them from reciting any holy words. Rav Pinchos Koretzer's grandson were momentarily dismayed and downcast, what would they do now? How could they daven? Suddenly, one of the two was struck with inspiration: It's true we cannot say Tehillim but is that a reason for our spirits to fail or falter?! We must rejoice and be happy that as Jews that alone is an avodah! The very fact that we refrain also fulfills the Divine Will of our Creator! And if so we need to be beSimchah and thus they began to dance in jail over their very Jewishness! (Shmuos VeSippurim Volume I pg 244)
