In the Novhardok Yeshiva in Mezritch, they literally suffered from starvation. The Rosh Yeshiva, the Tzaddik Gaon Rabbi David Bleicher zt"l, would travel between the surrounding villages to collect bread for the Jews to eat. Thus he kept the 200 students in his yeshiva and the students of the yeshivot affiliated with it in the surrounding towns. Before Pesach, he added to his concern for the food of the yeshiva members and also took care of kosher flour for baking matza shmura. With great efforts, he was able to do this. In order to preserve the flour from all preservation, it was placed in the attic of the beit midrash. Rumor spread in the yeshiva: Bread is indeed given sparingly, but exquisite matzot will be plentiful.
God helped, and torrential rains fell, accompanied by heavy hail showers. The hail broke the roof tiles and the rain penetrated inside, and the preserved flour became sour. The eyes are dark. What do we do?! What can be done? It was possible to obtain flour for matzah, but it cost a lot of money that was not available. A proposal was made to disperse the members of the yeshiva among the families of the Jews of the city. Even if they are poor, on the night of the Seder they are all like the sons of kings, and they say: "Whoever is oppressed and capable, whoever needs it will be Pesach." The Rosh Yeshiva answered and said: "Teachers and gentlemen, I have four questions. I ask you to answer them.
The first question: Who commanded to eat matza on Pesach?"They wondered, what a question. "The Holy One, blessed be He," of course. "And the second question: Who helped me collect the flour for the matzah?"Well, is this also a question? "The Holy One, blessed be He", of course! "And the third question: Who brought the hail that broke the tiles?"Who doesn't know, "the Holy One, blessed be He", of course! "And who brought the rains that invalidated the flour"? "The Holy One, blessed be He," of course. "Well, then he will bring us new flour for matzah!" he ruled. For he has done and will do all things!You're right, what is there to say! And on the eve of the chametz test, the generation came and gave the Rosh Yeshiva a large sum of money that arrived in the mail, and was enough to buy fancy flour at a profit, and to bake matzot for all the yeshiva members!To teach you that there is no despair in the world at all!
And I remember, when I immigrated to Israel, I met Rabbi David Zaritsky, the famous ultra-Orthodox writer. I had never met him before. And he said to me, "Rabbi Yaakov, thanks to you we had matzah on Pesach!" Thanks to me? After all, I have not seen him until now!And he told me, but I only knew the end of the story. So I'm telling you now from the beginning, for the first time – when the German army invaded Russia and rushed forward, and the Russians withdrew in panic until they barricaded themselves in Stalingrad, a great panic broke out in the ranks of the army, and everyone who was fit to be sent to the front was recruited.They wanted to recruit all the guards of the Gulag, our labor camp in Siberia, but what would they do with us, the prisoners? We were scattered in the towns and villages of Siberia, and we were forbidden to leave the boundaries of our residences. Up to five kilometers around.On the one hand, we were happy. We got rid of the hard labor, the felling of the giant trees in Tiga. On the other hand, there was a regular supply of food in the camp, even if there were starvation rations. And I made contact with the person in charge of distributing the bread, we abstained from their dishes, I obtained all kinds of trifles from the members of the gang as bribes, and he provided us with bread for our satiety. Here, in the town where we were staying, called Marka, we had to take care of our own food. The residents barely had any.Twice a week, the authorities distributed free basic food items. Sometimes onions, sometimes beets, sometimes radish. Well, what, should we chew a radish or bite into an onion? We took advantage of one option. We sent letters to our families in the United States. Of course, we wrote that we were in the Soviet paradise and that we lacked nothing, but that they should send packages, if only as a show of kinship. It saved us.
Small parcels arrived, only two or three kilograms, but they contained treasures. There were chocolate bars and tea bags, and the local people were willing to provide plenty of vegetables, flours and oils, for a bar of chocolate or a tea bag! I made contact with the clerk in charge of the parcels at the post office, and obtained a power of attorney from all my friends. She would hand over the parcels to me and get the approval, and I would locate the members and hand them their parcels.One day she said to me: "A package in the name of one person, David Zaritsky, arrived from a certain street" There is no such street in the town, and there is no such Jew on my list. Maybe he lives in one of the surrounding villages, how will I know? After all, we are not allowed to leave the town. I told her, "Hold on to the package, and I'll try to locate it." It was around Hanukkah.At the end of Tevet, the clerk asked, "What about Zaretsky?" She said: "According to the regulations, I have to send the package back. A package that was not ordered within a month is returned to the sender."I said, "How did they know if it was required or not?!" It is presumed that the Russian bureaucracy does not know between right and left.Well, to her surprise, she said: "Every package comes in a wrapper. We remove the wrapper before delivery and send it to the head office, as a sign that the package has been received. We are being monitored.If I don't send the wrapper, I have to send the package. And remove the wrapper without the recipient, it's against the law!" "How," he wondered. "I have my own ways," I answered.
I went to the black market, there is nothing that cannot be obtained there. In exchange for a bag of tea, I obtained an empty wrapper of a parcel from the Russian post! I brought it to the clerk and she was relieved. She left the parcel in her possession. A month later, I came across a Jew from the nearby village of Zanmaror. He had received special permission to settle his affairs in our district town. I interrogated him, and it turned out that David Zaritsky was staying with them. He wrote to his family in the United States that he was staying in Zanmaror, near Marka, and they made the mistake of sending it to Marka itself.I hurried to the post office, and the parcel was sent to Zanmaror. So far, what I knew. When I arrived in Eretz Yisrael, Rabbi David Zaritsky revealed to me that the package had arrived in his hands two days before Pesach, and in exchange for the delicacies it contained, he obtained "flour from the market" for matzah [kosher in times of urgency (Orach Chayim 555) and potatoes and vegetables, and they celebrated the holiday extensively.To teach you that there is no despair in the world at all. We do our part, and God has salvation.
