Maasei Emunim
A Story About Amen and Tefillah
Siberia. The dreadful ice desert. It was enough to just mention its name to arouse fear in the hearts of Jews who lived in the Soviet Union during the years of the Communist regime. That frozen, isolated region in Russia served as a massive prison for people who had been marked by the Communist regime as dissidents.
Millions of people, among them many Jews, were exiled there for no good reason. In labor camps, known as “gulags” in Russian, prisoners suffered under horrific, subhuman conditions, working in slave labor while being tortured, while coping with fierce cold, hunger and disease. Many did not withstand it and met their deaths after suffering unspeakably.
The Communist party opposed any vestige of religion, and therefore forbade Jews from observing the mitzvos of their religion. It saw Jews who worked to preserve the Jewish embers as “opponents of the regime” and they were sentenced to harsh punishments. In order to capture these Jews, the Russians established the “Yevsektsia” – the Jewish department of the party, which was made up of Jews who had turned their backs on their people and collaborated with the evil regime and operated on its behalf.
The Yevsektsia members, who were filled with hatred toward their brethren and their heritage, worked mercilessly to destroy shuls, Jewish schools and to persecute Torah observant Jews. They hunted down Jews who had violated the laws of the regime and continued to obverse mitzvos. Tragically, this department did its work well. With their brutal persecution, they succeeded in capturing many Jews who had secretly tried to maintain Jewish community lives. They were all placed on trains and exiled to a labor camp in Siberia.
Rabbi Yitzchak Weiner was one of those who fell victim to the brutal machinations of the Yevsektsia. He was known as a pious and G-d fearing Jew, who had served as a Rav in Kyiv until the Communist revolution broke out. Fearing for his life, he left his job and began to work in a flour mill. Reb Yitzchak did not serve as a rav, but that did not mean he stopped serving his Creator. The many dangers did not deter him and he continued to fulfill the mitzvos with mesirus nefesh.
Once, Rav Yitzchak came to shul when a member of the community risked his life and gathered a few children to teach them Torah secretly. That Jew was aware of the fact that if he would be caught, he’d be sentenced to some fifteen years in prison in one of the labor camps in Siberia, but he was not deterred. Suddenly, a Yevsektsia member burst into the shul. He noticed what was going on, and quickly grabbed a sefer kodesh from one of the children to serve as evidence of the “crime.” That Jew paled and looked like he was about to faint. He knew very well the meaning of being caught and the punishment that awaited him.
Reb Yitzchak, with unbelievable courage, grabbed the man by his collar, plucked the siddur from his hand and yelled at him loudly to “get out of here, you cursed man!”
A short time later, Reb Yitzchak was arrested. In a lightning fast trial, he was sentenced to a long exile of sixteen years and three months in Siberia. His sentence was based on groundless accusations, including the incident in the shul, which was classified as “using force against a representative of the law.”
In Siberia, Reb Yitzchak found himself cut off from any human life. He received scant food, was constantly in a freezing cold environment and he was completely isolated. He was exiled to such a desolate and remote place, that even birds could not survive there.
As a result of his lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables, the inmates of the camp contracted the terrible scurvy disease, to which many succumbed. They died after suffering the ravages of the disease for some time. In order to survive, the inmates made every effort to capture a deer and to drink its blood, and thus to provide their bodies with a bit of Vitamin C to spare themselves from this terrible disease. But Reb Yitzchak, who observed the laws of Torah with mesirus nefesh, even in the valley of death, refrained from doing this. And indeed, he was afflicted with scurvy, and grew weaker every day.
One day, towards sundown, Reb Yitzchak’s eyes closed in weakness, and he fell into a fitful sleep. Suddenly, in his dream, he saw his father, Reb Avraham Yehoshua:
“My Yitzchak,” his father called to him, “you are in terrible distress. Why do you not turn to Hashem to send you salvation?”
“I have no strength,” Reb Yitzchak replied feebly in his dream.
“Nu,” his father tried to urge him, “at least daven Shemoneh Esreh.”
“I can’t,” his son replied.
“And if I read the tefillah with you, will you repeat it after me word after word?” his father insisted.
“Yes...” Reb Yitzchak agreed.
“Hashem sefasai tiftach,” the father began Shemoneh Esreh, and Reb Yitzchak repeated after him word for word, all in the dream.
From his place On High in Gan Eden, his father uttered the holy words of Shemoneh Esreh together with his suffering son somewhere in the remote ice tundra of Siberia. His body was broken, his soul was suffering, but his neshamah, deep in the dream, continued to plead to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, perhaps He would have mercy.
When they reached the words: “Re’eh na b’anyeinu...ki Go’el chazak Atah,” Reb Yitzchak awoke. Soldiers were standing next to him and forced him to get up right away: “Take your things and come with us!” they ordered harshly.
With difficulty, Reb Yitzchak got to his feet weakly, still stunned form his dream, and dragged himself outside with fear, following the soldiers. And then, he discovered the unbelievable – he was being transferred to a different labor camp! A camp with somewhat humane conditions!
Reb Yitzchak Weiner experienced many miracles during his difficult years in exile, but the dream – that awesome dream in which his father revealed himself to him and davened the first seven brachos of Shemoneh Esreh with him word for word – is something he never forgot. For the rest of his life, he told those around him about the dream that saved him from death, and the tefillah that gave him life.
To Remain a Jew [Rav Y. Zilber] p. 286 [Hebrew edition]
