Parshat Vayeilech: Jewish Legacy

The Torah writes in Parshat Vayeilech, “It will not be forgotten in the mouths of his offspring.”

The Almighty quite definitely promises that the Torah will never be forgotten by the Jewish people and at all times there will be people in its midst who will study and know it.

Throughout the history of our dispersion, the L-rd has made sure that the Jews did not forget His Torah. For this, He manipulated the most powerful rulers of the world, like puppets.

Eleven years before expelling the Jews from their country, Nebuchadnezzar forcibly resettled several thousand of the most prominent Torah scholars in the city of Babylon. When all the other exiles subsequently arrived there, they found an extensive network of Jewish educational institutions in Babylon.

Before the fall of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai managed to convince the Roman invaders to agree to the existence of a Jewish academy in the city of Yavneh. After the destruction of the capital, it was Yavneh that was destined to become the spiritual center of the Jewish people.

It is interesting that after the Revolution of 1917, part of Tsarist Russia—Poland, Lithuania and Latvia—separated and retained freedom, these countries became Communist only during the Second World War. And the most interesting thing is that it was in this territory that most of the Torah study centers were located: the yeshivot of Mir, Slobodka, Ponevezh, Kamenetz, Baranovich, Lublin, Radin and others. Is this a coincidence?

During the Second World War, as a result of an amazing combination of circumstances, tens of thousands of Jews who ended up in Vilnius were saved. Throughout the vast territory of Eastern Europe, Lithuania remained the only place from which it was still possible to escape to freedom. In 1940, during the period that coincided with the Jewish month of Elul, institutions were opened in Vilnius and Kovno, the two largest cities of Lithuania, where visas were issued to refugees from Poland wishing to leave the USSR. The overwhelming majority of the refugees were religious people: teachers and students of the most famous Polish yeshivas. Thus, students of the Mir Yeshiva, which later settled in Shanghai, the Lubavitcher Yeshiva from Otwock, the Lublin Yeshiva and others, managed to escape. Among those who escaped at the very last moment were the heads of the yeshivas of Radin, Novogrudok, Kletsk, and Gur, among others.

The fact that the Russians gave us permission to leave Russia, said one of the leaders of the Mir Yeshiva, Rav Yechezkel Levinstein, is absolutely irrational. It contradicts the entire ideology and practice of the Soviet authorities. Instead of sending us all to Siberia, as they did with their Jewish believers, the Russians granted us tourist status and released us into the free world. There is no doubt that they themselves did not know why they did this. This is what the Tanach says: “[Like] streams of water—the king’s heart is in the hands of the L-rd: wherever He wants, He directs it there” (Mishlei 21:1).

One of the main characters of this amazing story was the Japanese consul in Lithuania, Sempo Sugihara, who issued a transit visa to everyone who wanted to enter his country.

Interestingly, Japan never had a consulate in Lithuania and it was opened precisely at the beginning of World War II. There seemed to be absolutely nothing for the consul to do there. And yet he found a job, and what a job!

When the first Jews came to him with a request to give them the opportunity to travel in transit through Japan, the consul asked his superiors and received an answer: No way! He sent a second dispatch: Sorry for the people, they are threatened by the Siberian camps. In response, he was unambiguously threatened: If you give permission, you will face trial. The consul weighed his options: If I give permission, I will do a deed pleasing to G-d, but not pleasing to my government; if I do not allow it, I will endanger human lives. And he issued visas at his own peril and risk. Even after the categorical order of the Soviet authorities to close the Japanese consulate in Kovno, he continued to issue visas to Jews for another three weeks.

The consul was recalled, tried, deprived of ranks and privileges, but he was comforted and gladdened by the thought that he had not sinned against G-d. This man lived for more than 80 years and never regretted what he did.

Passenger trains stretched across the entire Soviet Union to the Far East, transporting Jews who had escaped mortal danger. Rav Velvel Soloveichik later said: “I think that the Trans-Siberian Railway was built specifically to save those who study Torah.”

On its way to Japan, a dilapidated transport ship carrying rescued Jews encountered a violent storm and lost control. Miraculously, the ship reached the coast of Japan. It sank shortly after the last of the passengers disembarked. How can one not recall here the words of the Talmud (Sotah 35a): “The Ark [of the Covenant] itself bore those who carried it”?

It is known that the Ark, with the tablets of the Covenant stored inside, was so heavy that any other object that weighed as much could not be lifted by four men. The Ark, in effect, carried those carrying it. Something similar happened in the Sea of Japan: The Torah herself saved her guardians.

And many miracles occurred in Japan as well.

In Kobe—a huge city with more than a million inhabitants—there were only 25 Jewish families. And they helped the visitors open the Mir Yeshiva there. Six months later, the yeshiva moved to Shanghai.

The refugees reasoned like this: Jews and the Torah are being burned. We must pass on the legacy of our fathers to future generations. We need to study.

In Shanghai, they were shown the empty Beis Aharon Synagogue, and they were amazed: there were exactly as many seats in the synagogue as they needed, and in the dormitory there were exactly as many beds as there were students in the yeshivah! In addition, the synagogue had two huge canteens for hundreds of people, and a giant kitchen with dishes for hundreds of diners. Where did all this come from?

It turns out that a Jewish millionaire once lived in Shanghai, who was told in a dream that he had to do a great deed for Israel. It was he who financed the construction of the synagogue in 1925. A person with little knowledge of tradition, he did not even really know what a synagogue looks like, did not imagine that there is no hostel in it, and yet he built a hostel nearby and a huge kitchen with a dining room. For 15 years this place stood empty. It was clearly awaiting the arrival of the Mir Yeshivah!

In the winter of 1945, two specialists from Germany came to Shanghai. They installed gas chambers and brought Zyklon B gas. The Japanese made a careful count of all Jews in the ghetto (yeshivah students lived in the ghetto and received passes to attend the yeshivah) and informed them that in two weeks everyone would be sent to work. But the strong blows they received at the front, at that very moment, made them forget about the Jews for a while. Later, the residents of the ghetto were again warned about being sent to work—and again, heavy defeats at the front postponed the action.

There was another attempt to annihilate all the teachers and students of the yeshivah.

Under the pretext of more frequent bombing, they were supposed to be transferred and deployed on three islands. But, of course, they would never have reached them, and the Japanese, who had reached an agreement with the Germans, would only have to report that the ships, unfortunately, had sunk.

A Japanese named Bakutu, who heard about this plan, suddenly and enigmatically told the Jews: “I am your friend. If something happens to you, know that I am not to blame.” The Jews became agitated, and began to discover what was happening, and the Japanese no longer had the advantage of secrecy to carry out their plans.

The Allies bombed the city desperately. Hundreds of bombers took part in the raids at the same time. But no one in the yeshivah was hurt. One day a bomb hit the building during lunch break while everyone had gone to lunch. From then on, upon hearing the air raid signal, the Chinese and Japanese fled to the yeshivah to seek shelter from the bombing.

It remains to add here that from the community of Polish and Lithuanian Jews who first came to Japan and then to Shanghai, and miraculously escaped extermination, many sages emerged who are still teaching Jewish youths Torah in Israel and America. The Mirrer Yeshiva settled in Jerusalem. Today more than 1,000 people study in it.