Rabbi Elazar Shapiro of Munkacs

Rabbi Elazar ben Tzvi Hirsch Shapiro of Munkacs was the author of many books, including "Minchat Elazar," "Shaar Yissachar," "Nimukei Orach Chaim," and "Divrei Torah"

Yahrzeit - 2 Sivan

Resting place - Munkacs - formerly Hungary, now Mukachevo, Ukraine

The Rebbe of Munkacs was known not only as a tzadik, but also as a halachic authority. His most famous work (out of more than fifteen) was the book "Minchat Elazar" (The Offering of Elazar), which is cited by many contemporary rabbis in establishing halacha. Rebbe Chaim Elazar Shapiro was a recognized master of Kabbalah. He had numerous followers as well as influential opponents, and his opinion carried weight among the rabbis of Hungary even after Munkacs was ceded to Czechoslovakia.

His opposition to innovation was even more uncompromising than that of his father and grandfather. Rebbe Chaim Elazar firmly rejected Zionism, the Mizrachi and Agudat Yisrael movements, and maintained that all organizations engaged in the resettlement of Jews to Eretz Yisrael were driven by godlessness or heresy.

Between the two World Wars, Rebbe Chaim Elazar opposed the establishment of Hebrew-language schools in eastern Czechoslovakia.

A great part of his life was taken up not only by ideological disputes but also by personal rivalries with other Hasidic tzadikim; particularly protracted was the dispute between Chaim Elazar and the tzadik of Belz, Yissachar Dov Rokeach, who lived in Mukachevo from 1918 to 1921.

The city was home to Hasidim from many dynasties, including the heads of the Hasidic courts of Zhidachov, Spinka, and Dolina. Each group had its own synagogue. In 1930, Rebbe Chaim Elazar traveled to Eretz Yisrael and joined the most extreme anti-Zionist circles of the Old Yishuv. In 1933, his only daughter, Rebbetzin Chaya Fruma Rivka, was married to the "Parcheve illui," Baruch Yehoshua Yerachmiel Rabinowicz (1914–1997), son of Rebbe Nathan David of Parczew, who took over as the Admor of Munkacs after his father-in-law's pure soul ascended to Heaven on 2 Sivan, 1937. His holy body was buried in the Jewish cemetery of Mukachevo, beside the graves of his father and grandfather.

In the early 1930s, Rabbi Elazar of Munkacs began to often say that he saw a black cloud approaching the Jewish people. Before his death, the Munkacser Rebbe, sensing the coming Holocaust, gave the city and its residents a blessing that they should endure the coming trials with minimal losses. Indeed, the city was almost untouched by military action, with only two shells falling within it — one in the center, and one on the outskirts.

For the townspeople, however, things turned out worse. For a long time the Hungarians did not touch "their own" Jews, so that as late as the spring of 1944 there were still 15,000 Jews in the city. But already in May, when the fascist Szálasi replaced the regent-dictator Horthy in Hungary and the "Final Solution" began, Munkacs became judenfrei. All the Jews were deported to Auschwitz.

In the town of Mukachevo there lived a Belzer Hasid named Moshe Zilber, a descendant of the illustrious Hasidic dynasty of Tzanz. And there was no peace between the Munkacser Rebbe, Chaim Elazar, and the Belzer Hasid, Reb Moshe Zilber. The latter was an opponent of the Munkacser Rebbe in the endless dispute between Belz and Munkacs, which had raged ever since the tzadik of Belz, Rebbe Yissachar Dov Rokeach, settled in Hungary in 1912, seeking refuge there from the calamities of the First World War. Once, in the midst of a heated discussion, the Munkacser Rebbe turned to the Belzer Hasid and said in anger:

— "You will die in your tallit katan!"

The Rebbe's words remained etched in Moshe Zilber's heart. Years passed. Europe was engulfed by the Second World War. In April 1944, deportations began in Mukachevo, and on May 30 the city was declared judenfrei. The ghetto was liquidated, and all the Jews living in it were deported to Auschwitz. Among these people was the Belzer Hasid, Reb Moshe Zilber. Despite hunger, disease, forced labor, and constant fear of selections, he never doubted that he would survive the war, for he believed in what the Munkacser Rebbe had told him. In Auschwitz it was impossible to wear a tallit katan — doing so was punishable by death. Moshe Zilber did indeed survive the hell of Auschwitz, and after the war emigrated with many other Jews to America, settling in New York. And although he was not a Munkacs Hasid, whenever he put on his tallit katan, he would often recall the wondrous power of his former opponent, the Munkacser Rebbe.

It was the year 1935. My uncle was a Munkacs Hasid: with a long beard and payos. He looked like a Jew and lived like a Jew — a real Jew in heart and soul. He needed to travel to Germany. He had a passport, but it stated that he was Jewish, and with such a passport he was unlikely to return home. The Hasid came to his Rebbe — Rebbe Chaim Elazar Shapiro — and pleaded with him:

— Rebbe, I must travel to Germany, but I need to return home: I have a wife and seven children. I beg you, give me a "Munkacser passport!"

The Rebbe answered him:

— What makes you think I can give you such a thing?

— Rebbe, I know, I am asking you, I am begging you, I know you are a great tzadik, please save my life, Rebbe!

The Rebbe thought for a moment, shook his head, and said to the Hasid:

— Listen, this is not simple… This is not simple. Such a passport can only be given once in a lifetime. So promise me that no one will ever know about this.

The Rebbe of Munkacs went into a room and came out about three hours later: his eyes were red from weeping. You know, friends, giving a passport from Berdichev to Lublin in Tsarist Russia is a great thing, but a passport in 1935 from Munkacs to Germany requires a great deal of prayer and a great many tears. He gave him a blank sheet of paper, soaked through with the tears of two thousand years of exile…

At the border, a German officer demanded the Hasid's passport, and taking the blank sheet in his hands, suddenly began to greet him warmly:

— Never before has such a great man come to Germany as you. Allow me to offer you this letter to the police departments throughout all of Germany, so that they may take care of you and protect you should the need arise!

My uncle spent a week in Germany, and the Nazis escorted him everywhere he needed to go, paying for his hotel… He returned home safely and told no one anything. The Rebbe of Munkacs passed away in 1936, saying before his death:

— I see darkness descending upon our world; I do not wish to remain here any longer.

No one understood these words of his at the time — now we understand. In 1939, a few days before the start of the Second World War, my uncle became gravely ill, and realizing that his time was short, he called his entire family to his side. I was seven years old, and I too was called. Here is what he said:

— I want you to know: I have the passport of a holy tzadik — the Rebbe of Munkacs — and he told the whole story.

— This is my final wish: when you bury me, and that will happen very soon, place the Munkacser passport by my head. Because if the Rebbe's passport opens gates in this world, who knows what Gates it will open for me in the World to Come.

The following story took place between Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapiro of Munkacs and Rabbi Yisrael Hager of Vizhnitz.

Once they arrived together at an event, and as they were about to enter the house, each of them wanted the other to enter first. Each of these great Rebbes kept insisting that the other go in first. In the end, Rabbi Yisrael of Vizhnitz entered first (perhaps because he was 12 years older).

The significance of this story was revealed several years later, when Rabbi Yisrael of Vizhnitz passed away on 2 Sivan, and the following year, on that very same date — the first yahrzeit of the Vizhnitzer Rebbe — the Rebbe of Munkacs passed away.

May the merit of the tzadik protect Am Yisrael!