Book Review (Pt. II)

Reb Avrohom as a younger man

See Part I

(I started the first part of the review because I felt that I owed it to the author, since he had sent me the book as soon as I agreed to review it, and several days had gone by since I finished reading it. Which is why all that you saw was a general, one-paragraph review, without any clear references to the actual content. )

As was mentioned before much effort went into attaining as much information about Reb Avrohom and his family as is possible. The same goes for his wife's family, the HaYitzchokis from Nevel, who traced their lineage back to Rashi HaKodosh. In the spirit of full disclosure all family pictures are displayed, even those that aren't very flattering for the family of a famed chossid and mashpia. Many of you "truthers" out there will be pleased by that. We're all adults here, we know what the matzav HaYahadus was like in Russia post WW1, and we ca take the fact that this brother didn't grow a beard or that aunt didn't cover her hair. I may have misunderstood one picture in the book, but IIRC there's a picture where Reb Avrohom and his family went to visit relatives of his on Rechov HaYarkon in TA, who seemed to be on the modern side, and the caption reads something like "Reb Avrohom and family with relatives that he called only "di kroyvim fun rechov haYarkon," which would seem to indicate that he wanted to shield his children from these "kroyvim," I guess because of their lax religious observance.

But here I am, getting way ahead of myself again. Let's get back to the review, shall we?

The book reads like a regular mussar sefer, you'll excuse the term. We're used to chassidim being medakdek b'mitzvos to the extreme, and we're used to them being nizhar from any chashash issur like it was a roaring inferno, but in this case there's more. Reb Avrohom managed to raise a chassidishe family - a very large one - in the USSR under those conditions, as did hundreds of others, but there's more to that than just that fact. There's the fact that for well over a decade he was a wanted man, plain and simple. They were looking to arrest him just like all the others that were sent away and never came back or came back after years in the gulags. Yet, somehow, they never got to him. And all that time he managed to help others that were less fortunate, hide other wanted people, and raise and have a connection with his family. I realize that we haven't spoken about his earlier life very much, whether it be pre or post Tomchei Tmimim in Lubavitch days, but right now, looking back at what I read a several weeks ago, that's what stays fresh in my mind. Besides, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Yid like Reb Avrohom talk about himself and about what he accomplished. If anything, he'd talk about the Rebbe, his chaverim and mashpiyim in Yeshiva, and about what he saw and heard. There are no "we finished gantz shas together waiting on the lunch line" stories here like you may find elsewhere...



Reb Avrohom being osek in avodas hatfilloh in zibben zibetzig.

I'm not an official book reviewer, so I still have a hard time figuring out exactly what it is that I need to do when it comes to a review, but I assume that a review shouldn't (just) repeat nice stories or anectodes that he sees in the book. I speak to the general body of work. I'd like to thank Moshe Rubin for taking the high road when it came to he style of writing he uses in his zeide's story. Unfortunately, in the world of Chabad English literature today it's commonplace to cater to the unaffiliated and to forget about those that don't need a glossary and all Hebrew words in havara sefaradit. Rubin manages to keep the original old world flavor without alienating those that have no connection to the old world. (come to think of it, I may have made that point last time as well. In any case, it's worth repeating.) The style of writing ensures that you continue and finish the book. Every chapter in RAM's life, even the relative menucha here in the US, is interesting, if not riveting. You're no less intrerested in his keeping the KGB at bay than the fact that later in life he would travel all across the US collecting funds for Lubavitcher Yeshivos without knowledge of English - and we're talking towns that many of us Yankees would be very uncomfortable in, small American cities, not just Chicago and L.A. And of course, his farbrengens here in the US - or at the least the descriptions thereof, make for very good reading material as well.

[I'd like to highlight some of the stories in the book in the next segment of the review. B'ezras hashem and if time allows for it. I hear that the book is selling very well, in all Jewish neighborhoods in NYC, and that makes the Tzig happy, seeing that Rubin's hard work is being rewarded by good sales.]

[Many of the books were that were written about the difficult times in Russia were written by the people involved. In this case Reb Avrohom had long since passed on, but most of his children are alive and well, so a very clear picture can be presented about their life in the USSR, as well as life in the Holy Land and in America.]

With Teimaner Kinder that he taught in Tomchei Tmimim in Lod


In his final years, receiving a dollar from the Rebbe