The following 2 pages are from the
sefer "כתבי הרח"א ביחובסקי" - a compilation of letters, stories and
vertlach from the
Chabad Chossid Reb Chaim Eliezer HaCohen Bikhovski d.5684.
Reb Chaim Lazer was a
Chossid of
Kopust/Bobroisk, and for a while, back in the days when the two groups were at odds with each other, his
seforim would not be learned... But the
sefer was published by a
Lubavitcher (
Reb Berel Levin) in 5750, and the
sefer דרך מצותיך of the צמח צדק is quite popular in
Lubavitch today. I say that to avoid the usual, predictable comments that some of you will make. Although the
Kopuster and
Bobruisker were probably more sympathetic to ציונות than their cousin the
Rebbe RaSHaB, I doubt he was trying to preach Zionism here. Like I said to a friend earlier today; Those of you who are uncomfortable with the CC's solution to the "תורה ברענט" predicament in Europe during the previous century can take comfort in the words of the
Ore Someach, Reb Meir Simcha HaCohen of
Dvinsk, who, according to Rabbi N Kamenetzky in his epic "The Making of a
Gadol" was to have called the
Chofetz Chaim "א קליין-שטעטל'דיגער איד" who has no knowledge of real life in the big cities and should therefore not be attending the Rabbinic conferences of the early 1900s. Maybe this solution was also "קליין-שטעטל'דיג" and not rooted in reality. After all, other than a group of
Slabodker bachurim there was no mass emigration to
Eretz Yisroel before WW2. But the CC was content with
bachurim learning 9 months a year and working the land of
Eretz Yisroel for 3 months. Imagine that!
