When he lived in Kutais, his home was wide open and all the bachurim knew that his home was a refuge. Although by nature he was extra cautious, he did not hesitate to put himself and his family in danger in order to help out the T’mimim. * After leaving the Soviet Union and settling in France, he would make trips to Switzerland where he “sowed ruchnius and reaped gashmius” for the yeshiva in Brunoy. * The life of R’ Alexander Sender Menkin a”h.
R’ Sender (center) with his oldest grandson, R’ Shneur Zalman Wilschansky. On the right is R’ Tzvi Yosef Kotlarsky
HIS YOUTH IN LUBAVITCH
R’ Alexander Sender Menkin was born in Poltava on 6 Menachem Av 5660/1900. His parents were Chaim Eliyahu and Chaya Leah Menkin. Rabbi Yaakov Mordechai Bespalov, the rav of Poltava and one of the distinguished Chabad rabbanim of the previous generation, was his sandak.
In his youth, he learned in Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim in Lubavitch, during the period when the Rebbe Rashab still lived in Lubavitch. The chazan in the Rebbe Rashab’s court, R’ Yechiel Heilprin, known as “R’ Yechiel der Chazan,” took note of his musical abilities and included him in his choir. From R’ Yechiel he learned the nuances of the nusach ha’t’filla and was very particular about them all his life.
He married Aida Lipsker, the daughter of R’ Chaim Tzvi Lipsker who was a rav in Poltava. The families made another shidduch when his brother-in-law R’ Aryeh Leib Lipsker married his sister, Malka.
R’ Sender lived in Poltava where he had a store for iron products. In those days, he was very strong and was able to easily bend iron bars with his hands.
He later recounted that he once traveled to the gravesite of the Alter Rebbe in Haditch. When he entered the beis midrash near the Ohel, the Shamash asked him whether he wasn’t afraid to go down the steps to the Ohel alone. Since he was a young, very strong man, he did not understand what there was to be afraid of and he said he could go down alone.
Yet, he merely opened the door to the steps and he was suddenly struck by such a great fear that his knees knocked together. He went down to the Ohel with great difficulty. When he returned, the Shamash said to him: Now you understand.
THE HOME OF THE T’MIMIM IN KUTAIS
During Stalin’s terrible purges, when hundreds of Chabad Chassidim were arrested and killed, or sent to Siberia, many Lubavitchers left for Central Asia, including Kutais in Georgia. In Georgia of those days it was far better, not only materially but spiritually too. The government persecuted, exiled and tortured rabbanim, shochtim, melamdim etc., but the persecution in Georgia was not as bad.
Georgia in general and Kutais in particular served as a refuge for Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim Lubavitch during the worst years of NKVD persecution. The arrests of roshei yeshivos and talmidim, and the wandering of the only yeshiva in that vast empire, reached their peak in the middle and end of the 1930’s. That is when Kutais became the host for Torah in all of Russia.
A Lubavitcher boy came secretly from Charkov to Kutais; two Lubavitcher boys sneaked in from Odessa; some Lubavitchers made it from Moscow; others from Leningrad. And there were the talmidim that R’ Michoel Teitelbaum smuggled from the Soviet orphanage (after NKVD agents in Berditchev caught them learning and arrested them).
The Jews of Georgia and especially their chachomim (the title they used for rabbanim) were a big help to the Lubavitcher yeshiva in Kutais, but the family of R’ Alexander Sender Menkin stood out. He had moved from Poltava to Kutais and his home was the home of the T’mimim.
R’ Sender’s son-in-law, R’ Yehoshua Dubrawski a”h, the great Chassidic writer, described small moments that exemplify the conduct of the Menkin family in general, and their relationship with the Lubavitcher yeshiva in particular:
There was a family by the name of Menkin. It consisted of five people: the father, R’ Sender; the mother, their son, and two daughters. R’ Sender was a partner with his brother-in-law in tzech (a certain business in which you could earn either a meager livelihood with difficulty or 5-10 years in jail with ease). The parents worked all day in tzech and the girls did housework. Their son learned in yeshiva. Their lives revolved the yeshiva and around the bachurim. Each of them, in his and her way, gave it their heart, chayus, and delight.
The yeshiva bachurim considered the Menkin home their second home, and sometimes even their first home. There were those who were regular guests there – someone who had returned from the front with no strength, a Polish citizen with no roof over his head, and the like. But the house was mainly for the talmidim of the yeshiva. A bachur showing up for lunch or supper in the Menkin home was the norm. To the girls it was not surprising to find, in the morning, bachurim sleeping under the table.
The Menkin home consisted of a small bedroom, a dining/sitting room (not big either), and a kitchen with a gas burner. The bachurim and guests would sleep in any free space, even between the table legs. That was a typical sight. The situation changed when a bachur fell sick.
The only daughter who remained alive of the Menkin family, Mrs. Dubrawski, remembers:
One of the older bachurim became very sick. He had a high fever and we feared that he was sick with something dangerous and contagious. The Menkins could not leave the sick boy with the yeshiva bachurim. Nor did they want to take him to the hospital, since the danger was far greater there (in those days in the Soviet Union).
The Menkins did what any parents of a sick person would do (if not more). They put the sick boy in their bedroom for a week. With Hashem’s kindness the boy recovered, at least in part, thanks to the devotion of the Menkin family.
There was another instance (among many more) when a yeshiva bachur became so sick that his life hung by a hair. It was only natural that the Menkin home became his hospital. Due to the boy’s grave condition, his father in Leningrad was informed and he quickly came to Kutais. As he walked down the street in Kutais, he heard a wailing from a house (where the Georgian Jews prepared the dead for burial) and he wondered: Was he too late?
As for the Menkin girls, they knew what needed to be done for the bachurim who learned Torah and Chassidus. They did everything for Torah, for Chassidus, and especially for the talmidim of Tomchei T’mimim who learned Torah and Chassidus. That is how they were raised.
Furthermore, often, not only the parents but also the young girls readily forwent their cooked food or even their bread since a yeshiva bachur was worth more. Sometimes, they gave soup or other food to a refugee or a guest and this was a regular event. When their daughter told me of this afterward, she said it simply, without any indication that what they did was out of the ordinary.
As for their concern for bread for the bachurim, she told this to me as though she was experiencing it then and there:
She remembers how hard it was to wake up from a deep sleep at five in the morning, to leave the house and the warm bed so early, and to run in the cold and dark in order to get a place on line for the bread distribution. This was in order to bring some bread back for the bachurim.
She never asked herself why the bachurim couldn’t get up themselves and stand on line to get their own bread.
(From the writings of R’ Heishke Dubrawski)
A FAMILY OF CHESED
The family made a deep impression on all the bachurim who came to their house. R’ Yechezkel Brod, in his memoir, described the Menkins as an extraordinary family, noble and deeply Chassidic:
“R’ Sender was a dear Jew with a heart of gold, and the whole family was the same way. His wife was a good neshama whose thoughts were all about helping people. If there was a wedding in Kutais, she was no longer at home two days before the event. Back then, unlike nowadays when we have caterers, they prepared the food themselves. She would always go and help out with the wedding preparations. She would spend entire days in homes where wedding preparations were taking place and even sleep over there. Her devotion and good heart were boundless.
“The two girls, Zlata and Asya, were righteous women. It was the eve of the war and food was expensive. Years later we found out that the girls would deprive themselves of bread and send it to us, so that we bachurim would have plenty to eat and could learn without disturbance.”
DAILY MESIRUS NEFESH
R’ Refael Wilschansky, who later became R’ Sender’s son-in-law, also stayed at the Menkin house when he was a bachur in Kutais. He arrived for the first time in Kutais together with his friend, R’ Heschel Tzeitlin, and all they had was the Menkins’ address. It was very late at night and the family was already asleep. They knocked gently at the door and one of the bachurim who was sleeping there, R’ Leibel Mochkin, opened the door. R’ Leibel reassured them that R’ Sender would definitely be happy to host them, and they could sleep in the house without hesitation. He prepared an improvised bed for them out of a few chairs and they slept.
In those days, you had to stand on line for hours in order to get your daily bread. There was terrible crowding on the bread line and the strongest would win out. The Menkin girls stood on line every day with food coupons that the government distributed, as well as forged coupons that they had obtained on the black market. R’ Sender would evenly divide the bit of bread that they got with much effort among the bachurim and the family members. He never gave his family more food than the bachurim.
Day after day, hour after hour, the family devoted themselves to the bachurim. Mesirus nefesh was so much a part of them that they did not see anything special in what they did; they viewed it as a moral obligation, plain and simple. The following story illustrates this:
During World War II, Mrs. Menkin found out that Heschel Tzeitlin had been arrested by the military authorities and was going to be sent to the front. Being sent to the front was an almost certain death sentence, and the only way to save his life was with a big bribe. She checked to see what valuable items still remained in her possession that she could sell on the black market so she would have a large enough sum with which to bribe the officials. She noticed a pair of feather pillows, the last of the items she had brought from Poltava. In those days, these pillows were worth a lot. People considered them “life insurance” for they could be sold during an emergency and enable one to live a while longer. She took the pillows to the black market.
As she stood in the black market, some religious Jews walked by who were not Lubavitchers. They knew the Menkin family. When they saw her standing there with the pillows, they were sure the Menkins were in deep trouble; otherwise, why would she be willing to sell something so valuable?
They approached her and asked her what terrible thing had happened for which she was selling the pillows. When she told them that she was selling the pillows in order to get enough money with which to bribe the military officials so they would release a yeshiva bachur, they could not believe it. They tried dissuading her by saying: You have a family and it is very possible that the day will come when you will need to sell these pillows to keep your family alive.
When they saw that their words made no impression on her, they began shouting: How dare she abandon her children’s needs for the sake of someone else?
Whenever Mrs. Menkin related this, she would shudder and say: How could merciful Jews, the children of merciful Jews, talk that way? How can one speak this way? That is the only way I could try and save him!
To those Jews, what she did was an act of self-sacrifice, but to her, it was so simple that she did not understand how they could think otherwise.
R’ Sender’s boldness was acquired through inner toil, since by nature he was a very nervous person as the following story illustrates:
Many years after he left Russia, when he lived in Paris, R’ Sender was a shadar to raise money for Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim in Brunoy. He would send many packages containing t’fillin, mezuzos and s’farim, to people with whom he was in touch in Europe. He would go to a branch of the post office at the other end of the city and send the packages from there.
His grandson once asked him why he didn’t go to the post office right next to his house. R’ Sender was surprised by the question and he asked: Didn’t you notice where that branch is located?
The grandson, having no idea what his grandfather meant by the question, said, “Next to the municipal offices.”
His grandfather said, “That’s not what I meant. On the other side of the street is a police station. If they see me going regularly to the post office with packages, they will begin to suspect me and if they question me, they will immediately see that I speak Russian and don’t understand a word of Polish. Since I came to France under the pretext of being a Polish citizen (like many Lubavitchers who escaped Russia that way in 1946-7), they can arrest me!”
When he saw a newsstand where they sold the Russian newspaper Pravda, he would immediately cross to the other side of the street. He would say that if he passed by and glanced at the Russian paper, they could see that he wasn’t just glancing but was able to understand Russian, and from where would a Pole know Russian?
He was so nervous even though 25 years had passed since he had left Russia! Yet, this did not stop him from hosting bachurim in his house, even though, in those days, this entailed actual danger to life since many of the bachurim were draft dodgers. Someone caught harboring a draft dodger could be sent to Siberia for many years.
SOWING RUCHNIUS IN EUROPE
The Menkin family left Russia as mentioned, and after a period of time in a transit camp in Poking, Germany, they obtained visas for France. With the help of his friend, the sofer (scribe) R’ Yeshaya Matlin, he and his friend R’ Shimshon Charitonov got jobs with the Joint, checking Sifrei Torah that had been rescued from the Holocaust. This was to enable kosher Sifrei Torah to be provided to Jewish communities in Europe.
Once the yeshiva in Brunoy, near Paris, was founded, R’ Sender began working as a fundraiser for the yeshiva. He would travel around to Jewish communities in Switzerland to raise money.
He was already very weak at this point, after having been sick in Poking and requiring an operation to remove part of his intestines. His hard life, with his son Henoch dying in his youth (see box), and then his daughter Zlata dying when she was 26, leaving behind three children, had broken him. Yet, he still traveled in order to help the yeshiva in Brunoy. He would refer to himself on these trips as being na v’nad, which literally means wandering, but he meant, the acronym – nisht essen un nisht davenen (no eating and no davening).
In accordance with the Rebbe’s instructions that a shadar must “sow ruchnius and reap gashmius,” he would urge the Jews he met throughout Switzerland to keep Torah and mitzvos. Wherever he went, he would remind them to check t’fillin and mezuzos. Since he had experience checking Sifrei Torah, he would examine mezuzos and t’fillin, and when new ones were needed, he would take care of it when he returned to Paris. He also spoke about the importance of learning Chassidus and he sent the Sifrei Chassidus that were available at the time.
In a letter that the Rebbe sent him on 22 Elul 5712/1952, the Rebbe wrote:
I was pleased to receive your letter … in which you write that you are continuing in your work to collect gashmius for the yeshiva. Consequently, the gashmius becomes ruchnius – and sowing ruchnius, and that you make efforts, when you are home, to have an influence on your surroundings. You end your letter by saying that you often feel down and say to yourself, who are you to preach musar.
In general, Chazal say that if not for Hashem helping, a person would not be able to withstand the Evil Inclination, and therefore, it is not you who are preaching, and not you who are saying musar, but you are conveying words of truth that are taken from the Torah of Truth; especially as a Chassid who is in touch with our Nasi, the Rebbe, my father-in-law, you are just to fulfill your shlichus, and then the power of the one who sent you, the Rebbe, my father-in-law, is with you. He [the Rebbe] has broad enough shoulders to direct the shlichus in every location and every time through every person, as long as the shliach is connected with the meshaleiach.
In another letter that the Rebbe sent him, on 12 Sivan 5717/1957, the Rebbe wrote:
Surely it is superfluous to urge you about the needed increase in spreading the publications and all the more so, putting on t’fillin and putting up mezuzos which you write about. And this has to go beyond [the normal rule of] maalin ba’kodesh [increasing in matters of holiness], since you actually see the saving of Jewish souls to life in the World to Come when you inspire them with words and connect the inspiration to action in mitzvos like t’fillin etc. It is like what is explained in Likkutei Torah that an “arousal from Above” has to be connected to an “arousal from below” and through action…
May you do all this with the requisite energy and in measures that continue to grow, with simcha and gladness of heart, influencing all those in your environment so that they too do the same. The Giver of the Torah and mitzvos is dependable to fulfill His promise that anyone who increases will have added for him in what he needs, materially and spiritually. Good health is obviously included in this. We are coming from the days of Kabbalas HaTorah. Chazal say that at Kabbalas Ha’Torah, all the Jews were healthy and whole, physically too.
It seems to me that when we spoke I mentioned to you that surely during your travels you find s’farim in shuls and private homes that are … and not being used, and that it would be worthwhile to send them here if they are rarities or the like and to replace them for the community with Siddurim, Chumashim, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and the like. It is surprising that you do not mention this, although I hope you have not forgotten.
FRAGRANCE OF THE PREVIOUS GENERATION
R’ Sender was an incredible Yerei Shamayim and a genuinely learned man, who loved sitting and learning Torah. He was suffused with Chassidishkait and had a special talent for repeating Chassidic aphorisms with wonderful accuracy and with a remarkable enthusiasm. Whenever he met a Jew on his travels, he would take the opportunity to say a brief D’var Torah spiced with a Chassidic story or saying. He had a hadras panim (dignified appearance) and he brought lively energy wherever he went, with a fragrance of the previous generation.
Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neria, founder of the B’nei Akiva yeshivos, was R’ Sender’s cousin. He once told R’ Sender’s grandchildren that when he traveled in Switzerland and said that his name was R’ Neria, they did not always know him, but when he said he was R’ Sender’s cousin, they all knew that name.
R’ Sender bequeathed his great love for s’farim to his family. When his oldest grandson celebrated his sixth birthday, he gave him a set of Yachin U’Boaz Mishnayos, which at that time was a very expensive set of Mishnayos. It was given on condition that his grandson would learn Mishnayos by heart. A year later, R’ Sender gave him a set of Shulzinger Chumashim, and by the time he was bar mitzva, he already had a bookcase of s’farim from what he received from his grandfather. Thus, he taught his descendants to love Torah and love s’farim.
R’ Sender especially cherished the Rebbe’s sichos and s’farim. The Likkutei Sichos had not been published yet and even booklets of sichos were very rare. When he managed to borrow a mimeographed copy of a sicha of the Rebbe from somebody, he was as happy as someone who won the lottery and he would ask his grandsons to copy (by hand) the sicha for him.
When he sang a Chassidic niggun, he “lived” the niggun. He said that one time he was at a wedding in Switzerland and wanted to sing the Dalet Bavos at the chuppa. After he finished singing the moving niggun, many people went over to him to thank him. One of them, a Yekke (German Jew) who found it difficult to express what he felt, said: Listen, R’ Sender, when you sang this niggun, I felt like someone being led to be slaughtered … R’ Sender was taken aback by this remark and the man quickly explained what he meant: I didn’t mean that negatively, but positively. I felt that my entire life that I had lived until now was finished and I was starting to live anew!
R’ Sender played the violin. When his first granddaughter, the daughter of R’ Yehoshua Dubrawski, married R’ Shmuel Gurewitz (who is a shliach in Lyon, France), R’ Sender called the brother of the chassan, Yosef Yitzchok, and said to him: I attended weddings in the US and the music there is awful. They don’t play Chassidishe niggunim and when they play, it’s with no taste and no flavor. I had an idea – I will record some Chabad niggunim that I play on the violin and you will take the recording to America and have them play it at the wedding.
HIS FINAL YEARS
At the end of his life, R’ Sender lived in Crown Heights. He passed away at the age of 80 on Erev Shabbos, 26 Av 5740/1980. He was survived by the Wilschansky and Dubrawski families and merited to see his descendants going in the way of Chassidus as shluchim, roshei yeshivos, mashpiim, and rabbanim of Chabad communities around the world.
Some Chassidim who lived in Crown Heights and had benefited from R’ Sender’s hospitality in Kutais – R’ Yechezkel Brod, R’ Sholom Ber Pevsner, R’ Sholom Morosow, and others – went to R’ Shmaryahu Gurary (Rashag) who, as a member of the chevra kadisha of Aguch, was responsible for burial plots, and asked him to designate a plot for R’ Sender that was near the Ohel. They told Rashag about R’ Sender’s mesirus nefesh for the talmidim in Kutais and Rashag was tremendously impressed. He said: I did not know that such a great Chassid walked about among us.
Although, in those years, most of the plots near the Ohel were already taken, and only special individuals merited this, R’ Sender was one of those few who was buried near the Ohel.
LEIB HENOCH MENKIN A”H
R’ Sender had a son named Leib Henoch, who died of malaria in Samarkand. In R’ Dubrawski’s reminiscences, after describing the devotion of the Menkin family to the T’mimim, including those with contagious diseases, he highlights the devotion of Leib Henoch to one such patient:
“More than the rest of the family, their only son devoted himself to this student with all his heart and soul. He sat next to the distinguished bachur day and night, hoping to see a change for the better in his condition. He paid no heed to the warnings of the doctor that this illness is contagious. He was so concerned for this bachur and took to heart every turn for the worse, to the point that I once heard the following speculation:
‘There is a speculation that the Menkin’s only son gave years of his life to the sick bachur who got better. The Menkin boy died a few years later in Samarkand, when he learned in Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim. He was in the prime of his life. He died suddenly and unexpectedly. Physically, he was absolutely healthy and suddenly came down with a fever, and it was felt that he was taken by Heaven.
‘This hypothesis is almost certainly nothing more than fantasy, but an interesting fantasy with a solid foundation. The Menkin boy was very special. He definitely could have done something like that.’”
He also wrote about him:
“You can imagine that the small Menkin house was far from spacious and nice, but this brother did not even want to take pleasure in a house like this. ‘If you want to get even a little close to Chassidus, you need to forgo something; to want less,’ he would say.
“He did not take a bed for himself at home and mingled with the bachurim. If it happened that they bought a kurtka (a short garment that warms the body during the winter), he found a thousand reasons not to wear it. Nearly all the bachurim, aside from him, used it.
“When war refugees arrived in Kutais, weak and in torn clothes, he did not rest for a minute. He would not take care of them during learning time, and so every minute between s’darim and after s’darim, by day and by night, he went from house to house (where many Georgian Jews lived) to collect food and clothing for them.
“It was a special delight to look at his glowing face when the refugees received what he brought for them. He continued in his diligence, not ceasing to work, until he fell into the net of the police who accused him of dealing on the black market and arrested him. It took great effort to extricate him from their clutches and he continued his work as before.”
R’ Yechezkel Brod also wrote about Leib Henoch in open amazement:
“He was a Chassidishe bachur whom I cannot forget. His davening was incredibly sweet. Before davening, he would contemplate Chassidus for a few hours. A regular weekday davening took him at least three to four hours. He also learned very diligently, both Nigleh and Chassidus. I remember once sneaking into his room and seeing how he recited the bedtime Shma. It made a tremendous impression on me.
“The main thing about him was the inward manner in which he took in everything. He hardly ever went out into the street. We had a system by which, every so often, one of the bachurim would go out to bring the food that had been prepared for us. Leib Henoch would try to avoid doing this. When it was his turn, he would ask one of the bachurim to do it in his place and in exchange, he was willing to copy some Chassidic discourses for him or the like. He would do any other service willingly, but he refrained from going out so as not to leave the atmosphere of the yeshiva.
“Leib Henoch was a special bachur and apparently Satan wasn’t able to make peace with the fact that such a bachur existed. Everything seemed perfect. We had the best conditions under which to immerse ourselves in the pure atmosphere of Torah and Chassidus. We had a superb mashpia who was especially devoted to us. But for some reason, he got it into his head that he had to go to Samarkand where the mashpia R’ Nissan Nemenov was.
“In the holy Zohar it says ‘a person’s feet are his guarantors,’ i.e. they lead him to where he has to go. He just got up one day and went to Samarkand. Over there, in the summer, he became sick with malaria and died.”
R’ Yechezkel Brod concludes with these emotional words, “A bachur like Leib Henoch was someone that I would like my children, my grandchildren and the youngsters of today to picture before their eyes. I want them to know that there were Jews, and surely there are Jews like that today, who knew what a bedtime Shma was and what davening at length was.”