R’ Aharon Ilan followed a long and winding road until he found his current home in the Chabad community of Tzfas. He was born in Moldova and knew nothing about his Jewish heritage. The story behind his bris mila is a literal “Baal Shem’sker” miracle. His grandparents had been “eliminated” by the N.K.V.D., and he made plans to escape from the Soviet Union via glider. Even after his arrival in Eretz Yisroel, he endured some very serious crises, alongside numerous achievements, until he came to a Tanya class and discovered a whole new world.
Translated by Michoel Leib Dobry
For the purpose of conducting this interview, we came to the modest home of R’ Aharon Ilan in Tzfas, the City of the Kabbalists, where we met him together with his wife as they were working on their sewing and needlework. His beard is white, pure as snow. He spoke with the utmost sincerity, as his face shone with a warm and friendly smile.
His personal appearance and faith-filled words seem as if they belong to a different era. He speaks from the depths of his heart with a delightful simplicity, and as we listened to his life’s story, we became even more impressed. This humble Jew didn’t look this way ten years ago. During his life, he ran several successful companies, employing hundreds of people. He was among the developers of the Israeli Lavi jetfighter in the days before the Americans soured on the project.
R’ Aharon was born and raised in Moldova, under the oppressive Soviet boot, where he studied hydro-pneumonic automatic engineering systems. However, when he immigrated to Eretz Yisroel, he quickly realized that he wouldn’t be able to find work in his field of expertise. As a result, he changed course and began running insurance companies and marketing various products, earning a great deal of money. For many years, he knew nothing about his Judaism, apart from the fact that he was a Jew. A long spiritual journey finally brought him back to his Jewish roots. While R’ Aharon’s life story can easily fill a large book, we settled for a few gleanings suitable for an article of this size.
THE HAND OF EVIL PREVAILED
According to R’ Aharon, most of his family members were slaughtered in the Kishinev pogroms and during the Second World War. “My grandmother was born in Mezhibuzh, kidnapped by Gentile criminals and eventually redeemed by some wealthy Jews from Odessa. She came from a Chassidic home and married my grandfather, who also came from a Torah observant household. Even during the most difficult days of the Communist regime, he stubbornly kept the Jewish flame alive. When he was concerned about davening in a synagogue, my grandfather built a ‘shtibel’ in the rear courtyard of his house.”
According to R’ Aharon, his father, who was a boy at the time, dug a pit in the middle of one of the rooms in the house. It was covered with a tree trunk, and underneath it were hidden Torah scrolls, siddurim, and Chumashim. “For a lengthy period of time, Jews in Kishinev, who knew the secret, would come to my father’s house on Shabbos and Yom tov for communal prayer services. All this came to a sudden end one Shabbos, when members of the Yevsektzia and the KGB burst into the room and arrested everyone. The only ones who weren’t arrested were my grandparents. Some of the worshippers were sent to Siberia, others received lengthy imprisonments, and two were murdered during their interrogation. By the time this happened, my father had already enlisted in the Red Army.
“Everyone was surprised how my grandparents, in whose home the minyanim were held and who should have been considered the main culprits, had not been detained. However, they didn’t escape punishment for long, and the evil regime eventually dealt with them in their own way. My grandfather was in charge of importing food to the city, and on his way to one of the factories outside Kishinev to load his truck with supplies, he met his death when he fell into a deep ravine. My grandmother, who checked herself into a hospital because she hadn’t been feeling well, suddenly passed away the next day with no explanation given. Until then, she had been a healthy woman requiring no medical treatment whatsoever.
“My father married my mother, a member of the Jewish community in Kishinev. When I and my siblings were born, we knew that we were Jews, and we regularly heard stories about the piety and virtue of our grandparents, but not much more than that. To my regret, we lived a life without Torah and mitzvos, and it was only the anti-Semitism of our Gentile neighbors that reminded us how different we really were from them.”
THE SOUL CRIES
The story behind R’ Aharon’s bris mila is no less amazing. “I was born in 5715, two years after the death of Stalin, may his name be erased. The fear of an even more tyrannical despot following him was real. The NKVD and the secret police intensified their intelligence activities against perceived enemies of the Soviet regime. All the synagogues in Kishinev had already been closed; the city had no kosher mikveh or mohel. The city’s central synagogue had been turned into a storehouse for ammunition.
“When I was born, my parents did not even consider giving me a bris mila. In fact, while I had been born a completely healthy child, I couldn’t seem to stop crying and refused to eat. My parents didn’t know what to do. They took me to doctors who examined me again and again, yet they failed to determine the reason for my constant wailing. As time passed, my body weight continued to drop - my mother told me that it even dipped below six and a half pounds. By this time, the doctors had already given up hope and they informed my parents that they should prepare for the worst. Then, my personal salvation came from an unexpected source: my uncle arrived for a visit.
“When he saw me, he told my mother: ‘What is this? He doesn’t look well.’ My mother cried and told him about the state of my health. He immediately asked her: ‘Has he been circumcised?’ My mother burst into tears and asked him why he had to rub salt on her wounds, as he knew that there was no mohel in the city. My uncle wasted no time. Taking out a pencil and paper, he jotted down the address of a mohel in another town and convinced my parents to go and see him. They wrapped me up in a woolen blanket, as it was very cold at the time - about thirty degrees below zero, and they traveled with me by train to the address that my uncle had given them.
“They found the address with some difficulty. Clearing a path between piles of snow, they came up to the house and knocked on the door. A man opened the door a crack, and my parents asked him to give me a bris mila. ‘A bris mila?’ the man stormed angrily. ‘Not here. You’re making a mistake. I don’t do such things!’ and he slammed the door. My mother held me tightly, sat down in front of the door, and sobbed uncontrollably. About an hour later, the door opened again. This time, the man calmly appeared and told my parents to come inside. He then proceeded to circumcise me.
“‘I had to be careful as I was worried that you might be members of the secret police coming to entrap me,’ he apologized. ‘However, when I saw how your wife was crying and how much this hurt her, I realized that you were good Jews and you were speaking the truth.’ He blessed me and my parents with good health and we returned home. Lo and behold, from the moment I was circumcised, I stopped my incessant crying and began eating again like any other healthy infant.”
“THE GOON HELD TIGHTLY ON TO MY ARMS”
R’ Aharon explained to us that while anti-Semitism is obviously a terrible phenomenon, it was also instrumental in making certain that many Jews didn’t forget their pintele yid, as the Gentiles reminded them day and night of their national origin. So it was with R’ Aharon. After completing his compulsory school studies, he registered as an engineering student at the University of Kishinev, where he found other Jewish friends. In private conversations, the subject of Jewish identity frequently came up.
“One year, just before the Pesach holiday, I decided that I wanted matzos. The truth is that I didn’t know what matzos were, what they signified, and why we ate them. However, I also knew that it was a Jewish custom to eat matzos on Pesach and I wanted to have this experience. The only place where I could get matzos was the city’s ancient synagogue. Several seniors still davened there, although the building was frightfully dirty and neglected. The order of things back in those days was that anyone who wanted matzos had to bring several kilos of flour to the synagogue. Then, on Erev Pesach, the person would come back and get the matzos from the gabbaim - and so I did.
“I came to the synagogue with three kilos of flour. Standing at the entrance was a big brawny man who looked at me with suspicion and hostility. It was quite clear that he wasn’t a Jew. As soon as I walked inside the shul’s sanctuary, I met with the gabbai. I gave him the flour, and he promised that I would receive two kilos of matzos. I then paid him his fee for services rendered and walked outside. I had taken only one step past the door when this goon grabbed me tightly by the arms. ‘We know exactly who you are,’ he said. ‘What’s your business here?’
“I told him that I had come to buy matzos, but he cut me off and said that he knew exactly where I learned and who my friends were. He was trying to frighten me, and he was doing a very good job of it. He then added: ‘If we see you coming here again, you’ll be thrown out of the university, you won’t be hired for any job, and you’ll sit at home with nothing to do!’ Only then did he release his fingers from my arms, and I quickly left the premises as I tried to catch my breath. Naturally, I never did go back to that synagogue, and I made a personal vow: At the first opportunity, I would escape from the Soviet Union.
“In fact, not long afterwards, I planned to flee via the border with the Carpathian Mountains. During my university studies, I designed a wind glider with which I would float over the border. I had already made all the sketches and diagrams, but when I told my close friend about my plans, he convinced me to forget the idea. He had two good reasons: First, what would happen to my family? They would surely be harassed and persecuted due to my escape. Second, Mikhail Gorbachev, who would give the Soviet people their first taste of freedom in nearly seventy years, was about to become leader of the U.S.S.R.”
THE NIGHT THE HEAVENS OPENED
After being rejected several times in their application for exit visas, the long awaited permit was finally granted and the extended Ilan family immigrated to Eretz Yisroel in 5749. “I realized rather quickly that I wouldn’t find a job in Eretz Yisroel in my field of expertise. I went to learn economics and pension insurance at the University of Tel Aviv and went out to work. I started as an insurance agent and later opened my own agency - the ‘Etgar’ Company. During the good days, we ran several branches and employed about seventy agents. I felt that I had reached the zenith. Here I was, a new immigrant in a new country attaining tremendous success in such a short period of time.”
Unfortunately, during this same period, an insurance agent joined the business who turned out to be a swindler. In a variety of crooked ways, he managed to empty the company’s coffers and flee the country. “In an instant, I went from happy and carefree to sad and melancholy. It’s impossible to describe the heartbreak I felt. Within a short period of time, I had lost all of my money and I fell into a deep depression. While I tried here and there to recover from the blow, none of my efforts proved successful. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I discovered one fine day that I was suffering from arteriosclerosis.”
The situation got worse with each passing day, and the medications didn’t seem to be helping. R’ Aharon had a hard time walking on his feet, and the doctors even recommended amputating one of his limbs. “I endured tremendous suffering and I saw my future in very dark colors. As my illness became more serious, I reached the decision that if I can’t enjoy life, there’s no reason to continue living. I ordered a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the seashore at Ramat Poleg. Realizing that I was in midst of an emotional storm, the cabbie refused to take any money from me. ‘I’ll wait for you here until you finish and then I’ll take you home,’ he said to me. I begged him to leave me alone, but he wouldn’t agree and he stayed there.
“As I stood on the hill near the seashore, I looked heavenward to blue skies and countless stars. With a heartrending cry, I called out, ‘Master of the Universe, I don’t know who You are or if You exist, but if You do exist, give me a sign.’
“At this point, I began to cry like a little child. I asked G-d to do a miracle for me, promising that I would conduct myself as He wished, even though I still didn’t know how a Jew is supposed to act. It turned out that I had been talking for several hours until I managed to calm down and feel a little better. The first rays of sunlight began to illuminate the heavens, and it was only then that I realized how long I had been standing there. As I turned around, I was amazed to see that the cab driver had kept his word and was still waiting for me to come back.”
When R’ Aharon got back into the cab, he saw the driver sobbing. “You moved me,” he said. He took R’ Aharon home and refused to take any fare. “I should be paying you,” he said in a solemn tone. “You’ve awakened my soul.”
“I met this driver several years later when I was hailing a cab,” R’ Aharon recalled. “This time, he was with a kippa and a beard. ‘That night on the shore with you brought me back to my roots,’ he said with great sincerity.
“From that moment, I felt a new spirit surging within me. The state of my health started to progress dramatically. My leg slowly got back to normal, and as my emotional state became more tranquil and the tension waned, my physical condition improved. When I arrived at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv for a scheduled pre-operative examination, the director of vascular surgery who had accompanied me throughout the whole process couldn’t believe that I was the same person he had seen just a few weeks earlier. He asked me to tell him what I had done. At first I was embarrassed, but he kept urging me until I finally told him the whole story about what I went through that night on the shore.”
THE PROCESS IS COMPLETED
R’ Aharon’s path to becoming Torah observant was indeed a long one. He rehabilitated himself and found a respectable source of employment for a person on his level of experience, managing departments for various companies and for a while, he even managed a large geriatric center. “One day, my wife surprised me by saying that she wasn’t Jewish. However, she now yearned to convert and begin observing Torah and mitzvos. ‘I came to the realization that this is my purpose,’ she said, ‘and you too must decide your direction in life.’”
She began to learn in an ulpan for prospective converts and she came back very excited. “I’ll never forget the conversation we had one day when she told me, ‘Aharon, you read non-Jewish books on psychology and spirituality. This is merely a drop in the bucket compared to the sea of knowledge contained within Judaism, which is the root of all knowledge.’ Deep down inside I knew that she was right, but I still didn’t have the courage to change my lifestyle.”
Whenever they met with a Torah observant family, usually on Shabbos, Efrat came back with a feeling of enthusiasm and excitement, which she shared with her husband. One night, she made a suggestion. It was Elul, and the students in the conversion ulpan were going to travel to the Western Wall and Yeshivas “Ohr HaChayim” in Yerushalayim for an evening experience of t’shuva. She suggested that he join them. When he was finally convinced, it turned out that the forces of spiritual evil tried to stop him: There was no place for him on the bus… His wife began to daven that he still might be able to make it. Suddenly, the telephone rang. The organizer of the trip called to let them know that someone had cancelled his reservation…
“We arrived in Yerushalayim at midnight. For the first time in my life, I participated in a prayer service – Slichos at Rabbi Elbaz’s yeshiva together with thousands of people. The t’fillos penetrated my heart, and when I came afterward to the remnants of the Beis HaMikdash, I felt like a lost child returning home. It was simply indescribable. On our way back to Netanya, I was speechless from the intensity of the spiritual experience. Before we got off the bus, I told my wife, ‘Efrat, we’ve played around enough. We’re doing t’shuva.’
“Despite the fact that I was a Jew from birth, I joined my wife in the conversion ulpan, as my knowledge of Judaism was rather miniscule. This was a marvelous time that began in Elul at the Kosel and continued for a lengthy period afterwards. I read every book on Yiddishkait that I could get my hands on – Mishnah, Halacha, musar, and Chassidic stories. At the end of the conversion process, my wife stood before three judges at the head rabbinical court in Yerushalayim. The deliberation began with the rabbis’ stern facial expressions and ended with them wiping tears from their faces after hearing the moving story of her journey to becoming a Jew. The chief judge told me, ‘You have been privileged that G-d sent you a messenger from Heaven. Your wife was blessed with a spark of a lofty soul in order to bring you back along the right path.’
“When we returned to our neighborhood in Netanya, we were called in to see the local rabbi, Rabbi Avraham Gerbi. ‘Now that your wife has joined the Jewish People,’ he declared, ‘the community wants to organize a wedding for you.’ He surprised us and didn’t leave us much time to think. I had thought about making a simple and modest ceremony, but our neighbors had other plans in mind. They collected a sizable amount of money, outfitted us like a proper chassan and kalla, and arranged a wedding celebration for us in one of the city’s most elegant halls. No less than three hundred participants came to rejoice with us on the occasion of our simcha!”
THE LIGHT OF THE TANYA SHINING THROUGH
Over the years, the Ilans became stronger in their Torah and mitzvos, going through the religious Zionist and Litvishe sectors. They then began their involvement with the Breslover community, headed by the rosh kollel Rabbi Yechiel Bosy, who had a very positive influence upon them and even made R’ Aharon his right-hand man. “Another two years passed, but we felt that we simply hadn’t found our place in Netanya. Then, we began to hear more and more about Tzfas. People we were friendly with said some wonderful things about this city, although we had never been here before. We pondered over whether to make the trip north up to Tzfas.”
In their hearts, R’ Aharon and his wife still felt that they hadn’t found their true home. “I again asked the Creator to give me a sign, and my prayers were answered on numerous occasions. The first time when I thought about Tzfas, I lifted my head and saw a bachur holding a pushka bearing the words ‘The Holy City of Tzfas’. The second time, I saw a young man wearing a shirt declaring ‘Tzfas – Your City’…
“When I came home, my wife looked at me and said, ‘Is it true that we’re on our way to Tzfas?’ I asked her to tell me where her strong faith in this matter came from. She replied that she had had a dream the previous night in which we were being led to the City of the Kabbalists. The rosh kollel, Rabbi Bosy, was very sorry that we were leaving. However, he wished us all the best and even gave us the first payment on the rental apartment we eventually found by Divine Providence in Tzfas’ southern neighborhood.
“About a week later, we were at a Tanya class in Kiryat Bialik. This was the first time we had ever been exposed to the teachings of Chabad. I was spellbound. This was a level of spiritual depth I had never encountered before. The class had been recommended to us by one of our new neighbors in Tzfas. While she wasn’t a member of the Chabad community, she was very close to Chabad and told us about the shiurim taught by Rabbi Mordechai Barcoli. At the conclusion of the shiur, I saw that my wife was equally impressed and we met together with the teacher.
“In truth, I was very confused. I belonged to the Breslover community, where they didn’t learn Torah taught by rabbis from other sectors, and surely not Chabad. Here I was at a Tanya class and I felt that I was at a crossroads: Should I stop learning or intensify my study with even greater fortitude? I posed these questions to Rabbi Barcoli and he gave an unreserved response. ‘Write to the Rebbe and you’ll get an answer,’ he told me. ‘Rebbe? What Rebbe?’ I inquired. ‘But he’s no longer with us.’ ‘G-d forbid,’ came the reply. ‘The Rebbe is with us and continues to lead us. Write and see for yourself,’ he said.”
Confused and filled with doubt, R’ Aharon followed Rabbi Barcoli’s advice. He washed his hands, gave tz’daka, made a good resolution, and placed the letter he wrote in a volume of Igros Kodesh. The Rebbe’s answer stunned him. “The Rebbe wrote that he was happy to hear from me after such a long time, and I have surely returned home to my Anash community, and everything is fine. There is no need to be shaken by obstacles and pitfalls; everything will work out and we’ll find new friends. The Rebbe then explained that the Tanya is the Written Torah of Chabad philosophy.
“My wife and I read the letter together and we were both in complete shock. What were the chances that I would receive such a precise answer in a seifer containing hundreds of letters written decades ago? I was amazed. I realized that Chabad was a deep and inner path. Since that day, we have become totally absorbed by the world of Chabad chassidus and we have chosen to be connected to the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach. This shiur in Tanya was a window of opportunity that led the way for us to hear hundreds and thousands of more Torah classes, and eventually give over shiurim of our own.
“I knew that we had reached our final stop. This is what we had been searching for ever since we began our t’shuva process. We met some truly wonderful people in Chabad along our inspiring journey, and at the Rebbe’s advice, we chose Rabbi Yisroel Ze’ev Friedman to be our mashpia.”
THE SKILL THAT REMAINED WITH HIM
The Ilans established their residence in Tzfas, and they enjoy the calm and tranquility that surrounds the holy city. “I love the people here and the quiet of the city. I participate in the Torah and Chassidus classes in this wonderful community, which is a literal Gan Eden for us.”
As we concluded our interview, I asked him: How does a person like him, who ran such large financial operations, prefer to make a living today from needlework?
“I’ll tell you something. My father and grandfather were tailors, and while I wanted to learn this trade, my father wanted me to study engineering. He claimed that tailoring was hard work and not very profitable.
“I listened to him, although not completely. During my engineering studies, I also took a course in sewing. There were days behind the Iron Curtain of hunger and poverty when I only managed to provide for my family because of my knowledge of needlework, and I even built a home with the money I earned from the trade. I really enjoy this work and I invest all my energy in my needlework with a joyful heart.”
MONEY FROM HEAVEN
R’ Aharon and his wife had numerous experiences of Divine Providence in their lives. “I don’t know how we merited this, but throughout our spiritual journey, we felt the presence of G-d’s Guiding Hand.” The following is just one example of many:
“At the start of our kiruv process, we had several trials in the area of parnasa. Shortly before Chanukah, I was hired to run a hostel for senior citizens. I still hadn’t received my first paycheck, when my wife surprised me with a request to buy a beautiful menorah that she had seen in a store. The cost: two hundred shekels. This was all we had left to cover our most basic living expenses for that week. Yet, she was filled with faith and a little stubbornness: It would be a great mitzvah to buy an attractive menorah, and the Creator would help us in our parnasa. I agreed, and we took a ‘sherut’ taxi for ten shekels to the store. Since we had to save an extra ten shekels for our return trip, I thought that I would have to ask the storeowner for a discount of twenty shekels.
“When we arrived at the store, it turned out that we had failed to consider the cost of the oil and wicks. When we realized our mistake, we almost lost hope. However, when the storeowner saw our strong desire to fulfill the mitzvah of Chanukah properly, he agreed to give us the whole set for just one hundred and eighty shekels. We returned home elated, but I was still a bit worried about how we would be able to buy our Shabbos groceries in another two days.
“As these thoughts kept racing through my mind, I arrived at my workplace. Suddenly, a technician from my former company ‘Eden Tal’ entered the office. He had been hired to do some work at the hostel, and he came up to me and said, ‘I have an envelope for you from the manager.’
I opened the envelope and saw a check for exactly one hundred and eighty shekels. The check was accompanied by a letter stating that after a review made by the accounting department, it was found that the company owed me this amount…”