AN OLD-WORLD CHASSID IN TODAY’S WORLD

The Chabad Chassidic community as a whole, and the Kfar Chabad community in particular, suffered a tragic loss this past 15 Shevat, upon the passing of a precious and unique prototype of a true Chassid, as expressed in his davening, his learning, his Avodas Hashem, his Chassidic musical abilities, and his hiskashrus to the Rebbe, with a special emphasis on preparing the world to welcome the Rebbe Moshiach Tzidkeinu. * Upon the passing of an extraordinary Chassid, Rabbi Avrohom Lisson a”h. * Part 1 of 2.

Friday night. There are the sounds of rejoicing along with the clinking of cutlery and Chassidic niggunim that rise from family Shabbos meals throughout Kfar Chabad. At the same time, in the central shul of the Kfar, stands a diminutive figure in a black sirtuk, davening Kabbalas Shabbos with longing and yearning to the tune of a Chassidic niggun that highlights the words and seems to give them renewed significance. At times, he bursts into tears that seem to go on and on. This is a Chassid from a previous generation who pours out his heart and soul before G-d.

Around him, the shul is empty aside from two or three boys who finished their Shabbos meal and came to see this Chassid absorbed in prayer that lasts for hours.

This was Rabbi Avrohom Lisson a”h, recently taken from our world, one of those who represented the ideal image of the Chassidim who lived in Kfar Chabad since the first year of its founding until a few weeks ago.

His countenance was always aglow and warmly inviting at all times and in all circumstances, whether he was in shul teaching Tanya with great earnestness between Mincha and Maariv, whether he was farbrenging with Russian-speakers or English-speaking hippies about the sweetness of Chassidus, or when he melted away in his yearning-filled prayers, and even when he rode his bicycle through the streets of the Kfar with a plastic basket on the handlebars packed with booklets and Chassidic brochures for him to distribute. Under every circumstance, R’ Avrohom Lisson was a model of a Chassid.

If you wanted to show your child what a Chassid is, you would point at R’ Avrohom, as though he had walked out of a Kleinman painting.

R’ Avrohom was a fascinating, uncommon combination: all embracing love, endless emotional feeling and Chassidic toughness.  He would employ all three simultaneously as he reached out to others, whoever they may be; a veteran Chassid who came from Russia, a youngster from Atlanta who came to spend Shabbos in Kfar Chabad, a kibbutznik that met him at the tefillin stand on Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, or those who were down and out and settled in his home and felt at home there.  This was to some extent because R’ Avrohom knew seven languages, but above all else, he knew the language of the heart and the soul that shone through his eyes.

EXTREME WARTIME TRIBULATIONS

R’ Avrohom passed away on the 15^th of Shevat, the Rosh Hashana for trees. He was born 96 years earlier, on 12 Cheshvan 5683 in Ponevezh, Lithuania to his parents Shmuel Tzvi Hirsh and Yenta. He was named for his grandfather who was the father-in-law of R’ Shmuel Tzvi, a Chassid of the Tzemach Tzedek.

I visited him in his home several years ago and he hosted me graciously. I wanted to ask him about his life, but he said no; who was he that he needed to talk about himself? He was only willing to talk about his father.

“I left my parents and siblings and many relatives for reasons that are hard to describe. I fled Ponevezh at the age of 18 on the third day of the invasion of the cursed Germans into Lithuania on 29 Sivan 1941, leaving behind my fellow Jews, about fifteen thousand of them, to their bitter fate, may Hashem avenge their blood.”

His father was a Chassid who had learned in Lubavitch. His fellow Chassidim remembered him from yeshiva as a deep-thinking Chassid, a lamdan who received rabbinic ordination. He knew several orders of the Mishna by heart and was knowledgeable in all four sections of Shulchan Aruch. He served as maggid shiur in Gemara, Mishna, and Chassidus.

His father went to Ponevezh upon the instructions of the Rebbe Rashab. He married in Ponevezh and then began creating a Lubavitcher atmosphere there. Although there were hardly any Chassidim, R’ Lisson founded a Chassidic shul, reviewed maamarim regularly, taught Tanya and spread the wellsprings.

“I will mention a few points to describe his lofty person,” said R’ Avrohom. “His face had an unusual glow, his piercing eyes conveyed goodness and intelligence.  His unofficial job was mashpia of the Chassidim of the town. The townspeople, no matter their outlook and age, loved him and called him ‘der Chassid’l.’ Despite his financial burdens, he was devoted to his shlichus and represented the Chabad nucleus of Ponevezh. The Chabad movement in our town grew forth and spread from him.”

R’ Avrohom spent a long time emotionally describing his father.

“Interestingly,” said R’ Avrohom’s children, “whatever he said about his father, we saw in him. His father was the Chassidic model around which our father constructed his life and his family.”

One of R’ Avrohom’s childhood memories was of the visit of the Chassid R’ Itche der masmid. On this visit to Ponevezh, R’ Itche publicly reviewed a Chassidic maamer and offered some words of inspiration, after which he had a few crumbs of the refreshments that were served him. Although the townspeople were Litvaks, as soon as R’ Itche tasted something, they swooped on the leftovers, leaving not a drop [as Chassidim do with an Admor’s shirayim-leftover food]. That is how amazed they were by him.

During the five to six years that followed R’ Avrohom’s escape from Ponevezh, he underwent countless travails as he wandered from town to town and from kolkhoz to kolkhoz, trying to find a quiet corner in the cruel world around him. He sustained himself with potato peels, watermelon rinds or beets. Death stalked him, but Hashem protected him. Those years were a series of open miracles. “Every day, I found myself in a different place, searching for food and escaping danger. I was sometimes seriously sick.” His parents, siblings and grandparents were all murdered on the same day. “There were days that I thought it was all over.”

Over the years, here and there, he would tell about the suffering he endured, but his family hardly remembers anything.

“We preferred not to take it all in,” they say.

“During those years, I would often review my name, ‘Avrohom ben Yenta,’ because in my great suffering I nearly forgot my name,” which testifies to how greatly he suffered.

THE STUDY OF TANYA

To R’ Avrohom, Tanya represented a world onto itself, a world of learning, mind and emotions, and he drew his family as well as his friends in shul into it, as well as anyone who was willing to listen.

He often went to shul between Mincha and Maariv and began animatedly teaching Tanya. To him, the daily shiur that everyone would read through quickly was an experience that couldn’t be allowed to pass just like that.

Every Shabbos meal was an opportunity to learn Tanya as a family experience. Between the fish and the meat, he appointed the little ones as group leaders and sent them to bring s’farim and give them out.

“Before we began learning, he would start to sing ‘Yehi ratzon she’nizkeh lilmod Tanya’ with a Chassidic tune, and only then would we start learning, with each person reading a portion and explaining it according to the level of the participants,” said his daughter, Mrs. Schildkraut. “Sometimes, we would sing afterward, ‘Ashreinu she’zachinu lilmod Tanya.’

“He infused Tanya into our bones; he would literally stand over us to learn Tanya. 

“We never understood why he made such a big deal about it. We know that some families who became aware of this adopted the practice,” adds his daughter Mrs. Shmuelevitz. “For us, learning Tanya during the Shabbos meal was a whole big deal.”

One day, he told his family that after suffering during the war, he ended up in the DP camp in Poking, Germany where he met Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Tzvi Katz, a Lubavitcher Chassid. At a certain point, he saw him standing and davening with d’veikus as his jacket swayed back and forth to the pace of the prayer and this won his heart.

R’ Katz once told R’ Avrohom that his son (Rabbi Yaakov Katz a”h, later a rosh yeshiva in Tomchei T’mimim), who was learning in yeshiva, knew chapters of Tanya by heart.

“When my father heard the word ‘Tanya,’ all his senses went on high alert.  Childhood memories flooded his mind and he remembered that when his father would give Tanya shiurim, he, little Avrohom, would give each person a Tanya. This electrified him,” he told us.

In his memoirs, R’ Avrohom recalls previously forgotten details which shed light on the special feeling he had for Tanya. “It was customary by us [in Ponevezh] that after Kabbalas Shabbos, before saying ‘k’gavna,’ we would stop to hear a chapter from Tanya taught by my father. Most of the people sat around the long table, and from the bookcase near the southern wall I would take out about thirty Tanyas and distribute them. Then I would collect them at the end of the shiur which lasted about an hour. My father’s way of saying Tanya was in a powerful and drawn out voice, which was a sort of blend of forcefulness and sweetness, a blend that poured forth over the entire room and undoubtedly permeated the inner faculties of the listeners.”

This experience of learning Tanya was engraved in the child’s soul, an experience which he faithfully copied. “I well remember my father’s special voice for saying Tanya. It contained a certain essential tonality that penetrated into the deep recesses of the soul in an original manner, which reverberated inside for the rest of a person’s life. Buried inside this underlying tone was a powerful magnetic force, such that even after years of physical and psychological peregrinations it brought me back into being a part of Anash.”

It was the incidental mention of Tanya to the war refugee who was 22 years old, which brought him back to the fold of Chabad Chassidim. It led him to join the Chassidim who had recently escaped from Russia.

He later wrote about this to the Rebbe, how the very word “Tanya” shook him up and aroused his feelings for his heritage and roots.  The Rebbe replied, “If just this word caused such a change in you, all the more so actually learning Tanya!”

Indeed, all his life, R’ Avrohom taught Tanya to whoever wanted to learn it. Until the day before he died, he still animatedly taught the daily Tanya shiur in the central shul in Kfar Chabad.

Another one of the experiences that made a deep impression on him was Purim that was celebrated in the DP camp. He saw Chassidim, Chabad Chassidim, dancing with Chassidic fervor and this drew him in.

THE FAMOUS MASHPIA CHOSE THE REFUGEE AS HIS SON-IN-LAW

From the DP camp, R’ Avrohom went to France where he joined his fellow T’mimim in the yeshiva in Brunoy run by the mashpia, Reb Nissan Nemanov. There, he began to return to himself after years of misery, of being all alone in the world. He learned diligently and became fully devoted to Reb Nissan. Throughout his life, he would mention ideas that he heard from Reb Nissan and sang the niggun he loved to sing.

He caught the attention of the mashpia, later of Kfar Chabad, Reb Shlomo Chaim Kesselman, who later took him as a son-in-law in the winter of 1949, after receiving the go ahead from the Rebbe Rayatz:  “The suggestion of the shidduch for your daughter with the talmid Avrohom sh’yichyeh Lisson is a good thing, and they should arrange, with the help of Hashem yisborach, their wedding for mazel tov before the trip [to Eretz Yisroel] and you should all travel together.”

The Rebbe Rayatz responded in an unusual fashion about the shidduch, citing the words, “v’yatziv, v’nachon, v’kayam, v’yashar, v’neeman, v’ahuv, v’chaviv.” R’ Avrohom later said that these were not simply poetic expressions, for these descriptions corresponded to his seven children.

The Rebbe Rayatz told them to marry any time in Adar or in Nissan, until Pesach.

“Thanks to that wedding,” said his brother-in-law, the mashpia, R’ Zev Wolf Kesselman, “I first got to understand what Sheva Brachos are meant to be, a seemingly not understood phrase when used in reference to the seven days of feasting in a general sense, since on each of those days, the Sheva Brachos are said separately.  It was only then that I realized that it actually means seven whole days, which actually turned into one Sheva Brachos meal that extended for seven days.  Every night, my father and the Chassidim farbrenged, with each farbrengen lasting from the beginning of night to light of day. Then they went to the mikva and davened Shacharis, and after resting a bit and davening Mincha and Maariv, the farbrengen started up again.”

Shortly after the wedding, the young couple, together with the extended family, moved to Eretz Yisroel as the Rebbe Rayatz instructed.

At first, the Lisson couple lived in the Beer Yaakov transit camp, but shortly thereafter they moved to Shafrir which became Kfar Chabad, the yishuv that had just been founded. Rabbi and Mrs. Avrohom and Yehudis Lisson were two of the founders of the Kfar.

IN THE FIELD OF CHINUCH

In 1952, the Rebbe established the school network of Oholei Yosef Yitzchok, whose purpose was to bring thousands of Jewish children close to their Father in Heaven by means of a pure Jewish education.  To that end, the Chassidim were called upon from day one to mobilize to register children in the schools, whose future depended on the numbers of students registered.

As a Chassid and loyal soldier, R’ Avrohom Lisson got right to work, and together with his friend R’ Dovid Lesselbaum, he went from Kfar Chabad to Yaffo and to the nearby immigrant camps to sign up children for the new schools.

This was not an easy job at all.  In those days, there was practically no bus service from Kfar Chabad, and the two of them bounced around on the roads for many days, crossing through overgrown fields of weeds and thorns, traveling great distances on foot while on the lookout for Arab marauders who would ambush and kill Jewish residents.  Under these harsh conditions, they signed up more and more children for the schools.

He himself was asked to teach in the new school that was then established in Kfar Saba, and then later transferred to the school in Zarnoga near Rechovot, where he taught for twenty years until the early 1970’s.  At that point, he developed chronic hoarseness and could not continue to teach, and thus he was forced into early retirement on disability.

THE “KOTEL” IN TEL AVIV

During that period, he set up his famous tefillin stand that functioned as a sort of miniature Chabad House, whose impact affected thousands of Jews over the years.

Every morning, he would get on the bus from Kfar Chabad to Tel Aviv, as his wife accompanied him to the bus stop with warm blessings, “Travel in health and Hashem should make your trip successful.”

His hands were always busy to the point of exhaustion.  He would bring along five pairs of tefillin that were almost always in constant use. Here he was putting tefillin on one fellow, then taking off the tefillin from another, inviting a third person, and so on.

Once, in the summer of 1981, a group of officers in the Israel Air Force passed by.  They looked at him, exchanged a few words among themselves, and then approached one at a time to put on tefillin.  The whole event seemed strange to him, since it was an anomalous sight for a group of officers to approach of their own accord, as a group, in order to put on tefillin.

Two or three days after that, accounts of the air force raid to blow up the nuclear reactor in Iraq, thousands of kilometers from Eretz Yisroel, became public.  That is when he realized that the officers who had stopped at his stand were the pilots sent on this daring mission, and they wanted to fortify themselves with spiritual sustenance as a segula for success.

The image of R’ Avrohom drew many people to him, who saw him as a sort of Kotel HaMaaravi.  People began to share their various problems with him; health matters, marriage issues, work related problems, and more.  He would bless them from the depths of his heart and take down their names to be sent to the Rebbe at the next opportunity.

Additionally, he would counsel people regarding how to conduct themselves in light of their problems.  Often, he would prod them to check their tefillin and mezuzos, or to take on a mitzva observance.

His son R’ Shlomo Chaim, shliach in the Carmel West neighborhood in Haifa relates, “During the days of Shiva, many people came who knew him from Tel Aviv over the years.  One woman came here who said that she once experienced  a significant and inexplicable weight loss.  She saw him at the stand and asked him for his blessing.  My father counseled her to check the mezuzos in her home, and it turned out that the words v’achalta v’savata (and you shall eat and be satiated) were erased.”

His daughter Mrs. Rivka Schildkraut added another such account, “A woman came to console us who told how she told my father about some problems that she had. He sent her to Machon Stam in B’nei Brak where they found the source of the problem in the mezuzos.  She was so excited that ever since then she herself sends people to check their tefillin and mezuzos.  She maintained a connection with my father all the years.  She even added emotionally how he always remembered the names of all of her children and would pray for them on a regular basis.”

Slowly but surely, the stand developed into a spiritual lighthouse in the heart of Tel Aviv, or as one of the visitors to the Shiva house, who knew him from the tefillin stand, put it, “He was the equivalent of the Kotel HaMaaravi of Tel Aviv.”  R’ Avrohom took to heart every question, and he did all in his power to provide balm for the soul and spiritual first aid.

His son R’ Yosef Yitzchok points out, “My father had great communication skills with people.  He also understood and spoke many languages, which enabled him to speak to just about anybody.  My father spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, English, Russian, French, Polish and Lithuanian.”

Another son, R’ Yom Tov from Montreal, recalls how on one of his visits to Eretz Yisroel, he accompanied his father on his way to the tefillin stand on Allenby Street. “I remember a soldier and his mother who came to ask for a bracha about a private matter.  Of course, he wrote their names down in order to send them to the Rebbe, while he himself gave a warm blessing from the depths of his heart.  I saw how people felt secure speaking with him, especially about delicate situations.  My father encouraged the soldier and his mother in putting on tefillin and the observance of Shabbos. I will never forget the happy faces of the mother and her son as they parted from him. I saw clearly how a heavy load was removed from their hearts.”   

It was fascinating to see R’ Avrohom maneuver his way between the many tasks of his tefillin stand.  Between putting tefillin on one person, taking them off another, and calling out to a third person, he would converse with those Jews who sought his counsel, giving them his complete and sincere attention.  You could see people standing on the stairs of the Beit Knesset HaGadol on Allenby, waiting for a chance to speak to him.

There were people who had no children, and he would send them to check their tefillin and mezuzos. He would also encourage them to sign up for a monthly direct deposit donation to a Beit Chabad as a segula. His daughter Mrs. Shmuelevitz recounts such a story. “A woman who came here (to the Shiva house) told how she and her husband did not merit to have children for a number of years.  She met my father on the street and asked him for a bracha.  Of course, he asked for her name to send to the Rebbe, while also advising her to give a monthly direct deposit donation to a certain Chabad institution in the north of Eretz Yisroel.  One year later, she had twins.”

R’ Lisson did everything from a place of very deep inner truth and endless love for his fellow Jews.  Any problem of any Jew was something he took to heart. Along with the encouragement that he would give and taking down the names to send to the Rebbe, he would offer advice to those seeking a salvation as to how they might prepare themselves to be proper vessels to receive the blessings.

That is what happened with one Jew who was once walking down Allenby Street with a dejected look on his face.  R’ Avrohom stopped him and asked why he looked so sad. At first, the person tried to avoid answering, but when he saw how much the inquiring stranger really cared, he spilled forth his pain.  He said that his daughter was sick and in critical condition, and the doctors were pessimistic about her situation.  R’ Avrohom began to encourage him and took the name of the sick child to send to the Rebbe as soon as possible.  In conclusion, he took a D’var Malchus pamphlet out of his pack and handed it to the man saying, “Put this under your daughter’s pillow as a segula.”  In fact, a short while later, the girl returned to full health in miraculous fashion.

That Jew came to tell R’ Avrohom about what happened, and he again asked his advice, this time regarding moving up to a higher position at work.  It turned out that he worked in the offices of a local municipality in the north of Eretz Yisroel, and he wished to move to a position of higher authority and responsibility, but he saw no practical possibility of doing so.  R’ Avrohom mentioned to him the name of the shliach in that place, “He has good connections in the local council; tell him to help you.”  The shliach in question accepted the request and helped the man get a promotion.

“My father operated from a place of deep and pure faith.  When he spoke, these were no ordinary words, but words that came from the heart, and when he acted it was with deep conviction.  Of course, he would also report everything to the Rebbe.  Once a week, he would send a fax of many pages to the Rebbe with many tens or even hundreds of names of Jews that met him that week at the stand and requested a salvation.

“My father concerned himself with these people like a father for his children.  He even maintained contact with these families for many years and would send them Torah and Chassidus material in order to illuminate their homes with spiritual light.  Until very recently, he would still travel to Tel Aviv once a month in order to meet with his people and their families, with the purpose of influencing and bestowing upon them from the positive flow that filled his heart and soul.  Many of these families changed their homes to Torah homes and even Chassidic homes.”

His son R’ Shlomo Chaim adds, “As a boy, I would sit with my father by the Shabbos davening in the central shul (in Kfar Chabad).  He would daven with a quiet tune, but at times I would suddenly hear his voice sobbing terribly to the point that I would shrink into my seat, waiting for the moment that he would stop crying, but he would cry and cry…

“Once, I worked up the nerve to ask him, ‘Abba, why do you cry so much?’  And he answered me, ‘I think about the Jews that I meet during the week in Tel Aviv. I hear about their problems and I ask and pray for them.  I go through all of their names and the names of their children in my mind, like I think about you, my children, and I think about all of you.  I have a responsibility…”

SPREADING THE LIGHT

As his son R’ Yosef Yitzchok recounts, “Every Motzaei Shabbos, my father would gather from the tables in shul all of the pamphlets of D’var Malchus, sichos and maamarim of the Rebbe, and other Chassidic reading material, which would soon otherwise find their way into sheimos, and he would send them by mail during the week to the people that he was mekarev to Judaism.

“This is one of the things that I learned from him and adopted as a regular practice.  I too began to collect pamphlets of Chassidus that would have been consigned to sheimos, and instead of them being buried, I give them out on mivtzaim wherever I am.

“I stand at the tefillin stand and see religious people walking by on the street.  It is not appropriate to offer them to put on tefillin, so I pull out a D’var Malchus or sicha of the Rebbe and offer it to them.  There are times that I offer people to put on tefillin and they decline for whatever reason they have, so I suggest that at least they take a pamphlet with Chassidic content.  Even if I did not succeed in putting tefillin on very many people that day, this gives me much satisfaction.  I know that somebody is reading a few lines from a sicha of the Rebbe and is connecting to the Rebbe through his Torah teachings. One can never know how far that might reach and to what extent it makes an impact.”

* * *

R’ Avrohom manned his tefillin stand in Tel Aviv for nearly forty years.  During those years, he encountered tens of thousands of people upon whom he left a deep impression, whether in a direct manner or by exposure to his refined Chassidic countenance.

For many years, he would travel from Kfar Chabad to Tel Aviv by bus or by getting hitches at the side of the highway.  However, at a certain point, when his hearing became impaired, it began to become dangerous.  His late wife, a woman of valor, insisted that he travel by taxi, but R’ Avrohom declined to do so for some time, despite the possible danger.

“One day, my father began traveling to the tefillin stand via taxi service,” recounts his daughter Mrs. Alperowitz.  What happened?  It seems that he had a dream that the Rebbe came to him and said, “I am requesting of you that you travel with taxis.”

(More about his life story in the next installment.)