This Day in History – 11 Sivan/May 29

In 5318/1558, Germany’s Kaiser restricted certain liberties of the Jews, after previous governments gave them those rights.

Yahrtzeiten

5704/1944, Harav Mordechai Brisk of Tchanad, Hungary, author of She’eilos U’teshuvos Maharam Brisk, Hy”d

5749/1989, Harav Yehudah Horowitz of Dzikov, zt”l

5763/2003, Harav Simcha Rubin, zt”l, the Sassover Rebbe of London

5749/1989, Harav Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss, The Minchas Yitzchak, zy”a

Harav Weiss was born 8 Adar 5662/1902. His father was Harav Yosef Yehudah of Dolina, Galicia. As a young child he absorbed much Torah and Chassidus from the Ziditchover Rebbe of Dolina, Harav Yehudah Zvi Eichenstein, zt”l, whom he regarded as one of his primary Rebbes.

Reb Yitzchak Yaakov had a daily three-hour shiur with his father, during which Reb Yosef Yehudah taught his son the derech in both limud and avodas Hashem that he acquired from his Rebbe, the Arugas Habosem, zt”l. In his introduction to one of his sefarim, Harav Weiss remembers his father, “who raised me in the path of the Torah and yirah, and turned nights into days to teach me and to guide me to understand the words of our holy Torah.”

While still young he began recording his chiddushim and even submitted some to be published in a number of local Torah journals. By the time he was 15, Reb Yitzchak Yaakov had already attracted the attention of Gedolei Hador, who predicted a glorious future for him.

In 5782/1922, when Rav Yitzchak Yaakov turned 20, he received an order to report for military service. He wrote a letter to a friend, a grandson of the Belzer Rebbe, Reb Yissachar Dov, asking him to ask his grandfather for a brachah that he be spared from serving in the army. The Belzer Rebbe replied according to the ­Mishnah in Avos: “Whoever accepts upon himself the yoke of the Torah is relieved from the yoke of ­malchus.” Rav Weiss “accepted the yoke of Torah” anew and moved to the neighboring town of Helmin, where he toiled in Torah in an unprecedented fashion. He never heard from the army again.

In 5688/1928 he married the daughter of Harav Pinchos Zimetbaum, zt”l, from Grosswardein, Transylvania (now part of Romania).

In addition to teshuvos he wrote concerning local matters, Rav Weiss began answering she’eilos that began arriving from across the country. From his sefer, it is apparent that he corresponded at length with many of the Gedolim of the era, among them the famed Rogatchover Gaon, Harav Yosef Rosen, zt”l, and the Gaon Reb Aharon Walkin, zt”l, of Pinsk.

By the time WWII broke out, Rav Weiss was acclaimed as one of the major Rabbanim in the area.

During the war, Rav Weiss hid in a bunker for six weeks and later miraculously fled across the border. He recorded and documented all the harrowing trials and tribulations he endured in the first volume of his sefer, Minchas Yitzchak. Of his entire large and extended family that lived in Grosswardein before the war, only Harav Weiss and one son, Rav Berish, shlita, survived.

After the war he settled in England, where he served as the Rav of Manchester until 5729/1969. In Manchester, he completed She’eilos U’teshuvos Minchas Yitzchak. In 5730/1970 the Satmar Rebbe appointed him Raavad of the Beis Din Eidah Hachareidis of Yerushalayim, and after the Rebbe’s petirah he became the Gaavad.

Harav Weiss was niftar in Yerushalayim on 11 Sivan 5775 and is buried on Har Hazeisim.

 Yehi zichro baruch.

May 29

In 1765, Patrick Henry denounced the Stamp Act before Virginia’s House of Burgesses.

In 1790, Rhode Island became the 13th original colony to ratify the United States Constitution.

In 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state of the union.

In 1932, World War I veterans began arriving in Washington to request cash bonuses they weren’t scheduled to receive until 1945.

In 1961, a couple in Paynesville, West Virginia, became the first recipients of food stamps under a pilot program created by President John F. Kennedy.