Today, the 12th of Elul, is the day of the passing away of Rabbi Simcha Bonim of Shishisha, one of the most important rebbes in the fourth generation of the Hasidic world. He died about two hundred years ago at the age of 62. As every year, this week too, many followers of Pashisha, Gur, and Sanz gathered to pray and prostrate at his grave. And in the past also one knit (your servant).
Przysucha is a town in Poland. Small in size, but great in its importance to Hasidic history and history. Piszha lies about a hundred kilometers from Warsaw, on the banks of the Radomka River. In its Jewish cemetery lie seven important rebbes, Rabbi Simcha Bonim is one of them.
A tent was built over his grave and the graves of other rebbes, the picture of which is at the top of this article. It also covers the graves of his predecessor, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Rabinowitz (known as “the Holy Jew”), his son the Rebbe Yerachmiel, and his grandsons Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Elhanan Rabinowitz, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Mordechai Bonhard, and Rabbi Yerachmiel Yehuda Meir Rabinowitz, and also Rabbi Avraham the author of the “Magid Mishrim”.
Rabbi Simcha Bonim’s grave is easy to recognize among them, because on it are placed the most notes of redemption of a soul (koitleach). This important tent is a tourist attraction for religious people especially in the month of Elul.
When you enter the gate, it is hard to tell that it is a cemetery. Outside the tent, the cemetery is seen to be neglected. The gravestones fell to the ground, most of them were broken, and are hidden from view by grass and fallen leaves. During the Nazi period, the locals dismantled the fence and some of the gravestones to use them for building and paving sidewalks. Such gravestones were collected, and they are placed near the tent.
Why should Rabbi Simcha Bonim interest us?
Rabbi Simcha Bonim and Rabbi Ya’akov Itchak “the Holy Jew” were students of the contract from Lublin. As is well known, the Beshat founded the Hasidic movement, and gave the leadership to the Magid of Mezrich, who handed it over to Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, who handed it over to Khoza from Lublin. The Khoza from Lublin led a very popular Hasidic court. He received every Jew with a warm welcome, even the common people. Listen to their personal hardships, and was considered a “master of miracles” who performed miracles for his followers. Some of his students thought that he was exaggerating the time and attention he gave to the laity and the people of other countries, at the expense of learning Torah and teaching the students. At one point, a group of followers led by Rabbi Simcha Bonim and the holy Jew abandoned the Beit Midrash, and went To the neighboring town, Pashisha, to establish there an elitist Hasidic court that accepted only scholars with sharp minds in the study of the Torah.
The abandonment of the contract from Lublin and the establishment of the Pashisha Hasidism was considered the “Great Rebellion”. The rebellion is also related to the conquest campaign of Napoleon’s army in Eastern Europe at that time. The contract from Lublin and other rabbis supported Napoleon, because they saw in his conquests a “war of Gog and Magog” which is one of the signs of redemption. On the other hand, Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Ladi and the holy Jew of Peshisha and other rabbis, were afraid of the Messianic hopes among the Jews. Martin Buber wrote the historical novel “Gog and Magog” about the complex relationship of the holy Jew with his rabbi, the Hoza from Lublin.
In the beginning, the holy Jew led Pesisha Chassidism, and after his death, Rabbi Simcha Bonim became the Rebbe of Hasidism. Rabbi Simcha Bonim established the “Pashisha Method” that the Rebbe is a spiritual and religious authority only, and should not interfere in the lives of his followers. The Peshisha Rebbe also advocated core studies , and did not want to make a living from the public purse. Rabbi Simcha also studied pharmacy, sciences, and languages. He qualified as a pharmacist and opened a pharmacy in Pashisha. His son, the Rebbe, Rabbi Yerachmiel, made a living from his work as an hourly man.
Rabbi Simcha Bonim is the author of the books ‘Kol Simcha’, ‘Simchat Yisrael’, ‘Hadvat Simcha’, ‘Midrash Simcha’, and more. We learned some of his teachings in high school yeshiva. Everyone knows the saying: “Everyone should have two pockets, which he will use when he needs to. In one pocket it will be written: “For me the world was created” (Mishna Sanhedrin Chapter 4) And in the other pocket: “And my clothes are dust and dust” (Genesis 18/27).” But not all of us remember that this is a quote from the book “Kol Simcha”.
The importance and great influence of Pashisha Hasidism on the world of Hasidism and Jewish history is also thanks to the many courts that came out of it. Rabbi Simcha Bonim encouraged the outstanding among his students to go and establish more Hasidic courts to spread the teachings of Hasidism. His two senior students were Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Altar (the author of the innovations of the Ram) who founded the Gur Chassidut, and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Morgenstern (“the Sheraf”) who founded the Kotzak Chassidut. Other students founded the Munkach, Laalov, Rozin, Alexander courts , Chechenov, Izhvitsa and Amshinov. These rebbes were called the “Fashiskha group”. Therefore, it can be said that Rabbi Simcha Bonim was the “spiritual grandfather” of about a third of the Hasidic courts at the end of the 18th century.
Nowadays, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Rabinovitch holds the office of Rebbe of Pshescha, as well as the Rebbe of Monketch Rabbi Moshe Yehuda Rabinovitch (full disclosure: my mother’s family were followers of Monketch), the Rebbe Rabbi Akiva Rabinovitch, the Rebbe of Porisov Jerusalem, and the Rebbe Rabbi Haim Rabinowitz of Jerusalem.
The cemetery in Pashisha is on Semantrana Street, close to the S12 highway. To get to the cemetery on your own, click on Wiz: Cmentarna 16. Those arriving by train should get off at the Przysucha station in the village of Skrzyńsko. The keys are with the guard (Gaidek) at +48 48-675-3382
synagogue
When you arrive in Piszyszka, you should also visit the ancient synagogue, which is the largest in Poland in the Baroque style. It is located in the center of the town at Konopnickiej Street 8.
Its construction began in 1764, about a year before the death of R. Simcha Bonim, and ended about two years after his death. They prayed there for almost two hundred years until the Holocaust. During the World War, the Germans burned the synagogue, and its ruins were abandoned because there were no Jews left to pray in it and maintain it. The many years of neglect further deteriorated its condition, and the roof collapsed into the prayer hall.
In 2008, the Polish Ministry of Culture and Heritage and the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ) began renovating the synagogue. First they strengthened the foundations, and rebuilt the ceiling and roof according to photos from the past. Later they renewed the outer walls and added limestone like the original construction. Today it looks beautiful and impressive from the outside.
On the inside it would look less beautiful. When I visited there a few years ago, the interior renovation had not yet begun. On the east wall I saw the remains of a marble ark, which was evidently once very magnificent. In the center of the prayer hall stood the platform for reading the Torah, and above it was a stone canopy resting on decorated marble columns. To prevent further collapse we built a support of large (and ugly) steel rods.
On the west side of the building there are rooms that were used by the offices of the Jewish community. On the second floor there is a stand where the women’s aid was. I hope they continued to renovate the Synagogue, and today the prayer hall is also restored.
The Jewish community of Warsaw has plans for the “Jewish Mazovia Trail” route, of which this synagogue will be one of the southern stops. When I looked at the renovation plans in the Pashisha municipality, I saw that according to them the place is intended for conferences and exhibitions.
history
Before World War II, about 2,500 Jews lived in Pashisha, who made up the majority of the town’s residents. There were also Haydars and yeshivas, and a ‘Beit Yaakov’ school. There was Zionist activity within local branches of the Mizrahi parties, Agudat Israel, and the Bund. In the town there was also a ‘kibbutz hachshara’ for agriculture for young pioneers before immigrating to Israel, some of whom ended up at Kibbutz Tirat Zvi.
During the war, refugees from the surrounding villages arrived in Pashisha, and the number of Jews rose to 2,980 out of 4,850 residents. The Nazis surrounded an area of the town with wire fences, and designated it as the Jewish ghetto. The Jews of the town were ordered to move to the ghetto. On October 27 to 31, 1942, a selection was held in the ghetto. The old and sick Jews were murdered on the spot, and the boys and healthy adults were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp, where most of them were murdered. Only about a hundred Jews were allowed to stay in the ghetto, and the Nazis employed them in sorting the property left behind by the ghetto residents. Finally, only about 20 of the Jews of Pashisha survived the Holocaust. Less than one percent!
More tourist sites
If we come to Pashisha it is worth visiting other sites in its vicinity. One of them is the farm in the town of Radom, about half an hour’s drive away. This is an open museum of small wooden houses that remained as they were 250 years ago, and inside them are objects from the daily life of the villagers.
Inside the houses an ancient smell. From the walls and the wooden floor comes an old smell of fine moss. Between the houses roam animals, cows, roosters, ducks and the like. By visiting this place we will feel as if we traveled backwards through the time tunnel to the time of Rabbi Simcha Bonim. It is recommended to bring the book ‘Voice of Joy’ from home, and to take a corner in one of the huts to study Torah innovations in the spirit of Hasidism written in this area.
Radom is known for the town’s rabbi, Shmuel Mohliber, one of the leaders of the ‘Zion Lovers Association’. He was one of the founders of the Mezkerat Batia colony, and one of the leaders of the supporters of the sale permit that allowed the continuation of the tillage in the Shemita year.
In 1936, a group of the “Mizrachi Pioneers” operated in Bardom, whose members were graduates of the nests of the “Religious Guardian” in Bialystok and the region. They joined the religious Alia kibbutz ‘Rashit’, ‘Teri Asar’, and ‘Lamerhav’. Next to the kibbutz, “Haganah” shooting training was held, to train the immigrants to integrate into Israel’s Haganah. Most of the members of “Rashit” immigrated to Israel and joined the “Abraham Group” which founded Kfar Etzion. During the War of Independence, five members of the group were also killed in battles in Kfar Etzion.
Peschisha and Radom (and nearby Bialystok) also have a part in the history of religious Zionism, and we should also visit there.
Photographs: Yaacov Maor, Wikimedia-sharing, and FODZ
