|
The Short Vort
Good Morning!
Today is Monday the 19th of Tammuz 5782
and July 18, 2022
R' Nutka
It was a cold Shabbos morning in February.
The year was 1898, and the date was February 12.
It was Parshas Yisro.
The hospital was just a three to four-minute walk from the home. However, the remnants of the heavy snowfall the week before made walking especially precarious.
The couple was heading towards the Misgav Ladach hospital, or as the Jews referred to it, Beis HaCholim Meir Rothschild.
The hospital was called as such as Baron Jacob (Meir) de Rothschild gave the money for the first Jewish hospital in the Old City of Yerushalayim.
Baron Jacob (Meir) de Rothschild was head of the Paris-based branch of the famous philanthropic banking family.
Thankfully, that week Alfred Charles de Rothschild, head of the London-based branch of the family, had wired one hundred pounds sterling to the snowbound Jews of Yerushalayim.
The storm impacted many families, and money was needed to help clear the streets.
The couple, Yisroel Zev Eisenman and his wife Chaya Sorah trudged on and made it to the hospital.
Later that Shabbos, the 20th of Shevat 5658, February 12, 1898, their son Yosef Nosson Nota (Notka) Eisenman was born.
He began his education at the Etz Chaim Yeshiva, situated in the Chatzer of the Churva Shul.
R' Notka had the unique opportunity of learning under the tutelage of the famed Tzadik of Yerushalayim, Rav Aryeh Levin Zt" l.
In 1925 he married Chana Salomon, the great-granddaughter of the man who re-built the Churva Shul/Eitz Chaim yeshiva complex, HaRav Avraham Shlomo Zalman Zoref Salomon Zt" L.
The couple settled first in Yerushalayim, and then when R' Notke received a position as a Rebbe/Maggid Shiur in a yeshiva in Haifa, they moved up north.
R' Notka was a gifted melamed and rebbe, and the couple succeeded in bringing many secularized Jews back to Torah and Mitzvahs.
Eventually, they would move to Bat Yam, a new religious community south of Tel Aviv.
They purchased a small plot of land.
They built a small house with a peach tree in the front yard, an Esrog tree in the back yard, and Aravos growing on the side of the house.
R' Notka became involved in the spiritual development of the city.
He helped establish the first permanent Shul.
He was a founder of the first Cheder, and he lained in three different Minyanim every Shabbos.
He would begin laining at a Vasikin Minyan, then walk to lain at a 7 AM minyan and he finished at the main minyan in the Main Shul of Bat Yam at 8 AM Minyan.
More often than not, he was also the Baal Tefillah for Musaf at the Main Shul.
His oldest son, born in 1925, Yoel Moshe Eisenman Z"L, was my father.
I never knew my grandfather.
He died today, the 19th of Tammuz in the year 1957, at the age of 59.
My older brother carries his name.
Yet, if R' Notka returned today to Rechov Misgav Ladach in the Old City of Yerushalayim, he would feel right at home.
If he retraced his parents' footsteps from that cold Shabbos morning in 1898, he would hear a woman calling, "Notka, come home."
R' Notka would ask the boy, what's your name?
"My name is Yosef Natan (Notka) Eisenman, and I live on Rechov Misgav Ladach!"
R' Notka would say, "I am Yosef Natan (Notka) Eisenman, and I was born on Misgav Ladach!"
That little boy (all three feet of him) is the great-great-grandson of R' Notka, and he indeed has returned to Rechov Misgav Ladach.
Little R' Notka lives just a hundred feet from where his great, great grandfather was born.
However, instead of seeing a decaying, overcrowded area as the Old City was in 1898, R' Notka would see that the Old City is alive and rejuvenated.
He would not recognize the neighborhood.
Nobody is asking the Rothschilds for money to clear the snow anymore.
The streets are clean and shining, and the joy and Simcha of children's voices learning Torah fills the air.
Apartments (if you can find one) sell for over a million dollars (the cheapest ones), and more Torah is being learned there than ever before.
The Churva Shul is pulsating with life and vigor and Torah learning.
R' Notka would be surprised, yet, also thrilled.
He would see the words of the Navi Zecharia (perek 8) being fulfilled before the eyes of all who care to see:
"So said Hashem: Old men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of old age.
And the city's streets shall be filled, with boys and girls playing in its streets.
And Hashem says: As it will be wonderful in the eyes of the remnant of my people, it will also be wonderful in My eyes, says the Hashem!"
R' Notka was never privileged to see any grandchildren.
He is privileged to have his great, great-grandchildren live peacefully, happily, and joyfully in the most beautiful city in the world.
I am sure he is happy.
I remember him on his 65th Yahrtzeit, and I am comforted in the knowledge that he helped lay the foundations for the home of his future great-grandchildren.
Yehi Zichro Baruch!
“If Not Now, Then When?”- Hillel
Ron Yitzchok Eisenman
Rav
Congregation Ahavas Israel
Passaic, NJ
| 
