Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piasetzno
Encyclopedia
Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (or Klonimus Kalmish Szapira) (1889–3 November 1943), was the Grand Rabbi
of Piaseczno
, Poland
, who authored a number of works and was murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust
.
, Poland
to his father, the Imrei Elimelech
of Grodzhisk
. Named after his maternal great-grandfather, the renowned Maor VaShemesh, he was a scion of a distinguished family, which included Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk
, the Chozeh of Lublin and the Maggid
of Kozhnitz.
At the age of three, he was orphaned by the death of his father. In 1905 he married Rachel Chaya Miriam, daughter of his nephew Grand Rabbi Yerachmiel Moshe of Kozhnitz
. She helped him prepare his lectures and books, even adding pertinent insights of her own. The couple had two children: a son, Elimelech Ben Zion, and a daughter, Rechil Yehudis, both of whom perished in the Holocaust.
In 1909 he was appointed rabbi of Piaseczno
, near Warsaw
, and subsequently attracted many hasidim
. He was deeply focused on the education of children and young men, establishing the yeshiva
Da'as Moshe in 1923, which became one of the largest hasidic yeshivot in Warsaw between the wars.
eroded the number of students wishing to pursue a yeshiva education. These trends, Rabbi Shapira argued, could only be exacerbated by archaic educational methods, harsh discipline and rote learning, such as were often the practice of the day in yeshivot. According to Rabbi Nehemia Polen (a noted expert on Rabbi Shapira’s work) in his most important work, Chovas haTalmidim (“The Students’ Responsibility”), Rabbi Shapira argued that a child must be imbued “with a vision of his own potential greatness” and be enlisted “as an active participant in his own development.” Likewise, teachers “must learn to speak the language of the student, and graphically convey the delights of a life of closeness to God.”. Rabbi Shapira argued for positive, psychologically sensitive, joyous educational methods.
Some similarity had been pointed out between these ideas and the educational ideas set out on a non-religious basis, in much the same years, by Janusz Korczak
, where he ran a secret synagogue. He invested enormous efforts in maintaining Jewish life in the ghetto, including arranging for mikveh immersions and kosher marriages. Rabbi Shapira was able to survive in the ghetto until its liquidation, avoiding the great deportations to Treblinka in the summer of 1942, because of the support of the Judenrat
. Like other notables, he was given work at Schultz’s shoe factory—a path to ongoing survival.
Rabbi Shapira is well known because of a book he wrote while in the ghetto. The book, which is a compilation of weekly sermons to his students, contends with complex questions of faith in the face of the mounting suffering of the Jews in the ghetto. When it became apparent to Rabbi Shapira that the end of the ghetto and all its inhabitants was near, he buried the book in a canister. This canister was found by a construction worker after the end of the war. The book was published in Israel in 1960 under the title Esh Kodesh
After the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
was crushed in 1943, Rabbi Shapira was taken to the Trawniki
work camp near Lublin
. Although offered the opportunity to escape from the concentration camp, he apparently refused. Following the Jewish uprising in the Treblinka death camp (August 2, 1943) and in Sobibor extermination camp
(October 14, 1943), there was increasing concern among the Nazi authorities that there would be further outbreaks of violence at other concentration camps. For this reason, Aktion Erntefest (Operation Harvest Festival) was launched. During this operation, carried out on November 3, 1943, all the remaining Jews in Trawniki, included Rabbi Shapira, were shot to death.
and other Jewish sources. It is important to note, however, that despite these intellectual and emotional struggles, Rabbi Shapira’s faith remained strong and unwavering and he continued to inspire others to the end of his life.
and leads Congregation Aish Kodesh Official Shul Website, a synagogue as well as the worldwide headquarters for spreading the teachings of his great-uncle.
, Long Island
, New York
called Congregation "Aish Kodesh", dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Shapira. It was started by Rabbi Moshe Weinberger
, an authority on the Aish Kodesh.
Isaac Hershkowitz: Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapiro, the Piasechner Rebbe: His Holocaust and pre-Holocaust Thought, Continuity or Discontinuity?, M.A. Thesis, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel (2004).
Rabbi Shapira appears as a major character in Joseph Skibell
's 2010 novel A Curable Romantic.
Rebbe
Rebbe , which means master, teacher, or mentor, is a Yiddish word derived from the Hebrew word Rabbi. It often refers to the leader of a Hasidic Jewish movement...
of Piaseczno
Piaseczno
Piaseczno is a town in central Poland with 32,610 inhabitants .It is situated in the Masovian Voivodeship, approximately 16 kilometers south of Warsaw. It is a popular residential area and a suburb of Warsaw and is strongly linked to the capital, both economically and culturally...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, who authored a number of works and was murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
Early years and life before the war
Kalonymus Kalman Shapira was born in Grodzisk MazowieckiGrodzisk Mazowiecki
Grodzisk Mazowiecki is a town in central Poland with 26,881 inhabitants in 2006. It is 30 km. southwest of Warsaw.Between 1975 and 1998 it was situated in the Warszawa Voivodeship but since 1999 it has been situated in the Masovian Voivodeship. It is the capital of Grodzisk Mazowiecki...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
to his father, the Imrei Elimelech
Elimelech Szapira
Rabbi Elimelech Szapira of Grodzhisk was the leading Hasidic rebbe of his time in Poland. He was a chosid of the Rizhiner Rebbe...
of Grodzhisk
Grodzhisk (Hasidic dynasty)
Grodzhisk is the name of a Hasidic dynasty founded by Rebbe Elimelech Szapira, author of Imrei Elimelech.Grodzhisk is the Yiddish name of Grodzisk Mazowiecki, a town in present-day Poland.- Lineage :...
. Named after his maternal great-grandfather, the renowned Maor VaShemesh, he was a scion of a distinguished family, which included Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk
Elimelech of Lizhensk
Elimelech Weisblum of Lizhensk , a Rabbi and one of the great founding Rebbes of the Hasidic movement, was known after his hometown, Leżajsk near Rzeszów in Poland...
, the Chozeh of Lublin and the Maggid
Maggid
Maggid , sometimes spelled as magid, is a traditional Eastern European Jewish religious itinerant preacher, skilled as a narrator of Torah and religious stories. A preacher of the more scholarly sort was called a "darshan", and usually occupied the official position of rabbi...
of Kozhnitz.
At the age of three, he was orphaned by the death of his father. In 1905 he married Rachel Chaya Miriam, daughter of his nephew Grand Rabbi Yerachmiel Moshe of Kozhnitz
Kozhnitz (Hasidic dynasty)
Kozhnitz is the name of a Hasidic dynasty founded by the Kozhnitzer Maggid, Rebbe Yisroel Hopsztajn. Kozhnitz is the Yiddish name of Kozienice, a town in present-day Poland.-Lineage:...
. She helped him prepare his lectures and books, even adding pertinent insights of her own. The couple had two children: a son, Elimelech Ben Zion, and a daughter, Rechil Yehudis, both of whom perished in the Holocaust.
In 1909 he was appointed rabbi of Piaseczno
Piaseczno
Piaseczno is a town in central Poland with 32,610 inhabitants .It is situated in the Masovian Voivodeship, approximately 16 kilometers south of Warsaw. It is a popular residential area and a suburb of Warsaw and is strongly linked to the capital, both economically and culturally...
, near Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, and subsequently attracted many hasidim
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
. He was deeply focused on the education of children and young men, establishing the yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
Da'as Moshe in 1923, which became one of the largest hasidic yeshivot in Warsaw between the wars.
Educational theories
In his work as a teacher, Rabbi Shapira attempted to reverse the trend toward secularization, which swept the Jewish community in Poland between the wars. The vibrant cultural life of the city, as well as the attractions of political movements such as ZionismZionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
eroded the number of students wishing to pursue a yeshiva education. These trends, Rabbi Shapira argued, could only be exacerbated by archaic educational methods, harsh discipline and rote learning, such as were often the practice of the day in yeshivot. According to Rabbi Nehemia Polen (a noted expert on Rabbi Shapira’s work) in his most important work, Chovas haTalmidim (“The Students’ Responsibility”), Rabbi Shapira argued that a child must be imbued “with a vision of his own potential greatness” and be enlisted “as an active participant in his own development.” Likewise, teachers “must learn to speak the language of the student, and graphically convey the delights of a life of closeness to God.”. Rabbi Shapira argued for positive, psychologically sensitive, joyous educational methods.
Some similarity had been pointed out between these ideas and the educational ideas set out on a non-religious basis, in much the same years, by Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit was a Polish-Jewish children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor...
War years
Rabbi Shapira's only son, his daughter-in-law and his sister-in-law were killed during the Nazi aerial bombing of Warsaw in September, 1939. After the invasion of Poland, Rabbi Shapira was interned with a few of his hasidim in the Warsaw GhettoWarsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
, where he ran a secret synagogue. He invested enormous efforts in maintaining Jewish life in the ghetto, including arranging for mikveh immersions and kosher marriages. Rabbi Shapira was able to survive in the ghetto until its liquidation, avoiding the great deportations to Treblinka in the summer of 1942, because of the support of the Judenrat
Judenrat
Judenräte were administrative bodies during the Second World War that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union It is the overall term for the enforcement bodies established by the Nazi occupiers to...
. Like other notables, he was given work at Schultz’s shoe factory—a path to ongoing survival.
Rabbi Shapira is well known because of a book he wrote while in the ghetto. The book, which is a compilation of weekly sermons to his students, contends with complex questions of faith in the face of the mounting suffering of the Jews in the ghetto. When it became apparent to Rabbi Shapira that the end of the ghetto and all its inhabitants was near, he buried the book in a canister. This canister was found by a construction worker after the end of the war. The book was published in Israel in 1960 under the title Esh Kodesh
After the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....
was crushed in 1943, Rabbi Shapira was taken to the Trawniki
Trawniki concentration camp
Trawniki concentration camp, in the village of Trawniki about 40 km southeast of Lublin in Poland, was an SS labour camp which provided forced labourers for a nearby industrial plant to work in appalling conditions with little food...
work camp near Lublin
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
. Although offered the opportunity to escape from the concentration camp, he apparently refused. Following the Jewish uprising in the Treblinka death camp (August 2, 1943) and in Sobibor extermination camp
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
(October 14, 1943), there was increasing concern among the Nazi authorities that there would be further outbreaks of violence at other concentration camps. For this reason, Aktion Erntefest (Operation Harvest Festival) was launched. During this operation, carried out on November 3, 1943, all the remaining Jews in Trawniki, included Rabbi Shapira, were shot to death.
Ideas
Rabbi Shapira’s memory is revered, and he is held as an example of faith under enormous duress. Orthodox Jewish thinkers, however, have not always been comfortable with his opinions. In his article about this issue, Amos Goldberg states that other, more traditional portrayals of the Holocaust in Orthodox writings tend to dwell on the miraculous survival of famous rabbis and on the strength of the faith of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe despite their suffering. In contrast, Shapira does not shy away from describing the deterioration of faith in the ghetto. He also wrestles with the difficulty in continued faith in God’s justice under such circumstances, drawing answers from KabbalahKabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
and other Jewish sources. It is important to note, however, that despite these intellectual and emotional struggles, Rabbi Shapira’s faith remained strong and unwavering and he continued to inspire others to the end of his life.
Works
- Chovas HaTalmidim (The Students' Obligation) - a collection of essays aimed at teenagers which has become a standard textbook in yeshivos.
- Hachshoras HaAvreichim (Preparation of Young Men) - a work written for young married men.
- Mevo haSheorim - The last published book in the series of education.
- Tzav V'Ziruz - The Rebbe's personal diary.
- Bnei Machshava Tova (Conscious Community: A Guide to Inner Work) is based on the manuscripts recovered from the rubble in the Warsaw ghetto. The book is a guide to attaining spirituality despite adversity and physical needs.
- Derech HaMelech (The Way of the King --- also, idiomatically, "the high road" in modern Hebrew) - Torah discourses that were spoken on the Sabbath and festivals (1889–1943)
- Esh Kodesh (Holy Fire) - his inspirational speeches given during the Holocaust period.
Israel
The current Rebbe of Piaseczno is Rabbi Kalman Menachem Shapira, a great-nephew of the first Rebbe, Klonimous Kalman. Rabbi Kalman Menachem resides in Ramat Beit Shemesh, IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and leads Congregation Aish Kodesh Official Shul Website, a synagogue as well as the worldwide headquarters for spreading the teachings of his great-uncle.
New York, USA
There is also a synagogue in WoodmereWoodmere, New York
Woodmere is a hamlet in Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 17,121 at the 2010 census.Woodmere is one of the Long Island communities known as the Five Towns, which is usually said to comprise the villages of Lawrence and Cedarhurst, the hamlets of Woodmere and Inwood, and...
, Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
called Congregation "Aish Kodesh", dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Shapira. It was started by Rabbi Moshe Weinberger
Moshe Weinberger
Rabbi Moshe Weinberger is an Orthodox rabbi who is the founder and current rabbi of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, New York.He is a lecturer, author. Some regard him as a posek and a Jewish leader who is actively involved in Jewish Outreach.-Background and education:Rabbi Weinberger's ...
, an authority on the Aish Kodesh.
Further reading
Nehemia Polen: Divine Weeping. Rabbi Kalonymos Shapiro's Theology of Catastrophe in the Warsaw Ghetto, in : Modern Judaism 7 (1987) 253-269; http://mj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/citation/7/3/253Isaac Hershkowitz: Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapiro, the Piasechner Rebbe: His Holocaust and pre-Holocaust Thought, Continuity or Discontinuity?, M.A. Thesis, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel (2004).
Rabbi Shapira appears as a major character in Joseph Skibell
Joseph Skibell
Joseph Skibell is a novelist and essayist living in Atlanta, Georgia.Skibell is the author of three novels, which use elements of history and fantasy:* A Blessing on the Moon * The English Disease...
's 2010 novel A Curable Romantic.
External links
- Lectures on Chovat HaTalmidim by Rav Ari Shames at Midreshet HaRova in mp3
- Article about Grand Rabbi Shapira
- English Translation of introductory chapter of Chovat Hatalmidim - Message to Teachers and Parents
- link to PDF file of Experiencing the Divine: A Practical Jewish Guide - A translation of Bnai Machshava Tova
- Selections from Sefer Aish Kodesh in Hebrew - PDF file
- 'Sefer Chovas HaTalmidim in Hebrew - PDF file and Chovas HaTalmidim, edition 1975 in Hebrew - PDF file
- Aish Kodesh Shiurim - Weekly parsha classes from the Aish Kodesh taught by Rabbi Henoch Dov Hoffman [mp3 Audio files]
- Avichai Zur, "“The Lord Hides in Inner Chambers”:The Doctrine of Suffering in the Theosophy of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piaseczno", Dapim - Studies on the Shoa, 2011 ( Vol. 25), pp. 183-237.