A Tribute to Rav Chaim Druckman, z”l

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 29, 2022

A TribuTe To

Rav Chaim Druckman, zt”l

By Dr. Joseph Sturm

With his young family circa 1976. His wife Sara is on his left; his mother Milka is on his right. After he and his wife had seven children, they adopted two handicapped orphan girls.

Rav Druckman survived a terrorist attack in 1993 in which his driver was killed and he was seriously wounded. Despite this, he never lost his simchat chaim. On the eighth day of Chanukah, Klal Yisroel lost one of its greatest luminaries of Torah and pillars of religious Zionism, Ha’rav Chaim Druckman, zt”l.

At his levaya on Monday, attended by tens of thousands in the town of Mercaz Shapira, where he was the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Ohr Etzion for over 50 years,

Rav Druckman was eulogized by Israel’s Chief Rabbi Lau as someone who “loved every Jew, every inch of the land of

Israel, and every letter of the Torah.” Both President Isaac

Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lamented the passing of “a great spiritual leader” as “someone who was one of the greatest rabbis of Israel and one of the greatest students of Rabi Akiva of our generation.”

Rav Druckman had various titles during his 90 years including rav of his yishuv, rosh yeshiva of his high school and yeshiva gedolah, Chairman of Yeshivot Bnei Akiva,

Chairman of Yeshivot Hesder, founder of the Gush Emunim movement, several-time member of Knesset, Deputy cabinet minister, and recipient of the Israel Prize.

All of these achievements would be remarkable in and of themselves – and especially in combination. However, the real astounding aspect of Rav Druckman is the way he lived his life, the way he became the penultimate exemplar of mesirat nefesh (literally giving his heart and soul to his people), and the amazing lesson that can be learned from his life about how that mesirat nefesh can lead to almost incomprehensibly vast accomplishments on behalf of the

Jewish people.

To understand Rav Druckman’s life, we must go back to its beginning. Until the start of World War II, little Chaim lived the tranquil life of a normal, not extremely religious young boy. All that changed when the War began, and he and the 3,500 Jews of the small, southeastern Polish border town of Kittev (once the roaming grounds of the Baal Shem

Tov) were subject to the decrees and depredations of first the Red Army and then the Nazis.

The crucial moment that changed young Chaim’s life arrived on the 8th day of Pesach 1942, when SS and the fiendish Ukrainian paramilitary conducted an “Actsia” (liquidation action) against the Jews of Kittev. Nine-hundred-fifty

Jews were butchered in a gleeful manner by the Germans and Ukrainians in the streets that day and burned alive in their homes. Eyewitnesses reported that the streets literally ran rivers of Jewish blood. Young Chaim was hiding in a secret crawlspace under the floorboards of his uncle’s kitchen with his extended family. Just as he heard the jackboots of the Ukrainians creaking on the floorboards overhead, his grandmother was unable to suppress a sneeze. In a state of terror, he thought that his life was at an end – but somehow the Ukrainians didn’t hear and cursed that they were unable to find any “Zhide pashiveh” (dirty Jews) in that house. This was the first of three miracles that young Chaim constantly credited to divine intervention.

The second occurred just a few months later, just before the Nazis shipped off the remainder of the town’s Jews to the Belzec death camp. Young Chaim and his parents attempted to flee across the frigid and fast-flowing waters of the Chermosh River into neighboring Romania – the river was patrolled on both sides and was fairly deep. Young Chaim did not know how to swim, and once again, he thought his life was at its end. He almost drowned several times but somehow miraculously made it across.

While in Cernowitz in 1943, young Chaim was able to attend a secret Shabbos minyan with the Skulener Rebbe. The piercing “Shema Yisroel” that he heard from the Rebbe had a profound impact on him for the rest of his life.

After a year of hiding as an “illegal” in Romania (his father never left his hiding place for the full year), Chaim was smuggled to a port on the Black Sea where Chaim’s parents arranged for him to pose as the child of a different couple who had valid transit papers. His name was called to board the boat that was to transport him to Palestine, but he somehow didn’t hear it. He was initially devastated to discover the ship had sailed without him – until he shortly learned thereafter that that freighter had been sunk with no survivors.

After this third miracle, young Chaim concluded that his life was no longer his and that it should be devoted exclusively in service of his People and the Land and Torah of the Jewish nation.

Eventually, a second ship did transport him to Israel. He began his life’s mission there with literally nothing but a white shirt on his back and a pair of “sandaleem” on his feet; yet just as he had vowed, so he did for the next eighty years.

At first, young Chaim joined the IDF in the Nachal Brigade and took part in the rebuilding of Tirat Tzvi and Sa’ad, two religious kibbutzim that had been damaged in the War of Independence. Later, he studied under Rav Tzvi Yehuda Hacohen Kook where he learned, in his own words, that “the entire nation of Israel is one, in all its diversity.”

After his initial studies, Rav Druckman helped establish Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavne and eventually settled in Mercaz Shapira, were he founded his own Yeshiva, Ohr Etzion.

The amount of dedication to his own learning and teaching of others that took place in that yeshiva is hard to describe. Rav Druckman sat in a study that was lined with thousands of seforim, along with his desk and two long tables. There were pocket doors on the side of the room. Each sefer was replete with bookmarks sticking out of them for ma’areh mekomos for past and present shiurim. Each hour the pocket doors would slide open and a new group of students would pile through and fill the tables for lessons in Gemara, Navi, Chumash and Jewish thought. First the high students, then the students from the local dati mamlachti, then the Hesder boys, then the baal habatim from the yishuv – every hour on the hour from early in the morning until late at night.

All the while this was going on, Rav Druckman could be heard between shiuirim on the phone with government officials trying to intercede on behalf of his religious kehilla. (Why does a grieving family have to subject their son’s body to an autopsy if he was killed in an accident? What can be done to enhance the lives of the Sephardic immigrants in the nearby community? What can be done to help widow or orphan? And on and on…)

Even in his most recent years in his late eighties, Rav Druckman was still giving between 18-25 shiurim a week and still interceding vociferously on behalf of the religious Zionist cause. As his longtime close aide R’ Naftali Kendler observed, up to and including Rav Druckman’s final weeks, each shiur would be prepared anew with the utmost devotion. Each young couple would receive the same joyous bracha, each person coming with sad news would be cried with – all as if this was the first time Rav Druckman had ever done these things. No matter what the public or private issue was, Rav Druckman would give highly focused attention and never become distracted by other matters on his plate – and all of this, while being member of Knesset.

Tens of thousands of students were personally taught by him and remain influenced to this day by his teaching. Among his students are former prime ministers, generals, and prominent religious Zionist leaders.

On each Shabbos, Rav Druckman and his entire family would sit in the student dining room eating the same food as his talmidim. When the meal concluded, he would get up and dance in celebration of the Shabbos with his students. Those present would observe that he danced each Shabbos (and each simcha that he attended) with such exuberance

and joy on his face as if he were the chosson at his own wedding. When he traveled to the States on behalf of the various institutions he represented, he would do so in a manner that was the most unassuming and humble. All he requested from his hosts was some dry tuna fish (without mayonnaise) and some cucumbers with tomatoes. The reference to Rabbi Akiva in President’s Herzog’s eulogy was well understood by all those who knew Rav Druckman. The famous maxim, “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha, love thy neighbor as you love yourself” was the essence of Rav Druckman’s existence. As the holy Rav Mordechai Eliyahu once commented, “One must love each and every Jew – I realized that this is a very difficult task, but I found I had a path to accomplish this: I would love Rav Druckman – and he, in turn, would love each and every Jew.” As part of his life mission, Rabbi Druckman worked assiduously to help in the integration of the vast numbers of Russian Jews who immigrated to Israel over the years. These Jews were stripped of their identity by the communist system, and Rav Druckman worked tirelessly to arrange conversions for those in need so that they could marry in Jewish ceremonies He was initially devastated and once again become part of Klal Yisroel. He also was to discover the ship had indefatigable in his efforts on behalf of both Sephardic and sailed without him – until Ethiopian immigrants as well – all this done with a singular he shortly learned thereafter mindset and a singular purpose: out of a love of his fellow Jew and a mission to strengththat that freighter had been en Am Yisroel. At the same time, Rav sunk with no survivors. Druckman fiercely believed in the need for the Jewish people to hold onto the land of Eretz Yisroel. He once famously shouted at Jimmy Carter, “Utzu eitza v’tufar dabru davar v’lo yakoom, ki imanu Kel.” Rav Druckman was the author of numerous volumes on such topics as parshat hashavua , yomim tovim, and the halachic perspective on Jews returning to the Land of Israel. An entire generation and vast swath of Israeli society considers him as their leader and mentor. In his sefer, published in 2020, entitled Kima Kima – Step by Step – the State of Israel – Fulfilling the Vision of our Redemption, Rav Druckman wrote about his vision, “We live in momentous and unprecedented times. We are duty bound to look at current reality with its great lights and many shadows – with open eyes – knowing when to criticize if necessary but also to appreciate the great gift that has been given to us with establishment of the State of Israel.” Rav Druckman was indeed one of the pillars that made Israel what it is today. He was a giant in Torah, a giant in chesed, and a model of ahavas Yisroel. He is survived by his wife and over 200 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Zechuto yagen aleinu. Please note: The above is only a small snippet of Rav Druckman’s life. The reader can, however, extrapolate further to comprehend Rav Druckman’s true accomplishments.

Little Chaim, center, in Kittev, Poland in 1937. His parents, Milka and Avraham, are pictured right. His other relatives were slaughtered by the Nazis in Kittev

Rav Druckman in his study at Mercaz Shapira last year with yeshiva students

The author’s mother, Sally Sturm, pictured left with her husband Isaac, hid in a bunker not far from where young Chaim hid in 1941. They remained together in hiding as children in Cernowitz, Romania, during 1943. In later years, Rav Druckman made an effort to fly into New York for her family simchas. At the time of her petirah, when he was 83 years old, he flew into New York for a period of 12 hours to be one of the first to pay a shiva call to her family.