Commemorating Yom Hashoah: Honoring the Kaliver Rebbe

Dear Friends,

On this Yom Hashoah ve’Hagevura, I would like to share a brief reflection I wrote several years ago about a childhood hero who for me embodied the competing ethos of this sacred day: Shoah (devastating destruction) and gevurah (heroic perseverance).

This Yom Hashoah ve’Hagevura I am remembering the Kaliver Rebbe z”l, someone who embodied both, shoah and gevura. He experienced the horrors of the shoah as one of Dr. Mengele’s experiments, but nonetheless managed to heroically triumph over those horrors.

Here is his story, in brief:

Long before there was Mordechai Ben David, Avraham Fried or Lipa Shmeltzer, renowned Chassidic music stars, there was the Kaliver Rebbe from Bnei Brak, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Taub zichrono haKadosh livracha, may his holy memory be a blessing.

He survived Nazi Germany with broken bones and a battered soul, but his spirit remained intact. In response to his spiritual triumph, he composed songs in Hebrew, Yiddish and Hungarian, which then became the soothing soundtrack for many of the second-generation Holocaust survivors. They were songs of hope and religious pride, which celebrated the triumph of faith over evil. The horrors of the Holocaust, paradoxically, deepened his faith, and strengthened his sense of duty and subservience.

As he explained it, that was the bargain he made with God: if You grant me the gift of life, I will dedicate that life to disseminating belief in You. The Rebbe held that God honored their bargain: he survived. In return, Rabbi Taub dedicated his life to sharing the faith which he salvaged from the ashes of Auschwitz. In his own way, he was somehow able to find divinity buried under the heaps of corpses strewn all over the death camps. His own survival, of course, did not make him oblivious to the profound loss: Millions perished and suffered grievously. His personal experience, however, was one of survival and spiritual triumph, which in turn buttressed his emunah and led to a direct, unalloyed temimus.

He embodied the pure ‘Tam’ of the Haggadah, standing in direct, spiritual opposition to Elie Wiesel’s anti-‘Tam’.

The Auschwitz crematorium deeply seared both their souls, but in drastically different ways. While Dr. Wiesel’s soul became engulfed in a holy rage, it ignited a sacred passion in R. Taub’s neshama.

Ultimately, both spent the aftermath of the Shoah trying to reconcile their faith with the horrors they experienced. Wiesel gave honor to God by abandoning Him (at least for a while); the Rebbe, on the other hand, honored God by spending the rest of his life forgiving Him, and also healing that which was broken, with song and melodious joy.

Zecher Tzadik Livracha!

His signature melody is the poignant “Szól a kakas már” (sol ah kokosh mar), a Hungarian-style tune he personally composed. The song’s imagery is a powerful expression of Klal Yisroel’s innate, impatient longing to return to Eretz Yisroel and rebuild: a magnificent, colorful bird, restless with yearning to fly home, yet constrained because the dawn of redemption has not fully broken. For me, this song is woven into the earliest memories of faith; I learned it as a small child, a tender nighttime lullaby sung by my Hungarian Bubby.

Below, it is translated into English. Here it is sung by the father-son duo, Chazanim Shimon and Chaim Farkas, (there may be ads in the YouTube link – please be patient).

The rooster is calling already
It will be dawn soon
In a green forest, on the flat fields
A bird is walking.
In a green forest, on the flat fields
A bird is walking.

What kind of bird?

Legs are yellow, wings are blue
It awaits me.
Legs are yellow, wings are blue
It awaits me.

Wait, bird, wait
You must always wait
If God ordered me for you
Then I’ll be yours.
If God ordered me for you
Then I’ll be yours

When shall it be?
When shall it be?!
“Yibaneh Hamikdash Ir Zion Temaleh” (When the temple will be rebuilt and Zion repopulated)
Then it shall be.
“Yibaneh Hamikdash Ir Zion Temaleh”
Then it shall be.

Why does it not happen?
Why does it not happen?
“Umipnei Chataeniu Galinu Meartzeinu” (We were exiled because our sins)”
That’s why it does not happen!

Due to Nazi cruelty, the Kaliver Rebbe left behind no descendants. If you’re so inclined, saying some Tehillim or learning some Mishna le’ilu nishmato would be a great zechut for his seared but sacred soul.

THANK YOU,
Rabbi Ysoscher Katz