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Rav Dov Berish Weidenfeld z"l (The "Tschebiner Rav")
5 Shevat 5641 (1881) - died 10 Marcheshvan 5726 (1965).
Rav Dov Berish was part of one of Galicia's most distinguished
Torah learning families. Both his father, Rav Yaakov Weidenfeld,
rabbi of Harimlov, and his older brothers, Rav Yitzchak and Rav
Nachum, were leading Torah scholars. Beginning when Rav Dov Berish
was seven, his father trained him for public speaking by teaching
him a brief sermon to deliver in shul on Shabbat. One week, a
serious dispute erupted in Harimlov and so occupied Rav Yaakov's time
that he did not teach his son. On Shabbat, young Dov Berish ascended
to the bimah and said, "It is written, 'And Moshe spoke to the whole
Congregation of Israel.' Why does it emphasize, "the whole"? To
inform us that Moshe could teach only when the Congregation was
whole. So, too, as long as there is dissension in Harimlov, I cannot
teach."
Two weeks after the boy's bar mitzvah, Rav Yaakov passed away
suddenly. Young Dov Berish's education was taken over by his two
brothers. In 1900, he married Yachet Kluger of Tschebin, the town
where he would spend the next 40 years and after which he would be
known for life. At first, Rav Dov Berish worked as a charcoal
merchant (the Kluger family had exclusive rights to sell charcoal
in Tschebin and the Silesia region), and only in 1923, became rabbi
of his adoptive town.
Even before he assumed a rabbinical post, Rav Dov Berish became
recognized as a posek (halachic authority). The halachic responsa
which he wrote throughout his life were published in stages under
the title Doveiv Meisharim. His halachic decisions were known to
consider not only the sources, but the practical implications,
including those many decades in the future which the questioner had
not even considered. For example, after the founding of the State
of Israel, he was asked why non-religious Jews should be coerced to
marry and divorce only according to halachah. He answered, "Because
their grandchildren will yet learn in our yeshivot [and want to marry
Orthodox Jews.]"
Rav Dov Berish respected and was respected by all of his
contemporaries. Rav Ben-Zion Halberstam (the "Bobover Rebbe") hy"d
lived for a time in Tschebin; when Rav Dov Berish was asked how such
a small town could live peacefully with two rabbis, he responded
(making a play on the order of blessings in Shemoneh Esrei): "The
only reason there is a split between the judges and the tzaddikim
is that the talebearers come in-between."
After becoming rabbi of Tschebin, Rav Dov Berish started a yeshiva
as well. He named it "Kochav MiYaakov" after his father. After the
Holocaust, he reopened his yeshiva in Yerushalayim.
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