Rebbe Yitzchok Isaac (Yitzchak Eizik) Weiss of Spinka zt"l
הרב יצחק אייזיק בן יוסף מאיר ווייס זצ"ל
Sivan 13 , 5704
Rebbe Yitzchok Isaac (Yitzchak Eizik) Weiss of Spinka zt"l
Spinka Chassidus was influenced by three major dynasties: Zidichov/Komarna, Sanz, and Belz. The first Spinka Rebbe, Rav Yosef Meir Weiss, was a talmid of Rav Yitzchak Isaac Eichenstein of Zidichov, Rav Yitzchak Isaac Safrin of Komarna, Rav Chaim Halberstam of Sanz and Rav Shalom Rokeach of Belz. Spinka was thus crowned with the mysticism and Kabbalah of Zidichov/Komarna, the lomdus and scholarly erudition of Sanz, and the fiery avodas Hashem of Belz.
The son of Rav Yosef Meir Weiss of Spinka, author of Imrei Yosef and the founder of the Spinka dynasty, Rav Yitzchak Isaac was born in 5635 (1875) in Spinka. He was named after Rav Yitzchak Isaac of Zidichov.
He was characterized by sanctity and renowned for his unique prodigal talents. All his life he never slept more than two or three hours at a time.
By age eighteen he was authoring halachic responsa and exchanging letters with gedolei hador. At age twenty he began travelling to meet other rebbes and became attached to Rav Baruch of Gorlitz. He married the daughter of Rav Yissocher Dov Eichenstein of Zidichov- Vertski.
After his father’s passing in 5669 (1909), the chassidim crowned Rav Yitzchak Isaac as his successor.
He founded Yeshivas Imrei Yosef, named after his father, and gave shiurim in the yeshiva on a daily basis. He sat and studied Torah all day, every day, all the days of his life. His unceasing drive continued through the war years and his chassidim testified that even on his final journey to Auschwitz, his holy lips never stopped uttering words of Torah learning.
During the first World War he fled Spinka to Budapest and from there to Munkascz. After the war he continued on to Romania and settled in Salish in Marmorosh. Since Salish is located about fifty kilometers from the border with Poland, where the fires of the death camps were already burning, many Jews fled and sought refuge in the Spinka rebbe’s hoif. They paid exorbitant sums to be smuggled across the Hungarian border. Many Hungarian Jews acted with self-sacrifice and mesirus nefesh to help save their Jewish brethren, providing the Spinka Rebbe’s court with food and falsified papers to save the many who hid in the secret underground cellar built specially for that purpose at the rebbe’s behest, to hide them beneath the rebbe’s waiting room for receiving guests and visitors.
At that time, the Hungarian authorities were not yet complicit with the Nazi murderers, but they did pass a law that anyone hiding Polish refugees would face a prison sentence. The rebbe ignored the new law and continued to help rescue any Jewish refugees who would make their way secretly to his court where they recovered, ate, slept, rested and were provided with false papers so they could escape to Budapest.
Eventually the Hungarian police caught one of the Jewish refugees who had been hiding in the rebbe’s court, and they arrested the Spinka Rebbe. His defense was simple: He was a Chassidic rebbe and many Jews flocked to him on a daily basis. He had no way of knowing all of their details and citizenship, as he didn’t request to examine their passports and papers! The police released him after two days with a warning to lock his gates each night to prevent trespassers and refugees. The rebbe knew that if he would comply with this condition, the countless Jews arriving from Poland with his address would be caught with no place to stay, so he ordered the chassidim instead to break the gates so that they could not be locked.
The rebbe continued in this manner until 27 Adar 1504 (March 22, 1944), when the Nazi beast took control of Hungary and passed all its infamous laws against the Jews on Hungarian soil just as it had done in Galicia and Poland.
The Spinka chassidim in Eretz Yisrael sent the rebbe certificates and papers to enable his escape, along with, surprisingly, the Royal Court of England. When George V took ill, a telegram arrived in Spinka asking the rebbe to daven for George ben Maria! A Spinka chassid who was a high ranking British government official urged the Royal Palace to ask for the holy tzaddik’s prayers. This was a gift of acknowledgment for his tefillos to heal the British monarch. All the papers and certificates were ignored, as the Rebbe refused to leave his chassidim and followers behind in order to save himself.
On Isru Chag of 5704 (1944), the Nazis established a ghetto in Salish and forced all the Jews from all the local villages inside. They trapped some 10-12,000 Jews in the ghetto, among them the Spinka chassidim, who did their best to secretly provide food for the Rebbe. Even the partisans who fought the Nazis together with the Red Army offered to help the Rebbe escape, but he refused to leave his chassidim behind.
On Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5704, the Rebbe and his family were placed on the third transport to Auschwitz together with two thousand other Jews. Along with the Rebbe went his eldest son Rav Yisrael Chaim and his entire family, his wife, children, and grandchildren, some nine souls altogether.
The entire way, the Rebbe’s lips moved in Torah learning as he repeated again and again to be b’simcha “V’taher libainu l’avdecha b’emes –– And purify our hearts to serve You sincerely and truly.”
During that fateful train ride, a Jew from Salish fell at the Rebbe’s feet and cried out: “Rebbe, daven for a miracle! We are going to our deaths!” The rebbe, who was sick and weak, placed his hand on the man’s shoulders and said: “Do not be afraid. We are going to greet Mashiach!” When the Jew heard this, his weeping intensified. The rebbe added, “Our righteous Mashiach awaits, bound and chained in Edom, and we are the ones who shall unbind and untie him and set him free.”
When the Rebbe arrived before the wretched creature Dr. Mengele’s selection, he and his family were all told to go to the left line of death.
On Monday 13 Sivan 5704 (1944), the rebbe, his rebbetzin, and their entire family went up in flames as a pure holy offering to Hashem on the altars of Auschwitz, Hy”d.
His sons Rav Yisrael Chaim, Rav Naphtali Tzvi, Av Beis Din Bilka, his son-in-law Rav Avraham Abish Horowitz, Av Beis Din Kruly, the Rebbe’s daughter and his grandson Yosef Meir all perished in the Holocaust.
Eyewitnesses reported that the entire way to the gas chambers and ovens the Rebbe continued to repeat the pasuk in Vayikra (6:6): “An eternal flame burns on the altar forever; it will never be extinguished.”
Miraculously, his grandchild Rav Yaakov Yosef Weiss, son of Rav Yisrael Chaim, survived. After the war, when the camp was liberated, he left the gates of Auschwitz and made his way to Salish, where he discovered the handwritten manuscript the rebbe left behind. He published the manuscript as Chakal Yitzchak, Chakal having the same gematria as Isaac. The Rebbe’s introduction to his father’s work, Imrei Yosef, titled “Asara Ma’amaros” is an important and exceptional work.
Rav Avraham Abish’s son, Rav Tzvi Hirsch Horowitz, also survived and he was crowned as Spinka-Kruly Rebbe in America.