Rav Avraham Shaag Zwebner of Kobelsdorf zt"l
הרב אברהם שאג בן יהודה לייב צוובנר זצ"ל
Adar 29 , 5636
Rav Avraham Shaag Zwebner of Kobelsdorf zt"l
Born on 4 Iyar 5561/1801 in Freistat, Hungary. His father, Harav Yehoshua Leib Zwebner, was one of the outstanding students of the Noda B’Yehudah. Tradition has it that the family name changed due to a remark made by the Noda B’Yehudah: “When words of Torah roar, from Reb Yehoshua Leib’s mouth, the world shakes.” From then on, he was known as Reb Leib Shaag, based on the pasuk, “Aryeh shaag, mi lo yira — A lion has roared, who isn’t frightened?” (Amos 3:8)
Rav Avraham himself was a talmid of the Chasam Sofer. Orphaned from his father at a young age his mother sent him to Pressburg. At age 18, the Chasam Sofer made his shidduch with Leah, the orphaned daughter of Rav Avraham Ha'Levi Shpitz, of Prossitz, Moravia.
He served as Rav of Czeszté and then in Kobelsdorf, one of the "seven communities" in Hungary. In 1873 at age 72, Reb Avraham Shaag decided to make aliyah to Eretz Yisrael. His closest talmid, Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, unable to part from his Rebbe, joined him. He passed away Shabbos, 29 Adar 5636/1876, 3 years later and was laid to rest on Har HaZeisim.
He authored the following seforim Ohel Avraham (1881) responsa, and his Derashot ha-Rosh (1904) .
Stories of Rav Avraham Shaag Zwebner of Kobelsdorf zt"l
An elderly woman from the city of Kleinvardein arrived in Yerushalayim asking where the kever of Rav Shaag was? When asked why she had come all this way just to daven at his kever, she told the following story:
“My mother was our holy Rav’s maid almost one hundred years ago, and at that time the Rav Shaag was entrusted with a large sum of money to safeguard and look after. Since he was so deeply engrossed in studying Torah, he accidentally left this money in the sefer he was learning from at the time. Later on, when he finished studying he closed the sefer and replaced it back on the shelf.
After a some time, the owner of the money came asking for it, but the Rav couldn’t find it. The Rav began to suspect that perhaps his maid had taken it, so he repaid the owner from his own pocket.
When the Yom Tov of Pesach approached, the Rav was cleaning the pages of his seforim looking for crumbs of chametz, and he found the money in the sefer that he had been studying.
Upon discovering his error, Rav Shaag realized that he had suspected his innocent maid. He called her and explained the whole story, asking her to forgive him, as tears streamed down his face. He added that he was willing to grant whatever she asked for.
My mother, on her part, told him that she was moichel him completely, and that she would only ask for one thing – his berachah. She had been married already fifteen years, but didn’t have any children. Our rebbe bentshed her and saying, ‘This year you shall have a child.’ ”
The elderly woman continued: “I am that child born of his berachah. All her life my mother yearned to come to the Holy Land and daven by the kever of that tzaddik. Now, Hashem, has given me the opportunity to come and fulfill my mother’s wish.” (Ha'Ish Al Ha'Choma)