Rav Binyomin Mendelson zt"l
הרב בנימין בן מנחם מנדל מנדלסון זצ"ל
Iyar 24 , 5739
Rav Binyomin Mendelson zt"l
Rav Binyamin Mendelson, Rav of Kommemiyus, one of the most prominent fighters for kedushas sheviis (1979). Born in Plotzk at the end of the 19th century, his father was Rav Menachem Mendel Mendelsohn - a close chassid of the Alexander Rebbe – who served there as Rosh Yeshiva. After World War I, Rav Binyomin married and opened a yeshiva in Bodzanov. During his years there, he became a chassid of the Gerer Rebbe, the Imrei Emes. In fact, his notes were used to publish the sefarim of the Imrei Emes decades after the War, as tens of thousands of pages of the Imrei Emes' written chiddushei Torah were lost. With the bracha of the Gerer Rebbe, Rav Binyomin moved to Eretz Yisroel in 1933, and was offered the position as Rov of Kfar Ata not far from Haifa and served in that capacity for 17 years. In 1951, Rav Binyomin left Kfar Ata and its kehilla of 20,000 families and accepted the offer to become the Rov of a small, religious settlement in the Negev called Kommemius, serving the community for the next 27 years. One of the most defining aspects of his rabbanus in Kommemius was the fact that all of the mitzvos hateluyos ba'aretz - land based mitzvos, were kept with great alacrity. Shemitta was adhered to according to the opinion of the Chazon Ish with no reliance on the heter mechira that was almost unanimously accepted in those years. Rav Binyomin felt that keeping Shemitta was a key to bringing about the geula. He was moser nefesh for Shmitta observance, not only in Kommemius, but in other places as well. His letters, masterpieces of hashkafa and emuna were published posthumously in the sefer Igros HaGrab.
Stories of Rav Binyomin Mendelson zt"l
5711, the second year of Moshav Komemiyus, was a Shemitta year.
My name is Dov Weiss and I was part of the group of about thirty religious young men who started the agricultural settlement Moshav Komemiyus, in the south of Eretz Yisrael. It was in 1950, after we had completed our army service. I was still a bachelor then. Among the founders was also the well-known Torah scholar and rabbinical authority, Rav Binyomin Mendelsohn, of blessed memory. He had previously immigrated to Eretz Yisrael from Poland and had served as the Rav of Kfar Ata.
At first we lived in tents, in the middle of a barren wilderness. The nearest settlements to ours were a group of several kibbutzim associated with the left-wing Shomer HaTzair movement: Gat, Gilon and Negva. Several of our members supported themselves by working at Kibbutz Gat, the closest to us, doing different types of manual labor. Others worked in agriculture, planting wheat, barley, rye and other grains and legumes. I myself drove a tractor. Our produce, which grew throughout the fifteen thousand or so dunam [nearly four thousand acres] allotted us, we sold to bakeries and factories.
At that time, there were not yet water pipes reaching our moshav. We had to content ourselves with what could be grown in dry, rugged fields. Every few days we would make a trip to Kibbutz Negva, about twenty kilometers distant, to fill large containers with drinking water.
The second year we were there, 5711 on the Jewish calendar (fall 1950–summer 1951) was the Shemitta year which comes every seventh year, in which the Torah commands to desist from all agricultural work (see Vayikra 25:1–7). We were among the very few settlements in Eretz Yisrael at the time to observe the laws of the Sabbatical year and refrain from working the land. Instead, we concentrated on building, and succeeded that year in completing much of the permanent housing. The moshav gradually developed and expanded, and more and more families moved in, as well as a number of young singles. By the end of the year we already numbered around eighty people.
As the Shemitta year drew to its completion, we prepared to renew our farming activities. For this we required seed to sow crops, but for this purpose we could only use wheat from the sixth year, the year that preceded Shemitta, for the produce of the seventh year is forbidden for this type of use. We went around to all the agricultural settlements in the area, near and far, seeking good quality seed from the previous year’s harvest, but no one could fulfill our request.
All we were able to find was some old wormy seed that, for reasons that were never made clear to us, was laying around in a storage shed in Kibbutz Gat. No farmer in his right mind anywhere in the world would consider using such poor quality seed to plant with, not if he expected to see any crops from it. The kibbutzniks at Gat all burst into loud, derisive laughter when we revealed that we were actually interested in this infested grain that had been rotting away for a few years in some dark, murky corner.
“If you really want it, you can take all that you like, and for free, with our compliments,” they offered in amusement.
We consulted with Rav Mendelsohn. His response was, “Take it. The One who tells wheat to sprout from good seed can also order it to grow from inferior, wormy, leftover seed as well.”
In any case, we had no alternative. So we loaded on a tractor all the old, infested seed that the kibbutz had offered to us free of charge and returned to Komemiyus.
The laws of Shemitta forbade us to plough and turn over the soil until after Rosh HaShana, the beginning of the eighth year, so we did not actually get to sow the seed until the next month, Marcheshvan. This was two or three months after all the other farmers had already completed their planting.
That year, the rains were late in coming. The farmers from all the kibbutzim and moshavim gazed upward longingly for the first rain. They began to feel desperate, but the heavens were unresponsive, remaining breathlessly still and blue.
Finally it rained. When? The day after we completed planting our thousand dunam of wheat fields with those wormy seeds, the sky opened up and the rains exploded down to saturate the parched earth.
The following days we were nervous in anticipation, but we turned our attention to strengthening our faith and trust in Hashem. Anyway, it did not take a long time for the hand of Hashem to be revealed clearly to all. Those wheat fields that were planted during Shemitta, months before the first rain, sprouted only small, weak crops. At the same time, our fields, sowed with the old, infested seed and long after the appropriate season, were covered with an unusually large and healthy yield of wheat, in comparison to any standard.
The story of the “miracle at Komemiyus” spread quickly. Farmers from all the agricultural settlements in the South came to see with their own eyes what they could not believe when they heard the rumors about it.
When the farmers from Kibbutz Gat arrived, they pulled a surprise on us. After looking in open-mouthed astonishment at the impressive, bountiful quantity of wheat flourishing in our fields, grown from the infested seeds they had provided us, they decided to renege on their generosity. They announced they wanted payment for the tractor load of old, rotten wheat they had scornfully given us for free only a short time before.
Even more startling, they said they would file a claim against us in Bais Din, the rabbinical court, and with Rav Mendelsohn himself, no less! Probably they figured that in a secular court such a claim wouldn’t have the slightest possible chance of gaining them even a single penny.
Rav Mendelsohn accepted their case seriously, and in the end judged that we should pay them. He explained that the reason they gave it for free was because they thought it worthless for planting, while in truth it really was excellent for that purpose. We were astonished to hear his ruling, but needless to say, we complied.
The whole story became an extraordinary Kiddush Hashem, a glorification of Hashem, in the eyes of people throughout the country. Everyone agreed it was a clear fulfillment of Hashem’s promise in the Torah:
“And if you shall say, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year? Behold we may not plant, nor harvest our produce!’ I will command My blessing to you….” (Vayikra 25:20-21).
[Translated and freely adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from Sichat HaShavua #721.]