Rav Yitzchok of Radvil zt"l
הרב יצחק בן יחיאל מיכל מראדוויל זצ"ל
Iyar 11 , 5595
Rav Yitzchok of Radvil zt"l
Son of Rav Yechiel Michel of Zlotshuv
Son-in-law of Rav Moshe Shoham of Dolina
His second marriage was to the daughter of Rav Tzvi Hirsch of Nadworna.
He was named after his grandfather Rav Yitzchok of Derhobitsh.
His father said of him that he corresponded to Chumash Shemos.
He was a gadol baTorah and served as Rav of several kehilos that where very far distance one from the other and the reasons for his extensive wanderings remain a mystery to this day. He would appear in Nadworna, Opotshana, Botashan, Faltishan, Rymanov and Radvil. In this manner he served as Rav in Galicia, Poland, and Romania. During his tenure in Nadworna, he had a dispute with Rav Menachem Mendel of Kosov and the Apta Rav defended him. When Rav Yitzchok moved, the disagreement came to an end. Eventually the houses of these two tzaddikim would eventually join in the form of a shidduch.
Rav Yitzchok passed away on 11 Iyar תקצ''ב (1832).
His handwritten manuscript of sefer Ohr Yitzchok was preserved for many years in the personal library of Rav Nachum Dov Fridman of Sadigura and was subsequently published in תשכ''א in Jerusalem. His son-in-law, Rav Yeshaya Muskat of Praga’s Siddur Harei Besamim contained Rav Yitzchok’s commentary to Pirkei Avos and Likkutim which were added to the Ohr Yitzchok.
His son, Rav Dan of Radvil, became the son-in-law was Rav Avrohom Yehoshua Heschel of Apta
Stories of Rav Yitzchok of Radvil zt"l
When he was still a young man living in his father’s home, Rav Yitzchok used to fast and afflict himself, depriving himself of sleep and thus hoping to better serve Hashem. He would secretly give his daily fare to the servants and he fasted until nightfall. He did this for one entire year. That year, on Yom Kippur night, as he stood before his father, Rav Yechiel Michel of Zlotchov, he was so overcome with fatigue that he fell asleep standing and had a vision. In that vision he wandered the heavenly palaces from chamber to chamber and there he saw that his avoda and his lack of sleep, his deprivation and fasting had an unwholesome stench, whereas when he observed his father’s beautiful chamber and his father’s avoda, all the sleep his father slept and the food he ate and drinks he drank, Rav Yechiel Michel smelled like fragrant flowers and glowed and shone with splendor.
When he awoke from his vision, his father, the Tzaddik Rav Yechiel Michel of Zlotchov, turned to him and said, “So whose way of serving Hashem is better – mine or yours? My eating and sleeping or your fasting and afflictions?” (Kisvei Kodesh Rav Moshe Midner)