At age seven, he was already giving a public derashah in shul every Shabbos on the weekly parshah, which his father taught him. One week, a dispute broke out in Herimilov, and Rav Dov Berish’s father, Rav Yekele, being the Rav of Hrimlov, was naturally involved in trying to help both sides come to some resolution. The Rav was so busy with the machlokes that he had no time that week to review the parshah or teach young Dov Berish any novel insight or derush to share in his upcoming weekly Shabbos derasha. That week, a totally unprepared Dov Beirish got up in shul and in front of the entire kehillah delivered the following message: “It says in the Chumash that Moshe spoke to all of the congregation saying, “Va’yomer Moshe el kol adas Bnei Yisrael.” (Shemos 35:4) Why does it say kol – all of them? This teaches us that Moshe Rabbeinu was only able to speak words of Torah when all of them, kol adas bnei Yisrael, were united and there was no dispute among them. As long as the dispute in Hrimlov continues,” explained Dov Beirish, “and as long as there is no peace or shalom among the Jews in this kehillah, I will be unable to say any new novel insights on the parshah either!”

In his youth, Dov Beirish’s father brought him to the tisch of the Husyatiner Rebbe, Rav Mordechai Feivish. The chassidim were amazed to see how the child was carried straight over the heads of the crowd and seated at the head of the table where all around him sat the elders, gaonim and tzaddikim. The rebbe, uncharacteristically explained this with the utmost simplicity: “Here sits a gadol!”

Some two weeks after his bar mitzvah on 5 Shevat 5654, he was orphaned from his father in a sudden and unexpected manner. His two older brothers, Rav Yitzchak, who succeeded their father as Rav of Hrimlov, and Rav Nachum, Rav of Dombrova, helped raise and educate him.

In 5660, he married the daughter of Rav Yisrael Yosef (HaCharif) Kluger of Tchebin, one of the most ardent followers and chassidim of the Shinover Rav, author of Divrei Yechezkel. At the time of the marriage, Rav Yisrael Yosef was no longer alive, and it was his widow who went to seek the advice and approval of Rav Yechezkel of Shinava whether she should agree to the match or not. The tzaddik told her to go ahead with the shidduch, explaining, “Although I do not know the boy personally, I know his brother Rav Nachum, Av Beis Din Dombrova, and surely he is similar. If so, the shidduch will be to the satisfaction and nachas ruach of your late husband Rav Yisrael Yosef in the world of emes.”

Rav Dov Beirish and his wife were blessed with six children, two sons and four daughters. Unfortunately, many of them perished, murdered in the Holocaust. Their oldest son, Rav Yekele Hy”d, named after his paternal grandfather, was one of the greatest iluyim and geniuses of Galicia.

His brother, Rav Yisrael Yosef Hy”d, named after his maternal grandfather, was chosen as son-in-law of Rav Menachem Ziemba Hy”d, for his daughter Miriam Hy”d.

Their oldest daughter Mindel married Rav Shlomo Goldstoff of Krakow.

Their second daughter Leah married Rav Baruch Halberstam Hy”d, the son of Rav Sinia of Zemigrad and Av Beis Din of Zeklikov.

Their third daughter Yuta Hy”d, married Rav Chaim Tannenbaum Hy”d, a Gerrer yungerman.

Their youngest daughter married the gaon Rav Baruch Shimon Schneerson, who took over the helm as Rosh Yeshiva of Kochav Yaakov Tchebin in Yerushalayim.

In 5665, at age 24, Rav Dov Beirish received semichah from one of the gedolim of the generation, Rav Yitzchak Shmelkes, Av Beis Din of Lemberg and author of Beis Yitzchak.

Initially, Rav Dov Beirish did all he could to make a living through other means, rather than serve as a Rav. One of these means was a contract he had as a coal supplier when coal was still a popular fuel for energy and the sale of coal was a profitable business.

It once happened that after checking the bank account of his coal mine, Rav Dov Beirish realized that through some clerical error, his account had inadvertently been credited five thousand zloty.

Rav Dov Beirish immediately sank into deep thought. There was of course no question that he would return the money immediately. His hesitation was not as to whether to keep the mistaken funds. The question that bothered him for several hours was how he would return the money without causing any pain, anguish or trouble to the clerk that had made the mistake in the first place! The worry that someone might suffer some loss or embarrassment because of his actions, justified as they would obviously be, worried him to no end.

He eventually devised a plan for returning the funds in a way that no one would be blamed or suffer any loss, and his face was visibly filled with relief and satisfaction.

All during this time, Rav Dov Beirish sat and studied, learning Torah half a day and taking care of his business concerns the other half. He spent the nights studying and teaching, answering queries and questions that rabbanim, gaonim and talmidim posed to him. Many came to consult him; his uncle, the Rav of Tchebin, Rav Yaakov Levi (the son-in-law of his wife’s grandfather Rav Chaim Kluger), would send his sons to consult with him on all matters, especially difficult ones.

Rav Dov Beirish’s father, the author of Kochav MiYaakov and Rav of Hrimlov, had a great disciple and talmid named Rav Meir Arik, who was the Av Beis Din of Buchach and the author of Imrei Yosher. Rav Meir Arik was considered one of the gedolei hador, a genius and one of the greatest poskim in Galicia. When a halachic query was sent from Tchebin to Rav Arik, he agreed to answer it on only one condition, that the Gaon of Tchebin, as Rav Meir Arik called Rav Dov Beirish, would agree. It was a great honor for such an esteemed rav to treat Rav Dov Beirish in such a way when to all appearances Rav Dov Beirish was a baal habayis and a working-class merchant, rather than a Rav or posek.

It was Rav Meir Arik who pressured Rav Dov Beirish to enter the rabbinate and assume his life’s role as a posek and Rosh Yeshiva. Rav Dov Beirish had for twenty years hidden himself from the public eye and lived as a businessman off his coal mine, and he staunchly refused to accept a position in the rabbinate for as long as he could. Finally, Rav Meir Arik delivered the following berachah: “I bless you that you should lose all your money and be forced to finally accept the chair of the rabbinate!”

The Imrei Yosher’s berachah was summarily fulfilled not long after it was uttered. The incident itself illustrates once again the future Tchebiner Rav’s fine character, outstanding middos, and sincerity for emes. Not long after Rav Meir Arik’s berachah, Rav Dov Beirish gave up his source of income and savings willingly and knowingly in the following manner:

A coal merchant by the name of Reb Binyamin Filler ordered a large number of railroad cars full of coal shipments. The order was substantial and profitable indeed. A few days later, word reached Rav Dov Beirish that the value and price of coal was going to plummet. As soon as he heard this, Rav Dov Beirish realized that Reb Binyamin would lose a lot of money, as he had purchased the coal at peak prices. Rav Dov Beirish did not transfer the coal to the buyer, Reb Binyamin, as agreed. Instead he waited and watched as the predicted prices plunged and went down along with his entire savings and fortune. Everything was gone. . .

Reb Binyamin’s investment was saved, and he did not lose his money. But Rav Dov Beirish was left bereft of most of his financial means. Left with no choice, he sold his concerns and left the marketplace behind. In 5683, his uncle Rav Yaakov Levi, the Rav of Tchebin, passed away. Finally, Rav Dov Beirish acquiesced and agreed to accept the vacant position as Rav of Tchebin.

Besides his position as Rav of Tchebin and Rosh Yeshiva of Kochav MiYaakov, he also agreed to serve on the staff as a member of the spiritual leadership of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, a position created after the passing of the Rosh Yeshiva and founder, Rav Meir Shapira. Among the illustrious members that served alongside the Tchebiner Rav were the likes of Rav Fromer of Kozhiglov, Rav Friedman of Boyan, Rav Firer of Krasna, Rav Ziemba Hy”d of Warsaw and others.

When the Nazis began their wave of terror and destruction, Rav Dov Beirish fled to Lemberg where he settled for nine months in the summer of 5700. There he was a guest at the home of Rav Nachum’enyu Friedman, son-in-law of Rav Yisrael of Husyatin. Rav Nachum’s home became a hive, humming with the sweet sounds of Torah as many gedolim flocked to bask in the light of their revered guest, the Tchebiner Rav. Unfortunately, from month to month the plight of Lemberg’s Jews grew from serious to dire and the Bolsheviks did their best to make life for the religious, Torah-true Jews as difficult as possible. They closed down all the major shuls and locked them. They forbade the public study and teaching of Torah, and they arrested rabbanim, shochtim and other klei kodesh; anyone caught disobeying their wicked laws was severely punished. The Tchebiner Rav continued to learn Torah clandestinely. His talmidim and yeshivah went figuratively underground until Sivan of 5700 when the bitter decree was carried out and all the Jewish refugees of Lemberg were gathered up and shipped off. . . to Siberia.

Eyewitnesses testified that askanim did their best to convince the Bolsheviks to release Rav Dov Beirish. Somehow their efforts bore fruit and they succeeded in redeeming him, but he would not allow himself to be saved when all of his brethren were being shipped off. He began to yell and shout, “I don’t want to be singled out from everyone else, I refuse to separate from my congregants and fellow countrymen, I won’t leave behind my fellow Jews during their pain and distress!” They returned him to the truck that was to transport them to the work camps in Siberia.

While those gathered cried tearfully at the fate of the deported Jews, the Hand of Hashem’s hashgachah pratis was hard at work. Had those well-meaning, good-hearted askanim succeeded in rescuing the Tchebiner Rav from Siberia, who knows if he would have survived. Most of the Jews of Lemberg were later to suffer the bitter fate of the millions of other Jews at the hands of the wicked Nazi’s regime. It was only thanks to his Siberian exile that Rav Dov Beirish survived.

During the long and bitter exile in Siberia, the Tchebiner Rav warmed himself with Torah. Lacking basic sefarim, he studied and reviewed from memory. His many chiddushim, pilpulim and teshuvos were written on wood shavings, scraps of paper from packages and torn cement bags that he found in the woods. Instead of using these as fuel in their stove to warm their home, the Tchebiner Rav used them to warm his heart and soul with Torah.

Here the Rav hid his true identity from the Bolshevik cruelty and pretended to be a simple melamed. When the Commissar interrogated the Polish gentile interpreter as to why Rav Dov Beirish was dressed like a rabbi, hashgachah pratis placed the proper words into the gentile’s mouth and he responded with honest derision: “I guess you have never in your life been to Warsaw? If you had, you might think that all the Jews are rabbis by the way they dress!” The Commissar accepted the snide anti-Semitic remark at face value and Rav Dov Beirish’s identity remained a secret and he remained safe.

In 5702, all the many efforts of his talmidim and askanim bore fruit and the Rav was released to Buchara, where he remained for four years after the war. There he married off his youngest daughter Raizel to Rav Baruch Shimon Schneerson.

Eventually Hitler’s wicked regime fell and the Tchebiner Rav made it to Persian Iran where the parnass Rav Yitzchak Meir Levi took care of him in Tehran until he succeeded in arranging passage for him and his family through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and finally to their destination in Eretz Yisrael.

Unfortunately the war took its toll on his family. For years, the Tchebiner Rav didn’t know the fate of his children. The bitter truth was only revealed after the war, that his oldest son Rav Yekele Hy”d, his son Rav Yisrael Yosef Hy”d, his second daughter Leah Hy”d and her husband Rav Baruch Halberstam Hy”d, his third daughter Yuta Hy”d along with her husband Rav Chaim Tannenbaum Hy”d all perished, may Hashem avenge their blood.

In 5706, as Pesach approached, the Tchebiner Rav arrived in Jerusalem and his faithful talmid Rav Mordechai Mondshein arranged for him to stay in the Babad hotel where he conducted the Seder and celebrated Yom Tov and Pesach. They stayed there for some three months in all. It later it came to light that Rav Mordechai borrowed the money from a gemach in Shaarei Chessed after having pawned his wife’s jewelry to fund the Rav’s accommodations, to which she agreed wholeheartedly with love.

When the Tchebiner Rav davened in the beis medrash of the Imrei Emes on Shavuos, the Gerrer Rebbe said: “Today we honor the ten commandments with the Torah himself – the Tchebiner Rav!”

In 5707, Rav Dov Beirish met the gaon Rav Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky in Yerushalayim. Rav Yosef Tzvi remarked, “I seem to remember that your father, Rav Yekele of Hrimlov, had two sons in the rabbinate and one that was a merchant. It was well known that the two rabbanim were gedolim in Torah. I once met the third brother, the businessman, when I was on vacation in Marienbad. It seemed to me that his genius surpassed his two brothers. You are the Tchebiner Rav, so perhaps you can tell me what happened to your brother, the businessman?” Rav Dov Beirish remained silent, embarrassed and humble, but those present hinted to Rav Dushinsky that the third brother, once a businessman, was none other than the man sitting across from him now!

On 4 Shevat 5707, his rebbetzin passed away in Hadassah Hospital. He later remarried Rebbetzin Raizel Lieberman-Branfeld, a descendant of the Chasam Sofer.

About two years before he passed away, the cornerstone was laid for the new building of Kochav MiYaakov, the new Tchebiner Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Rav Dov Beirish made his final public appearance at the event held to celebrate the laying of the cornerstone in a hall in the Talpiot neighborhood on 12 Tammuz 5723, where he spoke with great emotion. He blessed all the assembly and spoke about how the Torah is our life – ki hem chayenu, that a person without Torah is like a body without soul, and that anyone who loves his children must raise them to Torah even with self-sacrifice and mesirus nefesh. He interpreted the Yerushalmi’s statement in Berachos: “He who makes his Torah itim is considered as if he breached the covenant.” Itim means times, and the statement of Chazal is usually understood to refer to one who studies Torah now and then, from time to time. But as the Tchebiner Rav explained: “Whoever says nishtanu ha’itim – times have changed, that nowadays things are different and we don’t need to teach our children and raise them to study Torah, such a person has breached the bris because the Torah is eternal and not temporal for just one period of history!” He also spoke of the need to teach others and how talmidei yeshivah were obligated to share their learning with others and not to keep all they had learned to themselves. He anticipated the building’s completion to celebrate the chanukas habayis as well, but that was not to be.

The Yomim Noraim of 5726 passed uneventfully. Rav Dov Beirish made it to the mikvah, was in good spirits, telling sippurei tzadikim, and celebrating the yamim tovim. In Cheshvan he was diagnosed with pneumonia and his condition quickly worsened. As word spread, Klal Yisrael davened for his recovery, but it was not to be. On Friday, 10 MarCheshvan, his final hour approached. He remained calm and serene, and asked his son-in-law Rav Shlomo Goldstoff for a glass of milk so he could recite the berachah of “Shehakol Nihiye BeDvaro.” He then asked for help to descend from his sick bed and sat down on a chair at the table. His face took on an other-worldy glow as his lips began to whisper “Nishmas Kol Chai Teverach es shimcha – the soul of all living shall bless You, Hashem our G-d,” At that very moment,his soul left this earthly abode and rose up to take part in Kabbalas Shabbos in Shomayim.

He passed away Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parshas Lech Lecha, 10 Cheshvan 5726. He was laid to rest on Motzaei Shabbos amid a levaya of some forty thousand who came to escort him on his final journey to his resting place on Har Menuchos, where he was buried not far from the tzion of Rav Aharon of Belz. As was his final will and request to his son-in-law Rav Shlomo Goldstoff, there was no hesped or eulogy delivered.

Rav Dov Beirish did all he could to help yeshivah students acquire the necessary exemptions from the army. When the Tchebiner Rav was approached by those who wished to convince him that it was necessary to augment the power of the IDF to protect Israel’s citizens, and to that end they needed to conscript yeshivah students into the army as well, he responded with the following mashal:

There was once a coachman whose coach was stuck. The mountainous terrain was so hilly, and the coach overburdened with such a heavy load, that the horses had trouble pulling the reins and the coach sat stationary at the bottom of the hill.

The coachman alighted and tried to coax the tired horses with sugar cubes and carrot sticks. When that didn’t work, he tried to remove some of the heavy luggage and parcels. Finally, the coach was empty but the horses were still unable to ascend the steep hill. When this too failed, the coachman was at his wits end. Finally, on the brink of despair and ready to give up, he had one final idea. He proceeded to unlatch the heavy iron wheels and take them off the coach, reasoning that it must be their heavy weight that bogged the coach down, preventing its ascent to the top of the hill!

“You are guilty of the same flawed logic and warped reasoning as the coachman,” argued the Tchebiner Rav as he explained the parable’s message. “It is only in the merit of the Torah study of the yeshivah students that you win any wars and gain any victories. Now you come and wish to take off the wheels of the coach! Without them, the coach won’t drive anywhere at all!”

When Rav Moshe Akiva Druck, the editor of Hamodia and one of the members of Agudas Yisrael, brought up the topic of secular marriage, he was surprised by the Tchebiner Rav’s response. “Why do we insist on halachic marriage even for those secular Jews who call themselves chilonim when the issue creates so many problems?” The Rav answered: “We need the law not just for our generation but for future generations as well. I am sure that the grandchildren of these mistaken staunch secularists will one day come back to the fold and return to lives of Torah and mitzvos in our own yeshivas. I for one,” explained the Tchebiner Rav, “don’t want to be the one who has to go and check the yichus and pedigree of each and every one of the ba’alei teshuvah when they reach the age of chuppah and marriage, so long as the general rules of marriage and divorce are based on halachah, ke’das Moshe V’Yisrael, we can assume a chezkas kashrus. However,” he continued, “if we Heaven forbid forego even these minimal laws, we might find ourselves involved in complex and difficult questions later on.” His prophetic words have indeed proven themselves as we can see clearly that the descendants of those secularists have indeed returned to the fold as ba’alei teshuvah and his far-sighted predictions have come true – chacham adif me’navi.

To understand just how much other gedolim and tzaddikim held of and appreciated the Tchebiner Rav, we can cite the following example: Rav Itzikel Gevirtzman of Pshevorsk, rebbe in Antwerp and a descendant of the Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk, once sent the Tchebiner Rav a letter saying, “Please believe me that I daven daily for your honor and for the sake of the Belzer, the Gerrer and the Satmar Rav. Just as we put on tefillin on a daily basis, I daven for the four of you each and every day that you all have long healthy lives.”

even in the freezing siberian exile

You might assume that in the freezing Siberian exile other matters occupied the Tchebiner Rav, but here is an example of his Torah scholarship even in such extreme conditions: If two people were in the desert together and between them they had only one kezayis matzah, what should they do? If they divide it between themselves they would each have less than required minimal amount – pachos me’ke’shiur. Should one of them eat the whole kezayis matzah and the other won’t taste matzah at all? The Tchebiner Rav reworded the question as follows: Which is preferred -- one mitzvah fulfilled completely or two mitzvos with neither of them completely fulfilled?? His answer was: Even regarding himself a person should always prefer to do one mitzvah fully and completely rather than two incomplete mitzvos!” (Dovev Meisharim, Siman Yud)

timeless torah

Rav Dov Beirish used to say: “At Har Sinai, when Hashem held the mountain over our heads and forced us to accept the Torah, He warned us that if we did not accept the Torah, there will be your graves! It does not say, “here will be your graves”; it says “there,” referring to back then at that time. It’s a warning to us that at any time or place, if you Heaven forbid forsake the Torah, “there will be your graves,” because there is no life without Torah.