Reb Yisrael Yaakov Lubchansky 
died 5701/1941
The yeshivah in Baranovich carried the name Ohel Torah, but it was more than a mere ohel, tent; in a way it was the "mother" of yeshivos. It served younger talmidim, aged 14 to 20, preparing them for other yeshivos. By listening to the blatt Gemara taught daily by Reb Elchonon Wasserman they acquired a solid foundation in Talmudic learning (Reb Elchonon's comments on the blatt have been published in the Koveitz He'aros, while his weekly pilpul shiurim have been collected in the Koveitz Shiurim). One could hardly find a talmid of Kamenitz, Mir or Kletzk who had not previously learned Torah in Baranovich. And if Baranovich was the mother of the yeshivos, the Mashgiach, Reb Yisrael Yaakov Lubchansky, was the nursemaid.
Reb Elchonon Wasserman, the Rosh Yeshivah, described the Mashgiach in one sentence: "Reb Yisrael Yaakov has a ta'avah, a passion, for mitzvos!" And a ta'avah it was! Moreover, these mitzvos, which he so craved, were done with utter perfection. Take the case of his mother. He never failed to pay her his daily visit. He would open the door and - as if standing before a queen - he would bow and say, "Good morning, Momma." To which she would reply, "Good morning and be blessed." A neighbor who often witnessed this daily ritual once asked the old Rebbetzin why she did not invite her son into the house. The Rebbetzin replied: "My son is a tzaddik. He is a perfectionist in mitzvos. When I would say 'sit down,' he would knock over everything on his way to the chair. He considers every word of mine an order, the mitzvah of kibbud-eim, which cannot wait a second! Then after he would sit down, I noticed him sitting for hours. I finally caught on that he considers every moment sitting in the chair as part of the mitzvah and he wouldn't get up until I told him to!"
He was a disciple of the legendary Reb Yoseif Yoizel Hurwitz known as the After of Novaradok, the founder of the Novaradok approach to Mussar. Thus Reb Yisrael Yaakov became the Novaradoker par excellence. He became Reb Yoseif's son-in-law, and this, in a manner most characteristic for him. In his great simplicity he walked in one morning to his Rebbe and declared, "I'm 18 today and according to the halachah I should get married." Reb Yoseif, knowing his talmid thoroughly, replied "You don't have to look far. I'11 give you my daughter." (The other son-in-law was Reb Avrohom Yoffen, Rosh Yeshivah of the Novaradoker Center in Bialystok and its seventy or more branch-yeshivos all over Poland.)
A Born Ka'ason
Reb Yisrael Yaakov was born a ka'ason, an ill-tempered person, and he spent his lifetime breaking his nature; shviras hamidos was his favorite theme. He was always biting his lips, for his father once told him, "When you get angry, bite your lips!" He practiced his father's advice fulfilling the mitzvah of kibbud av as well as the mitzvah to listen to the words of the Sages! But Mussar which digs into the deepest feelings of a person, his psychology and nature, pinpoints ka'as, bad temper, as the result of pride, self-aggrandizement, and also of meanness. Mussar therefore prescribes as antidote, humility and kindness, and that is what Reb Yisrael Yaakov practiced all his life - anavah and chessed!
His father was Rav in New-Baranovich and, after his demise, Reb Yisrael Yaakov took over the rabbinate. But how can a Rav practice anavah and chessed! He found a unique way. Since the railroad station was a few miles outside of town, and many people could not afford the horse and buggy that served as cab, Reb Yisrael Yaakov would come to the station to help people carry their packages to town! Local people would refuse the "honor" of being helped with their luggage by the Rav, but strangers gladly accepted his offer, not realizing that the Rav of the town was carrying their packages! Needless to say, while walking with them to town, he would talk about Yiddishkeit and Mussar, encouraging the stranger to place faith and trust in G-d.
How totally he broke down his natural temper can be seen in the following episode. In the freezing winter nights of Eastern Europe, it was the job of the shammas to tend to the shul's oven early every morning. Thus, when people came at daybreak, to recite Tehillim or to study before davenen, they should find the place warm. The shammas - an elderly man and a little lazy - would rely on the out-of-town beggars, who normally arrived during the night, to light the oven. But many times, when the beggars would not show up, the shul would be freezing in the morning, and people began to complain. Then all complaints stopped - the oven would be fire-hot every morning. People thought the shammas was doing a good job, and the shammas took it for granted that the beggars were tending the oven. No one suspected that it was the Rav, Reb Yisrael Yaakov, who was doing the job every morning!
One early morning, the firewood happened to be particularly wet, thus requiring a lot of blowing to get a fire going. (One could blow his lungs out until the wood finally burned.) With his head in the oven door, Reb Yisrael Yaakov was blowing upon the fire, and the shammas walked in. In the darkness of daybreak he did not recognize the Rav. Sure that it was one of the beggars who was tending the oven, the shammas in a joking manner gave the man a good kick! Reb Yisrael Yaakov knew that if he took his head out of the oven, the shammas would be terribly embarrassed. Imagine the shammas actually kicking the Rav! So he pushed his face deeper into the oven. The smoke was burning his eyes and choking his lungs, yet he would not remove his head until the shammas left! By the time the shammas walked away, half of the Rav's beard was gone; his beard had caught fire!
Farewell to the Rabbinate
The rabbinate was not his ideal, for his aspirations were centered upon the Novaradoker slogan, "Let your wellsprings flow outward" (Mishlei 5:16). This goal could only be achieved in a yeshivah, so when Reb Elchonon Wasserman needed a Mashgiach for his yeshivah, Reb Yisrael Yaakov gave up the rabbinate to accept the new position. It did not take long for Reb Elchonon to notice the Mashgiach's influence.
Whoever learned Torah in Baranovich will never forget the "long miles" the Mashgiach used to cover, walking up and down the aisle for many hours. Immersed in his thoughts, he would march, swaying his body like a see-saw, and biting his lips to the rhythm of his steps. One could judge the severity of a student's misconduct by the Mashgiach's lip-biting during the rebuke.
A person's dignity was priceless to him. He would take extra care to avoid the slightest disrespect to the youngest talmid. It was not unusual, during a "shmuess," a Mussar talk, to hear the Mashgiach ask forgiveness from a talmid, in public, if he felt he had overreacted to some misconduct.
He and his wife were childless, and one could see the extra effort he would make to show her respect and honor. (However, they raised an orphan girl as their own, who grew up to become, as Rebbetzin Kaplan, the life-spark of Williamsburg, now Borough Park, Bais Yaakov Seminary.) The following episode was told about him. Every Shabbos a number of boys would eat at his table. Once the Rebbetzin made a mistake: instead of putting cooking oil into the cholent, she put in kerosene! Tasting the kerosene, the boys presented all kinds of excuses for not eating. However, Reb Yisrael Yaakov ate his portion. Purposely praising the cholent, he asked for seconds and after the seconds he asked for more. By that time, she tasted the food herself. Realizing her terrible mistake, she grabbed away the plate from him, complaining: "Why are you all of a sudden so hungry for cholent? I have something else to serve yet in honor of the Shabbos!" Not a word was mentioned about the terrible mistake.
The Novaradok Touch
Novaradokers are known for their ability to deliver lengthy Mussar shmuessen impromptu. The gedolim of Novaradok had worked diligently to develop this talent in all its talmidim. It became the imprint of a Novaradoker to be a Maayon Hamisgaber, an overflowing wellspring of Mussar. And Reb Yisrael Yaakov, being the Novaradoker par excellence, surpassed all the others! He could say a shmuess for long hours, the level and depth always fitting the audience, always interesting, always touching the listener's neshamah.
The peak of his dedicated efforts was in Elul. From Rosh Chodesh Elul until after Ne'ilah, he did not let up, rising higher and higher, and carrying along the entire yeshivah. While normally we used to learn Mussar only one half hour daily, before Maariv, in Elul we also learned Mussar before Minchah. He gave shmuessen two and three times a week, then vaadim, sessions, for separate classes and groups. The climax was the words of "hisorerus" (awakening) every Saturday night! One who has never heard Reb Yisrael Yaakov "say hisorerus" has never had his neshamah cry!
Right after Shalosh Seudos, enveloped in total darkness, the yeshivah would study Mussar by heart, then the mashgiach would begin his hisorerus! - Here he would reveal his genius in the understanding of human character. After tearing apart our ego, tearing at our neshamah, he would call out, "Let's all together ask loudly, 'Create in me a pure heart, oh G-d, and renew a righteous spirit in me' (Tehillim 51:12)!" Or, "My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You - to see Your power and Your glory, as I have seen You in the sanctuary!" (Tehillim 63:3). Or, "Turn us unto You, oh G-d, and we shall return; renew our days as of old" (Eicha 5:21).
After his hisorerus - still in total darkness - we davened Maariv. Needless to say anything about that Maariv - it was like Ne'ilah on Yom Kippur. There were close to five hundred talmidim; many ba'alei battim, townspeople, who would fill up the rear of the huge building and in his seat near the very back, next to the door, Reb Elchonon himself - and I can testify that, when the lights went on, there was not a dry eye to be found in the entire audience. Everyone was crying.
A few times during Elul, Reb Yisrael Yaakov would travel to the Novaradoker center in Bialystok, to deliver shmuessen and hisorerus.
Reb Elchonon Wasserman met the Gerer Rebbe at a Knessiah Gedolah of Agudath Israel. There one of the Chassidim asked the Gerer Rebbe if he should send his son to Baranovich. The Rebbe is supposed to have replied, "To Reb Elchonon? What question is that?" That did it. Every year more and more Chassidim arrived in the yeshivah. Reb Yisrael Yaakov was critical of the perpetual joyfulness, simchah, of the Chassidim. "What is this simchah for? Have we broken all our bad qualities yet? Have we already reached the proper level we could attain?" he would ask. And he began to instill the Chassidim with Mussar, Novaradoker Mussar. He felt much closer to the Braslaver Chassidim who had a group in the yeshivah. They, like the Novaradokers, practiced a great deal of solitude, even walking in cemeteries in order to impress upon themselves that here lay the end of man, the end of all passions and desires.
The Last Time I Saw Him
The last time I saw Reb Yisrael Yaakov was in 1941, in Slobodka, near the famous yeshivah. It happened under perilous circumstances. I had not seen my beloved Mashgiach for almost three years, for I had gone from Baranovich to Kamenitz. With the Russians occupying Kamenitz, the yeshivah moved to Vilna, and when the Lithuanians took over Vilna, we moved to Rasein (Raseinai) in Lithuania proper. When the Soviet bear swallowed the Lithuanian pigeon, the Soviets and the Lithuanian Communist police began to arrest the students and faculty of all yeshivos for the purpose of shipping them to Siberia. When I was tipped off by a local Communist that "tonight is your turn," meaning that of the entire Kamenitzer Yeshivah, I rushed to the mashgiach, Reb Naftoli Leibowitz with the bad news. (Reb Naftoli was the only member of the Administration with us, for Reb Boruch Ber had passed away the year before, Reb Reuvain Grozovsky was in New York, and Reb Moshe Bernstein was in Jerusalem.) We had been expecting arrests, but not so soon. I told the mashgiach that I was going home to Lomza, somehow smuggling myself across the borders. That very same day, a mere few hours before the arrest, I took off on foot for Kovno. Tired and worn out from walking all night I reached Slobodka, the suburb of Kovno, in the morning. I hoped to find shelter and food in the yeshivah, my father's Alma Mater. Expecting to reach the yeshivah in the middle of davnen I was shocked to find the big building totally deserted! As I sat down to rest my feet, a voice called out in Yiddish, "Leift! Antleift! (run! escape!) They come here every once in a while and arrest anyone they find here! They ship them all to Siberia! Run at once!" The voice came from a side door, but I did not see anyone.
I took the warning to heart. As tired as I was, I left the building in a hurry, blaming myself for the stupidity of coming here in the first place. If the Soviet NKVD were searching for me, the yeshivah would be the first place they would look. As I came out to the almost deserted street, I noticed an elderly man walking close to the walls. Strangely, he was actually scraping the walls with his long coat. Even though I only saw his back, the man's walk, the see-saw walk, struck me as Reb Yisrael Yaakov's!
I rushed over to him, and indeed it was he! Strange, though, instead of his round, high, black hat, he was wearing a leather cap usually worn by the horse and buggy cab-drivers, the izvoshchiks. It was obvious he had disguised himself from the Russians and the Lithuanian Communist police.
All shaken-up I grabbed his hand, "Sholem Aleichem, Rebbe." Tears sliding down into his grayish beard, still biting his lips, he said: "Chaim Lomzer, what are you doing here?" When I told him that I had escaped from being arrested and that I was hurrying home to Poland, he said "Leift lechaim ulsholom! Leift shnell!" (Go in peace! Go fast!) Biting his lips till blood appeared, tears running down from his eyes, he motioned for me to run, and himself hurrying, he walked off into the small streets of Slobodka.
In the confusion, I forgot to ask him if he was the one who had sounded the warning inside the yeshivah. However in my heart I knew it was he; it was befitting the man who had suffered so much from the Bolsheviks in the First World War to risk his life to warn others.
Above our heads a huge sign in Russian and Lithuanian read, "KTO NYE RABOTAYET TOT NYE YEST! (Who doesn't work doesn't eat!)." The old Marxist slogan was placed purposely in front of the yeshivah, for in the Communist vocabulary all clergymen are "parasites" who do not work but spread religion, "opium" to the people, and who therefore are not entitled to eat. How ignorant those materialistic Marxists are! Here was a man, who worked so hard all his life, to break his middos, his habits, his desires, there were all those b'nei Torah who labored likewise, the Mussar way, the Torah way - certainly much harder than mere physical work!
Perhaps it was Reb Yisrael Yaakov's last breached that sustained me and kept me alive miraculously during the next four years of dreadful war. Z'chuso yogen aleinu!