The Agunah Who Recognized her Husband

The Inside Story of Chabad in America — Episode 75

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives. Since this week, a few days ago, was the yahrzeit of the Rebbe's great-grandfather on his mother's side, Avraham David Lavut — who was the author of the Sefer Kav Naki, amongst other halachic works; Kav Naki is a sefer about gittin — I want to share with you a special story that Avraham David Lavut signed, and his secretary wrote. This is a handwriting that — I don't know whether this story is written anywhere, I don't know — but I will read to you from the original.

Now, it's like this: in the 1940s, you know, those days the Aruch HaShulchan was very big in America — even the Kitzur was too much for people to learn — so the Rebbe asked Rabbi Mindel, amongst other things, that they make a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, I guess, for children, and they called it the Junior Code of Jewish Law. So they started to make the shorthand, and I already once mentioned it, but here I have the original. This is the original — the Rebbe wrote, he wrote notations, marginal comments, on this, a lot — and this is mamash the Rebbe's handwriting. And Rabbi Mindel wrote the English, and the English is here, I have it right here — the original. These are the marginal comments on the Junior Code of Jewish Law. And then the Rebbe wrote, on separate pages, notations, marginal comments — where did he write these? These are the Rebbe's marginal comments on these papers, about, I would say, probably quite a few pages.

Now, on the back of these marginal comments is written pilpul, She'eilos U'Teshuvos, written, I guess, by — no, by Avraham David Lavut's secretary. Now, it's all different handwritings written over here, so why did the Rebbe write on these — I don't know, one has nothing to do with the other. I don't know why — you could have taken a piece of paper and written separately, but instead, all these pages, on the back of the She'eilos U'Teshuvos — which is about pilpul, about all different things — and I want to read you one story that they wrote there. This was written — as far as that, that's something that I think should be printed.

I'll give you now a background about Avraham David Lavut, the Rebbe's great-grandfather. Avraham David Lavut was born, I think, about a couple of years after the Alter Rebbe was niftar — I think about two years after — he was born in 1815. And he was a chossid of the Tzemach Tzedek, and he was a chossid of the Rebbe Maharash. He was still young, and the Tzemach Tzedek, when he was 35 years old, sent him to Nikolayev to be a rav. So he was a rav there for 40 years, and he was niftar in Nikolayev in 1890.

Now, the Frierdiker Rebbe, a year or two before Yud Shvat, asked that Kehot should print the Kav Naki — I think it was out of print then. The Kav Naki was written by Avraham David Lavut, and it was not printed then, but the Frierdiker Rebbe made sure that the year after, before Yud Shvat, it should be printed — that's what the Frierdiker Rebbe wanted. Now, I don't know why specifically — maybe it's because he was the zeide of the Rebbe, and the Rebbe was going to be the Rebbe, maybe he wanted that it should be printed. I don't know, I don't know why.

Also, the Rebbe writes that his mother, the Rebbetzin, wrote — it's like a small biography — that she was the daughter of Meir Shlomo [?], and Meir Shlomo was a son of HaRav [?] — that Rivka was a daughter of Avraham David Lavut. She was the daughter of the Kav Naki, Avraham David Lavut.

This sefer, Kav Naki — what's it called, Kav Naki — kav means a measurement, naki means pure; that means a small quantity. It's a small sefer, but quality — it has a lot in there. It's a sefer about gittin. Also, Avraham David Lavut — whose yahrzeit, I just said, was a couple of days ago — his father's name was Yehuda Leib. And this sefer, a sefer of gittin, is usually spelled gimmel-yud-tes-nun, "get," and "get" is spelled with one yud here, and Yehuda Leib, the father, is also spelled with one yud, "Leib," not two, and it adds up — both add up to 72. I don't know the meaning, why it's written that way — I think it's written somewhere — they're both 72: Yehuda Leib is 72, and "get" is 72. Also, Kav Naki is 262, and Avraham David, the name, is also 262.

Baruch Sholom, who was the zeide on his father's side of the Rebbe — Baruch Sholom was the son of the Tzemach Tzedek. The Tzemach Tzedek had seven children, and already among them there was the Maharash, and there was the Kapuster — but Baruch Sholom was the only one that wasn't [a Rebbe], but you see, the Rebbe came out of him — the Rebbe is his great-grandson. So Baruch Sholom, the oldest son, gave a haskama on the sefer Kav Naki.

Now, these papers that I just showed you — these are She'eilos U'Teshuvos of the secretary of Avraham David Lavut. These are discussions about pilpul, about hilchos nashim [?], about [unclear], and much more. But I want to read you the story that it says over here from the original. These are the papers that the Rebbe was mamash holding, and he wrote this on the back of that story — I don't know why — but this is a story about an agunah.

In those times there was a lot of problems with agunos. Agunah means a woman who doesn't know where her husband is — she's married, she doesn't know if her husband died. He didn't die — in those days, men would go away from home and not come back, or they came back later. They don't know what happened with the husband — that's called an agunah. So this story is about an agunah, and it was written by the secretary. Now, this is in Hebrew, and I will translate this into English — all written in Hebrew, these papers. So I wrote down, in English, a summary of what he wrote.

A woman named [?] bas Yosef, Vishatskov [?], from the city of Chaslovich — that's how he writes it — came to live here, in Kherson [?], about 12 years ago, and she said that she is an agunah. An agunah is a woman who doesn't know if her husband is alive and therefore cannot remarry according to the halacha. For over 23 years she has been an agunah. All her years here, she had been a maid in the homes of upright people — that was her job — and she behaved in the manner of a religious woman, without any suspicion.

About eight years ago — he writes four years after her arrival; she arrived 12 years ago, so this was eight years ago — she went out to the marketplace to buy household needs. There she saw a non-Jew, a teacher of the Russian language to Jewish children from the nearby colonies — now, I'll tell you ahead of time, it says "non-Jew," but he was a Jew, but it says here "non-Jew" — and she recognized him to be her husband. She said, "This is my husband," and asked him to give her a get, a divorce, but with all her pleading and cries it did not help, because he denied ever being a Jew. But she knows that this is her husband.

Again, this was written on the back of the marginal comments of the Junior Code of Jewish Law, of what the Rebbe wrote. Upon seeing that her situation was hopeless, she turned to the chief of police for help. The chief, in turn, sent officers to investigate the truth of the story. At the investigation there were officers, there was a rov also from the colony, and there were other Jews also at the investigation. The officers asked her if she could prove the truth of what she was saying. And she answered that there were various marks on the body of the man whom she claimed to be her husband. Upon investigation, her words were found to be true, and the marks were true, and they were recorded in a document of testimony, a Ksav Eidus.

Nevertheless, she wasn't able to force a divorce out of him, because according to Russian law, a non-Jew was able to live with a Jewish woman — I'm just reading what the secretary of Avraham David Lavut wrote. On the fourth of Tishrei last year, this non-Jew died and was buried here. After his death, the woman came to the secretary of Avraham David [Lavut] and told me all the above. I asked her if she knows his birthplace, and she replied that she was only 12 years old at her marriage, and only lived with him for half a year — therefore she doesn't know his birthplace. He was already an older man, from a faraway place, and had a lot of money, and being that her father was very poor, he gave her to him in marriage — he sold her into marriage for a large sum of money. She was 12, and he was already an older man — that's what she said.

I asked her if he ever told her whether he had or didn't have any brothers, or whether it was never discussed with her. She told me that once, during the half year that they were together, he fell ill, became sick, and the police and the people asked him to divorce her, so that she would not be subjected to yibum — yibum means a ceremony when a childless widow is obligated to marry her deceased husband's brother. So apparently, according to them, he did have brothers, he claims —