ר' יהודה עבער

00:10 Reb Yehuda Eber was born on Yisroel Chag Pesach, tahf tes samech alef. When he was ten years old, tahf resh ayin alef, he was accepted to the cheder in Lubavitch. The summer of tahf resh ayin daled, he got accepted to the class of Reb Shmuel Nisanowitz, known as Shmuel Berisover, in, uh, Stretzin. By him, he learned his, uh, learning style, which he later on used when he was a Rosh Yeshiva. The year tahf resh ayin vav, he was accepted to the big zal, and he was a bachur in the big zal in, uh, in Lubavitch. Tahf resh ayin Ches, the yeshiva in Lubavitch moved together with the Rebbe Rashab to Rostov. After the closing of the yeshiva by the communists in tahf resh peh alef, he was a Rosh Yeshiva then later in the underground yeshivas in Poltava, Rostov, Nevel, Vitebsk. On Kislev, tahf resh peh vav, he got married with Freida, the daughter of Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rav of Rabka. In the year tahf resh tsadik, he managed to escape communist Russia together with his wife and their son, Avraham Eliyahu, from Russia to Riga, which that's where the Toldiner Rebbe was at that time. Afterwards, he moved to Warsaw. Tahf resh tsadik beis, he became the Rosh Yeshiva in Tomchei Temimim in Warsaw. In the summer of that year, when the financial situation of Tomchei Temimim in Poland, um, became worse, he took over also the financial part of running the yeshivas. In the winter of tahf shin, he managed to

01:48 escape with the help of the Toldiner Rebbe, together with his wife and his son and his daughter from the Nazis, and he came to Riga. His plans were to continue to the United States. However, he couldn't get the right papers for it. And on Yud Kislev tahf shin beis, the Nazis, Im Achshavom, put him into the shul together with a lot of other Yidden in the community, together with Chatzke Fagin and Eliyahu Maltz, and they burnt them up alive inside the shul. It is told that once the Toldiner Rebbe told Reb Yehuda Eber that he should be a Rosh Yeshiva, mashpia, and a mashgiach at the same time at a certain point. So Reb Yehuda Eber asked the Toldiner Rebbe if he could please let him off the hook about being a mashgiach. He said, "Because if I see a very talented bachur, a bachur that's very good in learning, who might be a Rosh Yeshiva or mashpia one day, but he came five minutes late to Seder, so my job as a mashgiach will be to give him over the head. And at the same time, a bachur who is not very good in the learning, but he came on time, I have to give him a compliment. It's hard for me to do that. I don't wanna be the mashgiach." So the Toldiner Rebbe told Reb Yehuda Eber, "You should tell that very smart learned bachur if he comes late, that if he comes late, he's just like a person who comes to

03:05 a train station with a lot of luggage, but he, uh, came too late for the train. On the other hand, then you have somebody who comes to the train without any luggage, empty-handed, but he came on time, and he actually went on the train." And the Toldiner Rebbe finished saying that, "The talented bachur will maybe grow to be a big lamdan. However, the less smart bachur who comes on time to Seder, he's the one who's actually gonna be on my train." There were different learning styles amongst the bachurim in Lubavitch, and Reb Yisroel Cahn once related about this topic that when he was a young bachur in yeshiva in Tel Aviv, so Reb Shaul Bruk, which, uh, years before learned in Lubavitch, Reb Shaul Bruk was the Rosh Yeshiva. So he says, "So once Reb Shaul Bruk asked Reb Dovid Povarski, which was not a Lubavitcher Hasid, that he should give instead of him the shiur in Igrot once. So Reb Dovid Povarski gave the shiur, and he gave a whole shiur with a chakira whether the concept of ro'ev, of majority in Torah, is a birur or a din, a whole chakira about it. So Reb Yisroel says, "I, I listened to the shiur, and the next day when Shaul asked us what was the shiur about, we repeated to him this chakira about, uh, if ro'ev is a birur or a din. So Reb Shaul made a face, a unhappy face, and he said, 'You can't, you can't find this chakira anywhere in

04:33 the Shas.'" However, Reb Yisroel pointed out, Reb Yehuda Eber, which also came from Lubavitch, held differently. And if you look in his, uh, shiurim, which are printed in the Sefer Shaarei Yehuda, you can find this type of chakiras. He got his learning style from his, um, teacher in Lubavitch, Reb Shmuel Nisanowitz, Reb Shmuel Berisover. Reb Yehuda Eber was known to be a g- a big ba'al menagen with a tremendous choshen hagina. And Reb Yisroel Cahn related that once by a farbrengen of the Toldiner Rebbe, the, the temimim and the crowd were singing in a very unorganized way. So the Toldiner Rebbe turned to Reb Yehuda Eber, and he made like a wondering motion with his hand as if he was asking, "That's how you educate your talmidim?" So Reb Yehuda Eber took this to heart, and he from that day on, he founded a group of talmidim who had a choshen hagina, and he taught them nigunim, and they numbered and named each, each nigun so they should remember. Actually, the nigunim that he taught split to two groups. He categorized all nigunim into two groups: nigunim from Nikolaev and all other nigunim, Stam nigunim, and each nigun had a number. So Reb Yisroel says, "I once asked Reb Moshe Rubin," which was one of the talmidim who learned nigunim from him, "I once asked Reb Moshe Rubin about a certain nigun. So Reb Moshe Rubin answered me, 'Yeah, that's called Nigun Stam number three.'" One of the talmidim of Reb Yehuda Eber in Tomchei

06:02 Temimim in Nevel was Reb Dovid Okenov. And he related that during Reb Yehuda Eber's shiurim, there was a complete silence, and everybody were fascinated. Once, two policemen walked in with guns, uh, to catch us learning, and they were shocked to see that the Temimim didn't notice at all that they walked in, even though it was, it was a big danger. Eventually, Reb Yehuda Eber noticed the cops, and he stopped teaching. But the cops, uh, told him that he should continue, but he said, "No, I wasn't teaching at all. Just they asked me a question, so I was answering." However, the police officers or the KGB officers knew the truth, and they arrested everyone. They freed the Bachurim without any punishment, but Reb Yehuda Eber got a punishment. His punishment was that he needs to sweep the streets. So Reb Yehuda Eber would put on his big day Shabbos when he would go to sweep the streets in order to show that, uh, if you're getting a Kanas for-- because of teaching Torah, it's a big zechus. Uh, so during the day, he will clean up the streets, and by night he'll give shiurim. Eventually, some goya saw that, and she said, "A Rav is not supposed to sweep the streets," and she took the broom from him, and she started to sweep, and also the cops didn't really enforce it since then. And here's one of the Nigunim that Reb Yehuda Eber taught his Talmidim.