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Pinkhes-Dov Goldenshteyn’s enduring faith amidst suffering and loss
By: Yaakov Ort
(Continued from last week)
Like orphan-hero archetypes in fiction from David Copperfield to Harry Potter, Pinye-Ber inspires love, compassion and reflection on how we treat others. If he makes a mistake, our desire is to stop him and guide him, not judge him. If only we could be there to be his older brother, his friend or patron, to show him acceptance and love, give him confidence and make his life easier, we certainly would. But since we can’t, he at least gives the reader pause to consider how we respond to troubled and troublesome young people, and ask ourselves what their backstory might be and how we can help them.
That kind of impact on readers makes this not just a good book, but a great one. Time Capsule
Many readers will find particularly fascinating Pinye-Ber’s eyewitness descriptions of and the courts of the third and fourth Chabad Lubavitcher Rebbes.
Pinye-Ber’s first visit to the White Russian seat of the Chabad movement came in the late Summer of 1865, during the leadership of the Tzemach Tzedek:
Even before the Rebbe entered, the zal [study-hall] was packed. So when the Rebbe came in, a pathway through the crowd was barely cleared for him to walk to the bimah. The Rebbe walked onto the bimah and was followed by the khoyzer. Sometimes the Rebbe would speak words of Torah for an hour or two.
After the Rebbe left, the khoyzer, or “repeater,” whose role it was to memorize the Rebbe’s discourses, would repeat it again to the crowd. Throughout the week that followed the Chassidim would study the Rebbe’s previous discourse, to the point that they themselves all knew it by heart.
Pinye-Ber was pleased by this: “In short, the main aspects of Lubavitcher Chassidim was Torah study and prayer. Whoever did not know any Torah was not a Lubavitcher Chassid … .” He unflatteringly contrasts Chabad’s emphasis on intellectually rigorous study with the ways of the Polish Chassidim, for whom it is enough to be “dressed as Chassidim, travel to their Rebbe, [and] recount and believe in miracles performed by their Rebbe … .”
Pinye-Ber was also taken by the simplicity of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s own lifestyle, something he was likewise eyewitness to: during that first trip he hides himself from the shammes in order to peek through the keyhole of the Rebbe’s room and see how he conducts himself in private. He sits and watches as the Rebbe prays for a long while in tallit and tefillin, spends an hour writing a Chassidic discourse and then eats a small meal before returning to studying. The room, Pinye-Ber recounts, included two walls of holy Jewish books, a little bed and a chest, and an armchair next to which stood “a makeshift table with two stools. You would not find such a magnificently simple study in Poland either! ‘Fortunate is the eye that saw all of this.’”
Some years later, already married and a shochet but struggling to support his growing family, Pinye-Ber resolved to once again travel to his Rebbe, who by this time was the Tzemach Tzedek’s youngest son, Rabbi Shmuel:
After all, I had been a Lubavitcher Chassid since my youth, if you recall. What about my not having enough money to cover the expenses of the trip? And what about traveling such a long distance? All of that did not matter to a true Chassid, because nothing at all can deter a true Chassid from traveling to his Rebbe.
It took Pinye-Ber three weeks to reach Lubavitch, where he finally arrived utterly exhausted. After praying and writing his note enumerating his requests for blessings, Pinye-Ber entered the Rebbe’s study for a private audience. “I would advise you to travel home right away,” the Rebbe told him. “Don’t delay and leave immediately … And G‑d will most likely prepare for you a place to practice shechita.”
The shochet was stunned, he’d risked so much to get there and was now being sent home. The day was Wednesday, and the Chassid with whom Pinye-Ber was staying told him the Rebbe probably meant he should leave after Shabbat. An eventful Shabbat followed, during which Pinye-Ber climbed under the long table at which the Rebbe sat to be able to hear more closely his words of Torah and the conversation with those around him. “This also made my entire trip worth all the effort.”
The next morning, when Pinye-Ber went to the Rebbe to bid him farewell, the Rebbe asked what had kept him from leaving prior to Shabbat. After hearing Pinye-Ber’s explanation, the Rebbe told him: “Nu, travel safely and may G‑d help you. You’re a pious young man. No matter, G‑d will help you.”
After a series of ups and downs, Pinye-Ber ultimately lands a job as a shochet, which he chalks up to the three extra days he’d spent at the Rebbe’s court.
An Introduction Worthy of a Book of Its Own
The more than 300-page dramatic autobiography, a page-turner in every sense of the word, is preceded by a comprehensive scholarly introduction to the life and times of Pinye-Ber Goldenshteyn by the book’s translator and editor, Michoel Rotenfeld.
Itself an extraordinary work of scholarship and insight, the introduction contextualizes the author’s life amidst the deteriorating Jewish life in Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th century, and contrasts this work to those of maskilim who sought to demean and denigrate everything that was good and holy about traditional Jewish life.
Among the most significant paradoxes in the life of Pinye-Ber that jumps out at the reader is how he was able to balance faith and trust in G‑d’s constant goodness with the seemingly endless suffering that he was subjected to throughout his life. To explain this, Rotenfeld includes in the introduction an extensive section on how the Chassidic concept of Divine providence impacted Pinye-Ber’s worldview.
Pinye-Ber’s pronounced and distinct appreciation of Divine providence, Rotenfeld writes, is rooted in the thought of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov and expanded on by generations of rebbes of Chabad-Lubavitch. Rotenfeld notes that:
As a Hasidic Jew, Pinye-Ber strives to serve G‑d with joy, which is a cardinal principle taught by the Baal Shem Tov, and this seems to be a natural consequence of his divine-providence-centered consciousness. Regarding the belief in divine providence, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, writes, “When one reflects on the reality of G‑d’s constant watchfulness and care, there is no room for anxiety at all. Afterward, one can proceed to serve Him with joy and gladness of heart.”
Pinye-Ber remarkably experiences a seemingly unending series of tribulations throughout his long life; nonetheless, his indomitable spirit and joyous determination to press onwards shine forth. Being conscious of the divine providence in his life serves to remind Pinye-Ber that behind all adversity and challenge lies divine purpose, a concept that enables him to transcend the hardships of this physical world and serve G‑d with joy.
In short, The Shochet is a timely and timeless story of faith amid suffering that teaches us much about where we came from and where we ought to be going. It will inform, inspire and elevate those who read it.
Published by Touro University Press, Volume I of The Shochet: A Memoir of Jewish Life in Ukraine and Crimea is available at Jewish bookstores and online from Academic Studies Press. Volume II, which details the author’s life in Crimea and the Holy Land, is set to be published later in 2024.
