Weeky Dvar Torah: American and Russian — A Legacy of Two Giants

Last week, during the Yud Beis Tammuz farbrengens, I heard a story from Rabbi Nissen Mangel that gripped my heart. It felt like more than a story—it was a mirror held up to our generation, a window into something eternal.

The story takes place in the 1940s, amidst the horrific backdrop of World War II. The Frierdiker Rebbe—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn—issued a soul-shaking call: American Jewry must awaken. The war in Europe was not just political or military; it was spiritual. It was, in the Rebbe’s words, the Chevlei Moshiach—the birth pangs of redemption. The call was unmistakable: “לאלתר לתשובה, לאלתר לגאולה” — “Immediately to Teshuvah, immediately to Redemption.”

Among those who heard this call was Rabbi Nissen Telushkin, a respected Torah scholar. He was overcome by the urgency of the Rebbe’s words. He surveyed the suffering of European Jewry and the spiritual awakening beginning to stir in the West, and concluded: the work must have been done already. So why, he wondered, had Moshiach not yet come?

Burning with this question, he was granted a private audience with the Rebbe. But as he entered the Rebbe’s room, the question evaporated. It dissolved in the atmosphere, like mist in the sun. He felt no need to ask—it simply wasn’t a question anymore.

After leaving, though, the fire reignited. The anguish returned. Again, he begged to see the Rebbe. And again, as he entered, the question vanished. Outside the room—pain. Inside—clarity, peace, almost Geulah itself.

In time, he understood: in the Rebbe’s presence, one felt the reality of Moshiach. There was no need to ask “why not”—because it was there. But outside, in the world of concealment, the question burned like an eternal flame.

I think about this story now, as we enter the Three Weeks, mourning the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. We cry, we yearn, and we wait. But the Rebbe reminded us often: the Three Weeks are preceded by the liberation of Yud Beis Tammuz. Even before the mourning begins, redemption is planted.

The point is profound: within the exile itself lies the seed of redemption. Within darkness, there is light. Within destruction, there is hope.

I grew up hearing that Golus is not just punishment; it’s a challenge meant to elevate. The Jewish soul cannot be broken—not by Soviet tyranny, not by Nazi cruelty, not by the icy winds of American assimilation. The Jewish people always rise higher.

I remember the stories. A Chossid arrested for teaching Torah? Another would take his place within hours. Reb Asher Sossonko in the Gulag, dancing on Simchas Torah—using vodka he found to make non-Jews dance with him, so he could fulfill the mitzvah in spirit. Jews singing “Ani Maamin” as they marched to the gas chambers. Neither the Communists nor the Nazis could extinguish that spark. Physical oppression never succeeded in breaking the Jewish spirit.

That spirit lived in two Chassidim who passed away recently—giants in their own right, who could not have been more different in background, but were identical in mission. Rabbi Avrohom Korf and Rabbi Leibel Posner. One a child of the Soviet underground, the other a product of American soil. Both left behind legacies that redefine wealth and success.

Rabbi Avrohom Korf, head Shliach to Florida, passed away on Yud Beis Tammuz at the age of 92. He was born in Kharkov, Ukraine, before the war, and received his Jewish education in the underground Yeshiva in Samarkand. Famine, typhus, poverty—these were not challenges for him, they were his normal. After escaping the Soviet Union with forged Polish papers, his family wandered as refugees through DP camps in Germany and eventually France, where he studied Torah with singular focus.

He eventually came to the U.S. to be near the Rebbe. He didn’t speak English. He had no professional training. But he had one thing: absolute devotion. When the Rebbe spoke about spreading the wellsprings of Torah, Rabbi Korf responded without hesitation. “Send me wherever you want,” he said. “I’m ready.”

In 1962, the Rebbe sent him to Florida with simple instructions: “Whatever you see is needed to strengthen Yiddishkeit—that’s your job.” He went with no money, no connections, and no English. But what he did have was more powerful: faith, fire, and the iron will of a Russian Jew who had survived exile.

Today, Florida is home to nearly 250 Chabad centers—the most of any state in the U.S. Rabbi Korf was the architect of that growth. CEO, janitor, fundraiser, driver—he did it all. Not for recognition. Not for wealth. For truth.

I remember my grandfather lamenting Rabbi Korf’s poverty when he would spend the winter in Florida. A five-cent bag of chips was often his lunch. Kosher bread and milk were luxuries. A steak? Unthinkable. But his soul was full. He had one mission: tell Florida that there is a G-d.

And how fitting that he passed on Yud Beis Tammuz—the very day the Frierdiker Rebbe was liberated from Soviet prison.

And then there’s Rabbi Leibel Posner, the first American Shliach of the Rebbe, who passed just days later at the age of 97. He was raised in America—the land of plenty. The Russian immigrants used to jokingly call his kind “Amerikaner Chocoladnikes”—the Americans who never lacked anything.

But Rabbi Posner was no ordinary American boy. While others were discarding their tefillin in the Atlantic on the way to the “free land,” he held his Yiddishkeit close. When the Frierdiker Rebbe arrived in New York in 1940, and opened the Yeshiva that very day, young Posner was amongst the early students who enrolled in the Rebbe’s new Yeshiva—and never looked back.

He became a Talmid Chacham, a Chassid, a pillar. And in 1950, when the Rebbe assumed leadership, he sent 22-year-old Posner to California to strengthen Yiddishkeit. No salary. No fanfare. Just a soldier on a mission.

Six months later, the Rebbe repaid that devotion by personally officiating at his wedding—the first such chuppah after becoming Rebbe.

Two men. Two worlds. One legacy.

To attend their funerals was to witness the glory of true wealth. Hundreds of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. All Torah-true Jews. All carrying the torch. Their legacies are not measured in buildings or bank accounts. They are measured in Neshamas. In Shuls. In Mikvaos. In Chabad Houses from coast to coast.

Rabbi Korf and Rabbi Posner both rose above materialism. One had nothing and never needed anything. The other had everything available to him, but he wanted nothing but Torah. Each overcame the test of their generation—poverty and oppression, wealth and freedom—and emerged purified, mission-driven, selfless.

They showed us what it means to live for something greater. To live for the Rebbe’s mission. And perhaps that is the deepest meaning of Rabbi Telushkin’s experience. In the Rebbe’s presence, the question “Where is Moshiach?” doesn’t burn. Because you feel Moshiach there. But outside that light, we still ask, we still ache, we still wait.

These two giants—Korf and Posner—lived in that light. They brought that light to others. They embodied “לאלתר לתשובה, לאלתר לגאולה.” They lived redemption with every breath.

Now it is time for us to see that G-dliness openly. The cries of “Daloy Golus” must rise louder than ever. Let the fire of these souls ignite our own.

Moshiach Now.

Have a Shabbos of Depth and Redemption,
Gut Shabbos

Rabbi Yosef Katzman