Rav Yaakov Yitzchak Galinsky, zt”l (5681/1921–5774/2014) was a legendary maggid who traveled the world giving inspiring drashos peppered with mussar, bitachon and hadrachah. He was a towering baal bitachon who lit up the postwar generation with his sharp vertlach, piercing meshalim and unshakable emunah. Born in Krynki, Poland, he learned in the legendary Novardok Yeshiva of Bialystok, absorbing the intense mussar that would define his essence.
When World War II broke out, the Ribbono Shel Olam led Rav Yaakov through a harrowing chain of nisyonos. He was exiled to the freezing labor camps of Siberia, suffered hunger in the steppes of Kazakhstan and endured torment inside the brutal Soviet prison system. Afterward, he helped rebuild ruchniyus in the DP camps of postwar Germany.
All through the darkness of the churban, his fire was never extinguished. In 5709 (1949), he moved to Eretz Yisrael and immediately threw himself into harbatzas haTorah, helping the Chazon Ish set up yeshivos and keeping countless neshamos from falling into the hands of the secular establishment. For decades, he traveled the world as a maggid, using his brilliant wit and mussar to ignite a warmth for Torah and yiras shamayim among the Jewish people.
The following is a transcription of a recently uncovered video of Rav Yaakov Galinsky on the occasion of his 70th birthday in 5751 (1991). The maggid was speaking in the intimate setting of my parents’ home in Zurich, Switzerland, addressing a small, tight-knit assembly of local admirers. In this shmuess, Rav Yankele offered a powerful glimpse into the glowing fire that inspired thousands in klal Yisrael.
Rav Yankele made a Shehecheyanu before beginning his speech.
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I want to begin by expressing my deepest hakaras hatov to Reb Aharon and to the entire tzibbur for coming tonight and for being mishtatef in this simchah. It means more to me than I can adequately express. And I want to share with you the feeling that is sitting in my heart right now, in this very moment, as I stand before you.
I want to open with a thought that has stayed with me for decades, one that I believe captures something essential about what it means to be a Yid in this world.
The Gemara describes the period of Haman’s decree: l’hashmid laharog u’l’abeid es kol haYehudim. The proclamation had already been posted on every street corner of every city across 127 provinces. The date was set. The fate of an entire nation was signed and sealed, and it had been announced publicly. And yet, when Haman went searching for Mordechai, he was told that he was in the beis midrash, in the middle of a shiur.
Now, stop and think about that for a moment. L’hashmid laharog u’l’abeid, and Mordechai still had the composure to stand up and give a shiur? And the bachurim—the young men who still wanted to live, who still wanted to exist, who still had their whole futures ahead of them, who still wanted to build and marry and have children—they still had the ability to sit down and listen? They still had the menuchas hanefesh to absorb a sugya, to think through a kushya, to sit in that beis midrash as though the world outside were simply irrelevant?
Haman walked in. He found hundreds of talmidim—some say 400, others say 800—sitting and learning, as though the world outside simply did not exist. He had come assuming that he knew exactly what they must be learning. Maybe Hilchos Kiddush Hashem, he thought. A Yid must be ready to give his life al kiddush Hashem. Or perhaps Hilchos Avodah Zarah, how not to submit, how to resist. That would have made sense to him. That would have been the logical, rational response to a signed decree of annihilation hanging over every Jewish head in the world.
He walked in and listened.
Bameh askisun? he finally asked. What is the subject of this lecture?
Hilchos Kemitzah, they told him. The halachos of the kemitzah, the precise handful of flour taken from the Korban Minchah that was brought in the Beis Hamikdash. It is an avodah that is relevant only when the Mikdash stands, only when there is a kohen to perform it, only in a world that at that particular moment seemed as remote and unreachable as the moon.
Haman was struck completely silent. He had walked in expecting to find the Jews steeling themselves to die al kiddush Hashem. Instead, he found them immersed in a sugya about a Beis Hamikdash that hadn’t stood in generations, whose rebuilding at that moment, with “l’hashmid laharog” posted on every street corner across 127 provinces, must have seemed like the most impossible of all dreams.
“Ayei hakometz sheli?” Haman finally managed to ask. “What happened to the 10,000 silver talents that I paid Achashveirosh? I bought the destruction of an entire people, and these people are sitting here laughing at me. They live in a completely different universe.”
You can post your “l’hashmid laharog” on every wall in every city, Haman. Write it in the newspapers. Whom does that concern? To whom is that relevant? By us it is written, “K’sheyibaneh Beis Hamikdash.”
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