I’d like to tell you about a man whose name many of you likely never heard, whose influence was quite limited, but whose life story is exceptionally relevant in April of 2026. Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal was born in Hungary in 1885. He studied in Pressburg, today is known as Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, in the same yeshiva my grandfather learned. His early years followed the typical trajectory of a bright and precocious young man.
In the introduction to a widely acclaimed book that he wrote on Halacha, Mishnas Sachir, he relates the following episode from his youth. He woke up one morning hungry and asked his mother for something to eat. She was baking but the food was not yet ready and instead his mother gave him advice, which he said, stuck with him his entire life: “I will give you advice,” she said, “to quiet your hunger: Know, my son, that the holy Gemara has the effect of quieting hunger and satisfies living beings just like bread. Take you Gemara and review what you studied this week, and you will be full. You will not feel any hunger. On the contrary, you will taste honey sweeter than from the comb, a taste even sweeter than the cake.”
His mother’s loving message guided him as he developed into a true Torah scholar. At the age of 36 he was appointed the head of the Beis Din of Pishtian. It was a wealthy city in Czechoslovakia, known for its mineral baths and it attracted an endless stream of visiting rabbis with whom developed deep relationships. Three years later he published Mishnas Sachir, a book of Halachic responsa that was widely-acclaimed. He was living the Rabbinic dream.
A year later Rabbi Teichtal published a book of his sermons. Many of the sermons were directed against Orthodox Jews who were Zionists. This was not surprising. Anti-Zionism was a given among the leading Orthodox rabbis of the time.
Rav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik, the namesake of the Rav Soloveitchik that we all know, described Zionism as the false Messiah of their times. The Chofetz Chaim stated that the fate of Jews was to remain in exile until the coming of Mashiach; to emigrate to Israel early was a denial of Mashiach.
There was more than just theological arguments, there was a practical reason many rabbis opposed Zionism. The vast majority of those leading the Zionist movement were anti-religious. Ben Gurion described his vision of a new Jew who was devoid of any connection to religion. To him, and to many others, religion kept the Jewish People intact in exile, but now that a homeland was available to them they could maintain Jewish Peoplehood simply by living in the land.
Additionally, there was political concerns. Many Jews, regardless of their faith, were concerned that this nationalist movement would cause their host countries to see them as unpatriotic and they feared that Zionism would cause them to lose their newly acquired rights as full-fledged citizens. The first Zionist congress was supposed to take place in Munich but the local Jewish population was so scared of the political impact that Herzl was forced to move the congress to Switzerland.
Rabbi Teichtal was a devoted follower of the Rebbe of Munkacz, one of the fiercest anti-Zionists of the time.
In 1938, the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia. Rabbi Teichtal was given an opportunity to escape but he refused to do so as there were people there who needed his support. As the Nazis got closer, he and a number of others hid in the attic of the local Bais Medrash where they miraculously went undetected. He relates how he watched through the cracks in the walls how the Jews were gathered up and deported. He watched in horror as many Jews were killed on the spot.
While he remained in hiding, he had plenty of time to think and he started wondering why. Why was G-d allowing for these terrible atrocities to take place? His community was a devout one, they dedicated their lives to Torah and Mitzvos. They were generous with the poor; they were good people. Why would G-d bring such a terrible fate upon the Jews?
And in that attic, he underwent a transformation. Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of Torah that he memorized he started reviewing sources that described why bad things happen to the Jewish People. And he came to a conclusion that I am sure shook him to the core; they should not have been living in Europe. G-d had given them the ‘medicine before the affliction,’ He had given them the opportunity to come back home, to return to their Promised Land, and they rejected that gift. (To be very clear, his view was not, as some mistakenly attribute to him, that the Holocaust took place because they did not live there – he couldn’t begin to fathom why the Holocaust took place. But) he believed that G-d had given them an opportunity to escape the inferno of the Nazis and they simply ignored this Divine present.
In that attic he started writing his ideas on scraps of paper, scraps of paper that became his most prized possession.
In 1942, he escaped to Budapest, which was still safe from the Nazis. Being that he was held in such high esteem, he was invited to give lectures in the community, which he did. The theme that he spoke of was this one – we rejected G-d’s gift; we should be in Israel. Unfortunately, no one listened. Worse, they mocked him. They assumed that he had a nervous breakdown in that attic; what he saw must have caused him to snap. But that didn’t stop him. With the war raging all around him he went about to publish a book, titled, Eim Habanim Semeicha, in which he outlined his newfound philosophy of Zionism.
Pesach is known in Kabbalistic literature as the holiday of faith. Through the ten plagues, the Jews in Egypt were given a masterclass on G-d’s existence and power. It is meant to be a time during which we strengthen our faith. The way we do that is by asking hard questions about what we do and why.
In the Pesach story, the Jewish People’s newfound faith is contrasted with the stubbornness of Pharaoh. No matter what he saw and experienced, he refused to change his way of thinking. The Torah describes his stubbornness as a ‘heavy heart.’ Historians point out how meaningful that term was in Egyptian culture. In the ancient world, when an Egyptian would die, they would put his heart on a scale. On one side was the deceased’s heart and on the other was a feather. If the heart was heavier than the feather, the individual was depicted as evil. So when G-d describes Pharaoh’s heart as heavy, He was conveying a message. You know what evil is? Evil is the inability to change your mind.
We are all brought up with ideas shaped by our parents and society; we can’t be blamed for having certain ideas in our youth. But when we face challenges, when we encounter experiences that are out of the ordinary, and we don’t reexamine our beliefs, that is evil. וַיַּכְבֵּד פַּרְעֹה אֶת־לִבּוֹ גַּם בַּפַּעַם הַזֹּאת Even after seeing the miracles of the plagues, Pharoah did not change, he hardened his heart, that is the definition of evil.
And that begs the question. I imagine everyone in this room considers themselves to be a Zionist. We believe in the value of a Jewish homeland and we support in many ways. But we are living through incredible times; times of upheaval but also times of incredible miracles. Are we reexamining our beliefs? Are we really justified in living in Baltimore? Are the excuses that were perhaps valid in the past still valid today? As more and more Jews make Aliyah, as living in Israel is getting easier and easier, as the people of Israel are experiencing daily miracles while we read them in the news, is it time to challenge our beliefs? Or are we simply walking in the footsteps of Pharoah?
Rabbi Teichtal writes the following in the early pages of his book:
I must confess the truth and declare my sin. I, too, despised the rebuilding of the Land, because I heard unqualified statements made by many Orthodox Jews, which became firmly implanted in my heart. I did not concern myself with this matter at all, because I was preoccupied with learning, teaching, and writing volumes on the Talmud and its commentaries, as well as responses to questions regarding the word of HaShem. I only delved into this halachah after we suffered afflictions in this bitter exile. HaShem enlightened me, and I saw that I and all those who opposed this movement were mistaken. I admit and say, “That which I previously told you was mistaken.” … Thank God, I have no qualms about publicly expressing the truth that is in my heart. I am not afraid of any man… I will not revoke my Torah opinion because of any gadol or rebbe or our generation, unless he debates the issues with me in the manner of Torah dialogue, using proofs from the words of Chazal. I will then concede to his words, if they are correct, but not if they are unfounded. (Em ha-Banim Semekha, p. 28 in the M. Lichtman translation).” This is the legacy of Rabbi Teichtal – the ability to ask tough questions, the strength to overcome our naturally hard hearts.
Over Pesach, in the evenings, I will be teaching selected pieces of Eim Habanim Semeicha, to give us some food for thought, to encourage us and to encourage me personally to look in the mirror and to make sure I do not have a hard heart.
There are no simple answers to these questions. I do not believe that everyone should or could make Aliyah. But if there is any holiday, in any era, in which we should be asking these tough questions, it is this one.