“Death is the supreme festival on the road to freedom.”[1]
It is with great pain that I write about the demise of one of the great rabbinical figures of our generation, Rabbi Bezalel Rakov z.l. who headed a small settlement of deeply religious Jews in the city of Gateshead in the north of England.
Gateshead’s Jewish Community is the most famous bastion of Torah learning in Europe. Some of the greatest Jewish leaders and rabbis were educated in this poor little town with its venerable yeshiva and numerous institutions of Jewish learning. Only to those who really searched did it reveal its spiritual richness and piety.
My wife and I had the honor of living in Gateshead for many years before returning to Holland and then later settling in Jerusalem. While residing there, Rabbi Rakov helped me give birth to, and nurtured, my Jewish aspirations.
As one of the few “baalei teshuva”[2] (I believe there were another two) among the hundreds and hundreds of ultra-orthodox young Jews learning in Gateshead Yeshiva, I had the opportunity to become well-acquainted with Rabbi Rakov on numerous visits to his home. Coming from a secular background, I had many philosophical questions and issues with Halacha with which no one had ever confronted him before. Yet, it was with remarkable ease that he related to my very unique situation—as if he penetrated to the depths of my life’s challenges in a matter of seconds. I still remember his distinguished smile and sparkling eyes when he saw me walking into his front room, knowing quite well that I would once more badger him with “impossible” Halachic circumstances and philosophical inquiries. Not once did he fail to help me achieve clarity. Not halachically, and not philosophically.
Who was Rabbi Rakov?
Maimonides, in the introduction to his Yad Hachazaka states that Ahiya Hashiloni,[3] who lived during the days of the breakdown of the House of David, studied under Moshe and consequently must have been hundreds of years old. He spanned many generations. God, we are told, kept him alive for so many centuries so that the younger generations would get a glimpse of a person who lived in an era of spiritual genius the likes of which had long vanished. Ahiya Hashiloni stood as an example of what men could be. He demonstrated the stature of those who handed the tradition down to us, who lived in a different, more elevated, realm of existence.
So was Rabbi Rakov. He was the soul of an ancient generation of rabbinical figures planted in the present. He was the Ahiya Hashiloni who connected his students to different worlds and showed us what a real Jew is supposed to be, and what it meant to have rabbinic dignity. As a teacher of God’s word, a vestige of an ancient era, a remnant of the scribes of the past, he inspired us with his impeccable conduct in every moment, his shyness, his wisdom, and his constant desire to stay in the background while gently revealing his mastery in this small but very strong Jewish community, which housed world-renowned rabbinical figures from Eastern Europe.
Rabbi Rakov lived in the holy realms of the universe and thus saw the Divinity invested in every being. He daily demonstrated to his students the ideal relationship between God and Man.
Not only did he rely on God, but it was as clear as the sun that God relied on him. Not only did he represent the best of what a man of faith can be, but he also justified God’s faith in man. It was his rabbinical royalty and unprecedented integrity, which made us all stand in awe of him. Indeed he was the ideal chareidi, ultra-orthodox Rabbi, who inspired a certain young man with a ponytail who was traveling through the country. One day this boy appeared at Rabbi Rakov’s front door. The rabbi invited him over for Shabbath and gave him his father’s Teffilin under the condition that he would wear them throughout his life.
His loyalty to all of us sustained our faith. In fact he taught us to have faith in faithfulness. He taught us that faith in the living God was not easily attained and that one needed to be a little embarrassed by living in His presence. While men can try to sever themselves from God, Rabbi Rakov proved that there was no escape from the love of His Law.
With his demise, the world has lost a great human being, but Heaven has gained more beauty. There they are no doubt celebrating his arrival and his freedom from physical constraints. On earth we should remember the example he set and try to become authentic Jews—men of moderation, deeply religious, with an ongoing love for every Jew whatever his background. Like Rabbi Rakov, we should strive to be wholly committed to the word of God. This indeed is thechareidi Jew par excellence!
I thank the Holy One, blessed be He, that I had the merit to know him.
May his memory be blessed.
[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Miscellaneous Thoughts, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1953.
[2] Returnees to Judaism
[3] See Baba Batra 121b and Sota 13a
