The outbreak of World WarI on August 1 stymied his plans, stranding him in Europe for the better part of a year
Following Shavuos of 1914, Rav Eliezer Silver journeyed from his adopted home of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, back to Dusat (Dusetos), Lithuania, to visit his parents, Rav Bunim Tzemach and Malka Silver. His relatively short itinerary had him scheduled to return to Harrisburg in time for Rosh Hashanah. The outbreak of World War I on August 1 stymied his plans, stranding him in Europe for the better part of a year, leaving his young family and congregation concerned for his safety.
It wasn’t long until a thornier issue arose. The 32-year-old rav hadn’t served in the Czar’s army, and many in Russia were being forcibly drafted, regardless of foreign citizenship. For nearly a year he traveled incognito, at times adopting an assumed identity to stay safe.
With Russian censors reading the mail, how would Rav Silver inform his family he was safe? In a stroke of genius, Rav Leizer penned a cryptic letter to the New York-based Yiddishe Tageblatt informing the Agudas Harabbonim and his students in Harrisburg of his failure to procure several seforim they’d requested. In his classic book The Silver Era, Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff summarizes the letter’s contents:
(Rabbi) Silver claimed that these missing books were titled The Proper Path, At the Crossroads, and The Illuminated Way. He referred to the prohibition against crossing the tehum, the boundary beyond which one must not walk on the Sabbath. He also cited the Milhamot Hashem (“Wars of the Lord”) of Nahmanides. Silver indicated that he could not be more precise because of the need to guard one’s tongue as indicated in the Shemirat Ha-Lashon of the Hafetz Hayyim. He also stated that “all the gates are locked except for the gate of tears.”
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