“What do you think?” Reb Laizor thundered. “Without mussar I would be like that too!”
But young Laizor was troubled; was it fair for him to burden his parents with another mouth to feed if he wasn’t contributing to the household? Late one night, the determined bar mitzvah boy pocketed the few groschen he owned and shook his sister awake. “Don’t wake our parents,” he whispered. “But in the morning, tell them I’m fine. I’m going to yeshivah.”
He tried Brisk, then Mir, then Kletzk, before settling in Pinsk. In Yeshivas Novardok, he finally found his place.
But the rumbles from Germany got louder. As the Nazi party gained more and more power, the yeshivah moved to Vilna, where they occupied the beis medrash where the Gra had davened. As tensions heightened, the bochurim realized they’d have to disperse.
The rosh yeshivah, Rav Shmuel Weintraub, stood in front of the beis medrash and opened the aron kodesh. Turning to the bochurim, he addressed them one last time.
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