Out of the Spotlight

Before London, Rav Chanoch Dov Padwa ztz”l spent 15 little-known years in Eretz Yisrael

We’re sitting in Rabbi Shea Heshel Padwa’s modest, seforim-lined dining room in Manchester, but he soon brings us into another world. As a child growing up in Yerushalayim, he attended the legendary Eitz Chaim, where Rav Aryeh Levin was one of the mashgichim, participated in Rav Amram Blau’s youth movement in Meah Shearim, joined the informal Shalosh Seudos gatherings at the Brisker Rav’s home, and visited the Chazon Ish as a prize for joining Yeshivas Hamasmidim. While over 65 years have passed since the family moved to England so Rav Padwa could assume leadership of the UOHC, his son can easily conjure up the memories.

Yerushalayim of the 1940s and ‘50s, when the Padwas lived there, was a different world, poor in materialism but rich in Torah. It was a city where Torah giants not only walked the streets, but invited curious teens inside their homes, willingly sharing their insights along with a spot at their Shabbos tables.

There, in Yerushalayim of old, in the shadows of poverty, personal tragedy, and war, Rav Henoch Padwa learned, raised a family, and grew into a talmid chacham who would provide Klal Yisrael with crystal clarity in so many halachic issues.

Rav Amram Blau might have been a zealot, but his youth movement was always fun and freilech (Photo: Efi Sharir Photography)