Rav Auerbach spent the next two years traversing the continent at a pace and depth that would make Lewis and Clark gasp
While Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach never came to America, his father, Rav Chaim Leib Auerbach, made a storied visit that was quite an adventure. On March 11, 1931, the illustrious, energetic co-founder of Yeshivas Shaar HaShamayim for the Study of Revealed and Concealed Torah (Kabbalah) alighted from a Greek steamer in New York Harbor. A waiting car hastened him to City Hall for a grand reception hosted by acting mayor Joseph McKee, where, in front of an adoring crowd of more than 1,000, he was presented with a symbolic key to the city.
Rav Auerbach spent the next two years traversing the continent at a pace and depth that would make Lewis and Clark gasp, stopping in remote Jewish outposts like Tampa, Florida; Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Sioux City, Iowa, and countless places in between, reaching almost every state and several Canadian provinces. His depth, charisma, and idealism touched American audiences, who lovingly dubbed the small jovial rabbi “the Dean of Kabbalah.”
Jews of all types came out in droves to hear his lofty words. Keenly aware that although his audiences anticipated words of “mysticism,” few had the ability to comprehend it. So he often gave his speeches mystical titles, with the content generally devoted to Torah views on the issues of the day. His packed lecture at Denver’s B’nai Brith building was called “The Mystic Conception of the Human Soul”; his address in Rock Island, Illinois, was titled “The Cause of the World’s Depression and Its Remedy.”
He regularly spoke about the rise of Hitler, Prohibition, and the role of the Great Depression in returning lost Jews to their roots. Rav Chaim Leib urged his audiences to strengthen their observance and implored them to consider joining him in the burgeoning yishuv, where miracles were “occurring at a stunning pace.”
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