By COLlive reporter
For many years, the Kolpak family in Kharkov, Ukraine, knew that the “thing on the shelf” was holy and should remain hidden. No one was allowed to touch it. “It’s tai’yer,” they were told in Yiddish, meaning precious.
That changed when Rabbi Moshe and Miriam Moskowitz were sent as the Rebbe‘s Shluchim to Ukraine’s second-largest city. They renewed activities of the large local synagogue and diligently reached out to Jews who for many years hid their faith in fear of the Communists.
The Kolpak family were one of the many people who have been inspired to reconnect with their tradition, eventually sending their children to the Ohr Avner Chabad School and becoming frum Jews following Torah and keeping Mitzvos.
It was then that they began asking about the “thing on the shelf” and discovered that there’s a remarkable history behind it – one that also reflects the unlikely survival of the Jewish people in the Soviet Union in the past century.
The “thing” was a Torah scroll written over 150 years ago by Henrich Levin, a Litvish Jew in Riga, Latvia. “He was our 3 times great-grandfather,” a Kolpak family member who lives in Kharkov told COLlive.com. The Torah has remained with the family over the years, despite many challenges.
“At the beginning of the First World War, our family had to run away and moved to Kharkov and took the Torah with them,” she said. “When the Second World War broke out they escaped to Almaty, Kazakhstan. They then returned to Kharkov when it was safe. The Torah was with them throughout all their travels.”
During the reign of the Communists, the Torah was read in the minyanim that were held underground in fear of the KBG spies. After the Torah became posul (disqualified for reading), it was kept in the home of their great-grandfather.
“It was hidden on the shelf for a long time,” the Kolpaks said. “His kids were assimilated and knew very little. What they knew about that ‘thing on the shelf’ is that it’s holy and no one is allowed to touch it.
“It was there on the shelf until Rabbi and Mrs. Moskowitz came to town,” they said. “Our parents found their way back to Yiddishkeit and became Frum through Chabad.”
Learning about the significance of the Torah, passed down through generations, the Kolpak family had the scroll fully restored. The one doing the work was Rabbi Efraim Kolpak, a 6th generation descendant of the one who originally wrote it. Rabbi Kolpak dedicated the restoration of the Torah in honor of his wedding to Ida Snetkov, who is from Khabarovsk, Russia.
“It was a very special moment when Efraim got his aliya on this Torah, the one that was written by his very ancestor over 150 years ago and then went through so much – the first and second World Wars and Communism,” the Kolpaks commented. “Now the Torah is back in the central Chabad Shul and is going to be used.”
On Thursday, the 28th of Av 5779, the restored Torah was welcomed at a historic Hachnosas Sefer Torah ceremony attended by members of the Kolpak family, Rabbi Moskowitz and the Jewish community of Kharkov.
When participants wished Mazal Tov on the occasion, it had a double meaning – the survival of the Torah and the Jewish people…
MAZAL TOV
Wonderful story! We Want Moshiach now we don’t want to wait!
Mazal Tov Mazal Tov!