SELTZ
YZKOR BOOK
During the reign of the Polish "Zshetshpospolita", it was part of
In 1766, there were 260 Jews there. At the time of the revision of the census of
1877, there were in Seltz 680 souls. By the people’s
census of 1897, there were in Seltz 2,648 residents,
including 866 Jews. (From the Brockhouse Ephron Russian-Hebrew Encyclopedia, volume 14, page
121).
SELTZ - THE CRADLE OF THE VILNA GAON (a brilliant scholar)
The eminent Vilna Gaon, Rabbi ELIAHU, was born in Seltz,
a rare case of knowing this detail We bring again a biographic fragment,
which had a bearing on the parents of the Vilna Gaon,
and his childhood years, which relates to Seltz. One
has to understand that in the telling there is a little bit of throwing in what
we call “fiction”. But this doesn’t change the fact that the parents of the
Vilna Gaon were from Seltz,
and that he was really born there.
Until today, when
someone says that he comes from Vilna, that itself is a bit of importance.
Vilna was a city of learning, of knowledge - the city of Jewish ness -
and the crown of Vilna was the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi
ELIAHU.
The Vilna Gaon gave to the city so much importance, so much “Light
from the Torah”, that Jews permitted to call the city “the
It is a little
hard to understand that the Jews dared to make a move, to make a big deal of
the greatness of
The mother of the
Vilna Gaon came from a little shtetl,
Seltz, not far from
TREINA, the mother of the Vilna Gaon, as all the Jewish daughters from the little shtetls of Lithuania, was very modest, and she did some
good deeds - that is the highest praise among Jews. They would come to poor weddings and dance -
thus delighting the bride and groom.
Once she danced so
much at a wedding, and that was too much for her health, that they asked her
why she did that. And she answered - to
deserve a mitzvah, and, on account of that, she gave birth to a son, who became
the Vilna Gaon.
So they say.
Modesty, chastity
- those were the great merits of TREINA, and those
were also the great merits of character of the Vilna Gaon. He has never been a Rabbi, and was asked so
much to be the Vilna's Rabbi . He however refused. For him was enough the
honor of learning Torah, . He didn’t want to have the
title of Rabbi for himself. (His father, Rabbi SHLOIME ZALMAN also did the same
thing.)
In all the family
of the Vilna Gaon, there was one feature of human
modesty that was strongly regarded. The
Vilna Gaon was unassuming. His mother, his father and
the previous generations; all were crowned with modesty.
When the Vilna Gaon was a child, he declined to play on the swings with
the children. The mother, TREINA, asked him why he didn’t want to play on the
swing. She was surprised when he
declared that he didn’t want to lift himself up in the air on the swing, while
on the second swing there is another child closer to the ground; he couldn’t
stand it…
When he got older,
six-and-a-half years old, he gave a sermon in the Great Synagogue of
Vilna. This child spoke like a great
scholar. Everyone stood with open mouths and listened to him. The Vilna Rabbi, JOSHUA HESCHEL, listened to
the young man. He asked him a question
and gave him an hour’s time to think about an answer. An hour hadn’t passed, and little ELIHAU was
ready to give the answer.
Hundreds of students did the Vilna Gaon
have. They praised him and almost worshipped him. A bit of the praise for the son fell on the
mother. Rabbi CHAIM VOLOZHINER, when he would come to the
Carrying her with the wet cushion, they laid TREINA
down on a hot oven, so she could dry off.
The child got burned a leg, but she wasn’t harmed. She survived, and
therefore Rabbi CHAIM VOLOZHINER gave a prayer over the miracle, for, if TREINA
had not survived, there would not have been a child who would become the Vilna Gaon as Rabbi.
The Vilna Gaon loved his mother.
He wrote her a letter in which he called her my beloved, my mother. And he wrote: “I know that you are a modest
person and you don’t need my advice.”
That letter he wrote to his family, and a separate letter to his mother,
when he traveled to Eretz Isroel,
and, and gave instructions to his family - how we should get along and how we
should bring up our children.
The letter to the
mother was written with much gentleness. “I beg you not to worry about me. Just as you promised me and as God will help
me, and I will have the privilege to be in
In his letter to
the family, he
remembers them twice to support his mother.
SLOIME ZALMAN and
TREINA lived in poverty, but is known that as much as the could, the gave money for charity.
Their son, the
Vilna Gaon, went further in relation with money. He
lived thanks to a small pension his grandfather leaved in Vilna's Community,
with the order that with this money should maintain one of his descendants
occupied with learning Torah. Vilna"s Community though the service man, sent him the
pension each week. Was known that
service man was caught by the "bad angel" and instead of giving it to
him, put the money in his pocket.
The Vilna Gaon suffered but did not accused
the service man, in order not to get him ashamed.
He learned from
his mother that people has to "give" each other, but he went further,
and allowed other to take things from him…
Was not
"gratis" to call his mother "my beloved mother, I know you are
pure". She made modestly good actions in favor of people, and in this light, lasted image of
Vilna Gaon's mother.