Torah Giants and Eretz Yisroel: Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld

Mordechai Rivlin 

In the year 5691, a delegation of honored personages from Klausenburg (Cluj) visited Yerushalayim. They paid a visit to Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, Rov of Yerushalayim. Before departing, they asked him what message he would like to send back home to the Klausenburger kehilla in his name. Rabbi Sonnenfeld was clearly emotional and rose from his seat, leaned his palms on the table and said, "Tell all the Jews of Klausenburg and the region that now is the time to liquidate all businesses and go to Eretz Yisroel immediately, without further delay.

Many times, I requested and ordered to tell the charedi Jews in the diaspora that all those that are capable of coming to Eretz Yisroel and remain in chutz l′aretz will have to answer for their actions in the future! I fight only against the anti-religious atmosphere in the new settlements, because the Holy Land must be built with sanctity…. It is specifically the charedim who must come and build the Land with holiness and purity, for the Land is waiting to be redeemed from its desolateness."

Rabbi Sonnenfeld related many times of his personal experience when he arrived in Eretz Yisroel with his wife, and they slept under the stars for four nights in a closed yard in Yerushalayim, for lack of better accommodations.  It was only on Friday afternoon, close to Shabbos, that they were given an unplastered apartment, where they settled in.

When the Arab pogroms began in the year 5680, it was dangerous for Rabbi Yosef Chaim to leave the safety of his home. However, Rabbi Sonnenfeld had promised to be the mohel at a bris –milah ceremony. The family was adamant and tried to convince him to stay home, but he left the house alone, wrapped in his Talis and Tefillin, on the way to the bris. To get there, he went via the Shchem Gate, the most dangerous place.  "I asked him: True, shluchei mitzvah are not harmed, neither going nor coming, but that is only in a place that has no dangers." Rabbi Sonnenfeld answered: "They will do me no harm."

To my second question, why he chose the more dangerous route, via the Shchem Gate, and not via the safer Yaffo Gate, he answered: "Will we abandon the Shchem Gate area? If we are afraid to walk on that street, they will think that they succeeded in chasing us out of the Quarter. No! Never! We must not give up any corner or quarter in Yerushalayim out of fear."