Getting The Get

Rabbi Eisenman 

It was a warm morning in July when I placed the call to the payphone at MTJ.
“Is Rav Dovid available?” I asked.
I heard the door of the ancient phone booth folding, listened to the receiver rising from the little seat, and finally listened to the Rosh Yeshiva’s” hello.”
I could picture Rav Dovid in the phone booth.
The two phone booths which sat side by side should be enshrined and remembered as two of the greatest facilitators of Torah in the history of the phone booth.
The phone booths appear to be the same ones that were installed when the yeshiva moved to its current location at 145 East Broadway in the 1920s!
I explained my dilemma to Rav Dovid.
A woman in the community whose husband was refusing to grant her a Get had agreed to give one if he received fifty thousand dollars by 9 PM.
As I had never dealt with extortion, I called Rav Dovid Feinstein Zt”L to ask him what to do.
He listened quietly and then succinctly replied, “What can you do? You can’t leave her an Agunah. Give him the money, and she will have her Get.”
“Can I have a Brocha from the Rosh Yeshiva?”
“Be Matzliach. The money is out there. Hashem will help you get it.”
I just had a few hours to complete this unenviable task.
I started making phone calls.
I was able to raise the first thirty thousand within the first three hours.
After that, it was tougher.
Some people said, “I refuse on principle to be a partner to an extortionist.”
Others commented, “Rabbi, if she wants the divorce, let her pay for it. Why should I?”
At seven PM, I had reached thirty-two thousand and exhausted all of my connections.
I sat down by my Shtender and said, “Ribbono Shel Olam, I don’t know what else to do. I cannot face this poor woman and tell her I couldn’t raise the money. Please help me.”
There is a small Chassidic community of Klausenberg Chassidim in Union City. It is a short drive from Union City to Passaic, and during the summer months when a good part of the community is in the mountains, the few men who stay in Union City for the week would come to daven in my Shul. As there was just a handful of men who remained, not enough for a Minyan, I became friendly with them as they arrived every day to daven with us.
As I sat with my head buried in my arms, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
It was R’ Baruch, one of the regulars from Union City.
“Is everything alright?” He asked, concerned.
I unburdened myself to R’ Baruch as I began to break down and cry.
“You don’t have anyone you can ask for $18,000? There must be someone you can ask.”
“There is one man I know who could help; however, when I asked him, he replied, “I’m unable to help you now.”
R’ Baruch sat down next to me and said, “Did you know that the Klausenberger Rebbe, Zt”l, was a Rebbe already in Europe. He once told over that when he was collecting to build the Laniado Hospital in Netanya, he approached a man for a sizable donation, and the man responded, “I’m sorry, I cannot give that amount.”
The Rebbe looked at the man and was well aware of his wealth. He said, “When I was a Rebbe in Europe, I had a Gabbai carry my Tallis and Tefillin. A carriage would be waiting for me if I had to go anywhere, and the gabbaim would carry my luggage to the wagon. When the Nazis imprisoned me at the Mühldorf concentration camp, I became a slave. I had to carry 110-pound bags of cement. At first, I could not imagine that I could do it. However, when you realize you must do something, suddenly that which you thought you could never do, becomes doable.”
I leaped to my feet, hugged R’ Baruch, and went back to the man who had said, “I can’t help you.”I told him about the Klausenberger Rebbe, and he wrote me a check for $18,000.