Menachem Av: Consolation in Exile

20 Av — Yahrzeit of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson (5704/1944)

On 20 Menachem Av 5704 (1944), in distant Alma-Ata, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson passed away — the Rebbe's father and an outstanding scholar of Kabbalah. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak served as the chief rabbi of Dnepropetrovsk (now Dnipro), where he fearlessly fought to preserve Jewish life under the Soviet regime. For his activities — organizing mikvahs, circumcisions, and Torah education — he was arrested in 1939 and sentenced to exile in Kazakhstan. He spent five years under unbearable conditions: hunger, illness, and complete isolation from the Jewish community. Yet even in prisons and exile, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak never stopped studying and spreading Torah for a single moment.

His wife, Rebbetzin Chana, made ink for him from berries, and he wrote the most profound Kabbalistic commentaries in the margins of whatever books could be obtained. These writings — "Likkutei Levi Yitzchak" — were later published and became one of the treasures of Chassidic literature. The Rebbe repeatedly referenced his father's works and deeply honored his memory. The heroism of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak is living testimony that no tyrant can extinguish the fire of Torah in a Jewish soul. Even in the darkest circumstances the light continues to burn, and it is precisely from this darkness that the brightest radiance of the Geulah is born.