Faith in the Frozen Exile

The late Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky, was a brilliant Torah scholar and the author of Chazon Yechezkel, a major commentary on the Tosefta. Years after his release from Soviet imprisonment, he shared a deeply personal story from what he described as the darkest time in his life.

He had been sentenced to Siberia by the communist regime for his desire to immigrate to the Land of Israel. In one of the coldest, loneliest places on earth, far from any Jewish community or beit midrash (study hall), stripped of his books, his tefillin, and almost all opportunities to keep mitzvot (commandments), he was plunged into both physical and spiritual exile.

And yet it was there, in the depths of that icy wilderness, that he experienced one of his most powerful moments of emunah, faith in Hashem.

He later shared the memory with the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.

“One morning in Siberia,” Rabbi Abramsky began, “I woke up and began to say Modeh Ani, the simple prayer we say immediately upon waking: ‘I thank You, living and eternal King, for returning my soul to me.’ But suddenly I stopped. I thought to myself, what am I really thanking Hashem for?”

“What was the point of waking up again in this frozen exile? I had no Torah, no mitzvot, no tefillin, no Gemara. What was I waking up to? Maybe it would have been better had I simply not awakened at all.”

He paused as he relived that painful moment.

“But then,” he continued softly, “I looked again at the final words of the prayer: rabbah emunatecha, ‘Great is Your faithfulness.’ And I said to myself: if Hashem returned my soul to me, then He must believe that my life still has meaning even here, even now.”

“If Hashem believes in me enough to return my soul, then I must believe in Him. Even here, in this valley of shadow and silence, I can hold onto simple faith. Moment by moment, I can trust that everything Hashem does is just and true. That itself is a reason to live.”

When he finished telling the story, the Lubavitcher Rebbe was visibly moved. With deep emotion, he said, “Know this, Rabbi Yechezkel, if for no other reason, then just for that one moment of faith, Siberia was worth being created.”

Who Was Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky?

Born in 1886, Rabbi Abramsky became one of the leading poskim (halachic authorities) of his generation. He served as the head of the London Beth Din (Jewish court) and authored Chazon Yechezkel, a 12-volume commentary on the Tosefta, one of the foundational texts of Torah Sheba’al Peh (the Oral Torah). For this work, he was awarded both the Israel Prize and the Rabbi Kook Prize for Torah literature.

But more than titles or awards, it was moments like that one in Siberia that revealed the depth of his soul, moments when, alone in the cold, he chose not despair but connection. Not silence, but emunah.

Rabbi Abramsky passed away in 1976, but his legacy of strength, clarity, and faith lives on in every person who draws inspiration from his story.