הרב יחזקאל אברמסקי

Rav Yechezkel Abramsky (5646/1886–24 Elul 5736/1976), author of the Chazon Yechezkel on the Tosefta and head of the London Beit Din, was born in the village of Dashkovichy in White Russia to Reb Mordechai Zalman, a timber merchant. He learned in the yeshivot of Novardok — where he drew close to the Alter of Novardok — Telz, and Ramailes of Vilna, and in the kibbutz of Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzenski, and traveled to learn under Rav Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk. At seventeen he received semichah from Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein, the Aruch HaShulchan. He married the daughter of Rav Yisrael Yehonatan Yerushalimski, himself a son-in-law of the Ridbaz.

He served as rav of Smalyan from 5672/1912 and of Smolevich from 5674/1914, and in 5683/1923 succeeded Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer as rav of Slutsk. Under the Soviet regime he stood at the front of the battle for Torah: he revived the rabbinic journal Yagdil Torah, which the authorities closed after two issues, and when the community of Petach Tikva called him to its rabbanut, the government refused to let him leave. In 5690/1930 he was arrested, charged with anti-Soviet activity over his wish to go up to Eretz Yisrael, and sentenced to five years of hard labor in Siberia — where, it is told, he wrote his chiddushim on translucent cigarette papers. Through the efforts of Rav Chaim Ozer, Rav Kook, the Chafetz Chaim, and Chief Rabbi Hertz of England he was freed on erev Yom Kippur 5692/1931, on condition that he leave the Soviet Union forever; his wife and sons were held behind for a time as surety.

Arriving in London at the end of 1931, he became rav of the Machzikei Hadath kehillah, and in 1935 rosh beit din of the London Beit Din. For seventeen years he set its standards of psak — the policies he fixed guide that beit din to this day. In 5711/1951 he retired to the Bayit Vegan neighborhood of Yerushalayim, gave the weekly shiur klali in the Slabodka yeshiva of Bnei Brak, sat on the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah, and from 1963 headed the Vaad HaYeshivot.

His life’s work is the Chazon Yechezkel, a commentary spanning the entire Tosefta, written across fifty years from the first chelek of 5685/1925 until his last days. Beside it stand Eretz Yisrael Nachalat Am Yisrael and Dinei Mamonot, and in 5716/1956 he received the first Israel Prize for Torah literature. Among his talmidim are Rav Yitzchak Zilberstein and Rav Dov Landau. He was niftar in Yerushalayim on 24 Elul 5736/1976; more than forty thousand accompanied him, and he rests on Har HaMenuchot.