Memory Lane: Rav Chaim Fink

By Y. S. Gold

Sanok 

Rav Chaim was born in the Galician town of Sanok (pronounced Sunik) in the year 1912. His father, Reb Elya Tzvi hired special tutors to learn with his gifted young son, and indeed, he took to Torah learning with a tremendous thirst—a thirst that would remain with him his entire life. 

As a bachur he traveled to nearby Tarnopol to learn under Rav Menachem Munish Babad—a highly regarded ruv in Galicia, ardent Belzer chossid, and author of Chavatzeles Hashoron. In the yeshiva he gained a fluency in shas and poskim as well as his trademark yiras Shomayim that never left him. 

According to one of the legendary Belzer chassidim who survived the war, and was a colleague of Rav Chaim during those years,  the Tarnopoler Rov—who was not prone to hyperbole—remarked about his talmid: Chaim Suniker iz ah talmid chochom.” 

During those years in Tarnopol, Chaim was privy to a number of appearances by a onetime Ruv of Sunik, whom he remembered well from those days: Rav Meir Shapiro, innovator of daf Yomi and founder of Chachmei Lublin. He would come to Tarnopol to visit his father in law who lived there. He would recall those visits, as well as the time that Rav Meir Shapiro joined them for the matzah baking before Pesach. 

Chaim would join the Tarnopoler Ruv on his journeys to Belz, and onetime he learned a valiable lesson in bittul to tzaddikim. Upon their arrival in Belz, Rav Babad turned around to see his talmid carrying his tallis and tefillin, as he would always do. He quickly grabbed it away, saying, “du bin ich gurnisht, here I am nothing...” 

Boro Park

The Finks made their way to America, joining the Belzer contingent here. The group—which included Reb Mendel Igel, Reb Chaim Shmuel Baum, Reb Aaron Erdman, and others—joined a Stoliner Shtiebel in Brownsville. From there they proceeded to Crown Heights, then a great enclave of survivors from Poland and Galicia. Finally, in 1972, the Fink’s relocated to Boro Park, settling into the ‘flagship’ Belzer shtiebel on 16th Avenue. 

Immediately upon his arrival, appreciating his longstanding reputation, he was asked to begin delivering a shiur in Gemara with Tosafos to the balebatim in the shul.

But he was far more than that for the generations who grew up in the shul; serving as a guide and a mentor who exuded every quality of Torah and yiras Shaomayim that was unique to the prewar chassidim, a spirit that he transplanted into the young postwar generation. 

Like his father-in-law did way back in Sanok (presumably with Rav Chaim being at the other side of the table) he would frequent the fledgling Belzer Talmud Torah in Boro Park to farher the children there—giving them a glimpse into his ways of Torah and chassidus. 

His hasmodoh in Torah was legendary. He could sit for hours upon hours, bent over the gemara with no interruption. He could be found at four in the morning diligently learning. In addition to all his Torah, he was a pillar of chessed. 

When he would journey to Eretz Yisroel, it was quite the sight to see him together with his shver, Reb Simchele Mund, spending time engrossed words of Torah and yisras Shomayim—two remnants from a world gone up in smoke. 

Rav Chaim was niftar in Elul of 1984, and interred in Eretz Yisroel.