Chaim Avraham of Liozna

Rabbi Chaim Avraham of Liozna was a great Torah scholar and gardener in the town of Liozna, and the father of Rebbetzin Rivkah, the mother of the Alter Rebbe.

Life

R' Chaim Avraham was a resident of Liozna and a student of Rabbi Avraham Zev of Beshenkovichi.

R' Avraham combined Torah scholarship with deep fear of Heaven, and supported himself through the work of his own hands. He was a prodigious Torah scholar and a great tzadik, yet he earned his living as a gardener, fulfilling the verse, b'ze'at apecha tochal lechem — "by the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread" (Genesis 3:19).

R' Avraham came from a distinguished family: he was a fourth-generation descendant of the Gaon R' Avraham Chaim, author of the works Toras Chaim and Tzon Kodashim.

It is told that Rabbi Chaim Avraham Schneuri, the son of the Alter Rebbe, received the name Avraham in honor of two figures: the Alter Rebbe's great teacher Rabbi Avraham the Angel, and his maternal grandfather, R' Avraham. When the child was three years old he became gravely ill. The Alter Rebbe summoned four of his most distinguished disciples and told them that his teacher Rabbi Avraham the Angel had appeared to him in a dream and asked why he was not praying on behalf of the child who bore his name — adding that there was a grievance from the child's maternal grandfather, because his own name was embedded within the child's name in an indirect way and it was not widely known that the child had been named for him as well. The Alter Rebbe responded that he had acted correctly, since it is ruled in the Shulchan Aruch — the Code of Jewish Law — that the honor of one's teacher takes precedence over the honor of one's father, and this is especially so in the matter of names, where it is known that being named after someone benefits that person's soul and its expression within the one who carries the name. Nevertheless, once the Alter Rebbe learned that his father-in-law's full name had been Chaim Avraham, he called his disciples together in order to add the name Chaim to the child.

Further Reading

• Sefer HaZikronos — the Frierdiker Rebbe, chapters 13–16, 18–21, 56, 130–131, 137.