It is a most opportune time of the year to portray the life and achievements of our Reb Chaim Yaakov ben Alter Aharon ZTL. Although his first Yahrzeit falls on the seventh of Shevat (17th Jan.), we are still in the middle of Sefer Shemos. The main protagonist in this story of the Jewish people’s enslavement, redemption and the Ma’amad Har Sinai is Moshe Rabbeinu, who – as Rashi explains: gave his eyes and his heart to see how to alleviate the suffering of his brethren. The commentators ask: Why Davka the eyes and the heart? Because when Yaakov Ovinu was Niftar, the eyes and the heart of the Yidden became blocked and Moshe Rabbeinu managed to open them. At the age of twelve he pleaded their case and secured the pharaoh’s consent that they were to be given one day off every week, so they could catch their breath (Medrash Shemos Rabbah).
In this aspect, Rabbi Davis followed in the footsteps of Moshe Rabbeinu: he had an acute insight into the needs of the Klal and always gave his heart to find a fitting and long lasting solution to problems, or at least a temporary one, to allow them a breather.
The Torah says that when HaShem saw how Miriam and Yocheved feared Him, he made them houses. The commentators grapple with the doubling up of the verses: (שמות, א כ) וייטב אלוהים למיילדות ויירב העם ויעצמו מאוד, the reward was that the people increased in numbers. The next verse describes an added reward:(שמות, א כא) ויהי כי יראו המיילדות את האלוהים ויעש להם בתים. The answer to this seeming dichotomy could be found by watching Jeffrey reacting to the news that another family found a roof over their head. As the head of the housing committee and later Chairman of AIHA, Jeffrey felt good when for Yidden was good: HaShem saw to it that he should feel good by allowing more housing to be provided for the growing community.
It was also Rabbi Davis who introduced the many government grants that are now a given, whilst in the early seventies not many people in the community knew how to apply, process and maintain. If not for these two important streams of communal help, one wonders how our Shevet Levi would have managed over the past two generations: Botey Kehunoh and Botey Leviyoh.
From what we heard from people who knew him from his formative years, his “eyes and heart” for the Klal were developed by his mother, Rivka OBM whose influence was felt in many of his endeavours.
Mr Dovid Davis, a brother remembers: their mother used to give tzedokoh and asked us to deliver some money to a poor family’s house. She instructed us not to knock on the door; just to post it through the letterbox and walk away. Her exemplary Ma’asim Tovim infused the young lad with the ability to give off himself, all the more when no one was looking, as illustrated by the following anecdote: A young boy arrived on these shores without a penny to his name. On his first day in London he met Rabbi Davis outside Rabbi Schneider’s boarding school at 95-97 Stamford Hill – otherwise known as Yeshivah Ahavas Torah. A young boy walked over to him and stuffed some money into his hand, which was his first encounter with true Gemilus Chasodim that was part of Yiddishkeit in Frum London all those days back. This boy would later become known as Rabbi Davis.
[Hachnosas Orchim:]
The Davises always had people at the Shabbos table. These were not always the distinguished guest whom one would be proud to adorn a Shabbos table with. Oftentimes these were downtrodden guests who weren't well, or simply hungry people who found a sandwich and a shoulder to lean on. It was a warm place to go there and people knew that the door is always open. Many a shidduch was closed there from the singles that attended their Shabbos table.
Mr K. S.: Jeffrey was a very nice person. In Tamuz 5722 / 1962, he travelled from London to Gateshead for his wedding. Jeffrey and his wife – they were a newly married couple at the time - hosted him and looked after him as if he was the Chosson’s older brother (they were a year and two months apart in age). Indeed, he went to his Chuppah from the Davis’ home. They became lifelong friends, from when he arrived to London from Europe and stayed at the boarding school at “95”, where the famous Tzeire Agudas Yisroel is now housed.
With a heart larger than himself, Rabbi Davis was the one who invented the Agudas Israel Housing Association, now known as AIHA. Since the time he started this initiative over thirty years ago, thousands of people have felt his Ahavas Yisroel, flavoured with attention to detail as was his way with all of his other projects.
Ask his contemporaries from the sixties and they will rattle of his home address with postcode or home telephone number as if they are reading it now off the telephone book. This goes to show how close-knit these friends of his felt to him. Together with his very dedicated akeres Habayis Malkah-Massie A”H they hosted out of town people, without regard to their own comfort.
No doubt it was the unspoken prodding of his dear wife Malka – Massie A”H also a product of the Torah bastion Gateshead, who showed the way with her custom Hachnosas Orchim, few could match.
First published on 18 January 2016,
on Jewish P.O.S.T. - the Jewish Voice for the People Of South Tottenham (now
defunct).
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