A mikvah he built in 1938, a day school he founded in 1941 that grew to more than 900 students, adult education courses that he initiated, the welcome he gave to displaced persons after WWII and to Jews who came from Russia, all became a model for other leaders to implement in their cities and towns.
Her father, Rav Binyamin Rabinovich, was the courageous rabbi of Vilkomir who made a powerful man stop sending Jewish boys to the army.
Years later visitors to Elizabeth commented that in most places the residents would erect separate synagogues for different factions, but Rabbi Teitz kept them united.
The danger in Latvia was that the Russians and the Germans - whichever army reached a city first - took the rabbis as a hostage to prevent any aid being given to the enemy.
[9] In the nearby city of Dvinsk were brilliant Torah scholars—Rabbi Yosef Rosen (the Rogatchover) and Rabbi Meir Simchah HaKohen, the author of Or Samei’ach and Meshekh Chokhmah.
His education in community-building began with an invitation from Rabbi Mordechai Dubin (1889–1956) to help in his successful campaign for a seat in the Latvian legislature, the Sejim.
In 1931, when the doctor recommended that he spend time at home to recover from an emergency appendectomy, Pinchas took a daily train ride to Dvinsk to study Yoreh Deah, particularly the laws of kashrut, with Rabbi Yosef Rosen (the Rogatchover).
Rav Pinchas Teitz became friendly with Shimon Wittenberg, also a representative to the Sejim, and Avigdor Balshanek, the head of Agudath Israel in Latvia.
His powers of analysis, memorable phrasing, and ability to engender enthusiasm in an audience led to his being asked to speak at many gatherings.
He edited Unzer Shtimme, "Our Voice,"[12] a Yiddish newspaper in Riga; he headed a religious youth movement that he named Yavneh; he was the rabbi of a small town.
He had been the rabbi of the Orthodox community in Elizabeth, New Jersey, a close friend of the Bloch family, the author of scholarly works, and had contributed essays under the pen name A.L.
[13] Basya and Pinchas hesitated to meet since people spoke about a solution to the problem of finding a rabbi, not about the relationship of a young couple.
Now that he was in the United States, he met with government officials, including senators, to propose paying $100 for each Jew who would be permitted to leave the lands that the Nazis had conquered.
He wanted children to enjoy learning through Shabbos parties, making a seder, singing, performances, and daily recess in a large playground.
In 1947, he built a modern synagogue with perfect sight lines and acoustics for the men's and women's sections; it was located in a beautiful neighborhood, an example of the rabbi's principle that Orthodoxy should be first-rate in every way.
In 1955, two projects combined: a yeshiva high school for boys opened; the classrooms were in a new synagogue in an area that had been fields a few years earlier, but was now the place to build spacious homes.
[22] While he was fundraising and, together with his wife, creating a community where every member was important, he took responsibility for original projects: In 1958–1964, he testified before congressional committees and state legislatures on the humane qualities of kosher slaughter; he debated on the radio with those who wanted to ban shechitah.
For a book about the confrontation with death in America, Dr. Michael Lesy reported on the contrast between an ordinary packinghouse in Omaha, Nebraska and the kosher slaughterhouse that Rav Teitz permitted him to visit.
He signed the lease for the house, spoke to officials at the university, invited Milton Levy, a member of the Elizabeth community who wanted to support this initiative (and who donated all the furniture and outfitted the kitchen), and gave several classes to the students.
Between 1964 and the 1980s, Rav Teitz traveled to the USSR twenty-two times to assure the 3 million Jews who were caught behind the Iron Curtain that their brothers and sisters cared for them, and to bring siddurim, chumashim, haggadot for Passover, etrogim and lulavim for Sukkot, and kosher cured meat.
He published a siddur called Kol Yisrael Haverim,[25] All Jews Are Friends, which contained all the information needed for a Jewish life: how to read Hebrew, how to pray, the text for a ketubah (marriage contract), how to make tefillin, mezuzot, and tzitzit.
He added pictures of fruits, vegetables, grains, plants used for spices, with their names in Hebrew, Russian, and Latin/English (sometimes together, sometimes Latin alone), grouped together according to the blessing on each.
[26] Young people met in secret groups to learn from the siddurim how to read and speak Hebrew; several began to observe mitzvot.
He met with government officials to stop the destruction of cemeteries and to get permits to build an ohel, a canopy, for the graves of such luminaries as Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski and the Vilna Gaon, and a gravestone for the Ba’al Shem Tov.
He gave the rubles to refuseniks who had been dismissed from their jobs, and to old people who were living in poverty, including a few talmidei hakhamim, Torah scholars, who were destitute.
[30] In 1953, in order to awaken Jews who knew Yiddish, but had gotten distant from their origins, he founded a half-hour radio program of Talmud, Daf Hashavua, aired at 9:30 on Saturday night.
[32] To meet the demand for texts each time he started a new tractate, he printed copies with line numbers so that listeners could easily find the place.
While David Eisenberg wrote in "She’arim" May 15, 1955 about "Limmud Torah Ba’rabim: Rive’vot Ma’azinim L’ Shiuro Shel HaRav Pinchas Mordechai Teitz," others were not positive.
[35] Fifty years later, Rav Teitz published a volume of responsa, She’ailot U’Tshuvot Or Samei’akh, and added a memorial list of the k’lei kodesh, those who served the religious needs of Latvian Jewry, giving their names, occupations, and where they had lived before the Holocaust.
Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg settled the matter with his responsum on "Limmud HaTorah BaRabbim al Y’dei Ha’Radio."