Yechezkel Sarna - World War I

World War I

With the outbreak of World War I, the entire Slabodka yeshiva fled to Minsk. Like all of the yeshiva's students, Sarna secured forged affidavits in order to avoid the draft. However, he was caught and imprisoned. He managed to escape from prison and flee to the home of a relative, Rabbi Yehoshua Zimbalist. Soon after, he escaped to Smilowitz where the Chofetz Chaim and his students had taken refuge.

Shortly after the Slabodka yeshiva had arrived in Minsk, which was near the battlefront, it was forced to flee to a safer city, Kremenchuk. However, Sarna chose not to join the yeshiva, but remained in Smilowitz, studying for a year and a half in an inn with the students of the Raduń Yeshiva. During this period, he developed close relationships with the Chofetz Chaim and Raduń's rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Naftoli Trop, and later referenced this brief period as one of the most beautiful in his life.

After the revolution, Rabbi Sarna returned to the Knesses Yisroel yeshiva in Kremenchuk. Two years later, he married Pesha Miriam Epstein, the daughter of Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, one of the yeshiva heads.

Shortly after World War I, the yeshiva managed to leave Russia and to return to Slabodka, which, after the war, was re-annexed to Lithuania. At one point, the Alter asked Rabbi Sarna to deliver shiurim (lectures) in the yeshiva, but he declined the offer, explaining that he preferred to devote the early years of his life to Torah study. Although Rabbi Sarna held no official position in the yeshiva, his influence there was keenly felt.