Daniel Lansky ע”ה Sharleen Pleeter
In March of 2016, Daniel Lansky was the 40-year-old father of three adorable boys, developing his business and resettling his family in Baltimore after having lived in Lakewood for a number of years. Together with his wife Elana, they were the typical young frum couple, involved in their children’s chinuch, attending simchas, helping out friends and becoming vital members of their kehillah. Then the truly unimaginable happened; Daniel was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and their typical lives went into upheaval. Daniel and Elana consulted with doctors, researchers, experts and others who had confronted their situation. Daniel struggled with the first line chemotherapies and treatments which he found debilitating and often sent him to the hospital. So they
travelled across the country in search of the best treatments and cutting edge therapies. They left no stone unturned in in their attempt to beat this disease and throughout every challenge and hurdle, they remained pillars in their belief in Hashem. They also sought out the advice and brachos of many Gedolim and Talmedei Chachamim. Elana asked Rav Chaim Kanievsky, shlit”a, what she could do to help her and her family’s situation. His response was to use her koach to increase Shmiras HaLashon among the women of Klal Yisroel. What happened next went beyond her or anyone else’s expectations. Elana sent out a text to her friends and family that she would learn two halachos of the sefer Purity of Speech daily, as suggested in the sefer’s introduction, and post a recording of her learning on
a WhatsApp group. She asked women to listen at some point in the day and learn with her. That small circle of friends and family spread Elana’s request and within in a couple of days, over 7,000 participants in a numerous WhatsApp groups were listening to Elana and learning with her. She had women learning all over the world— Israel, Australia, Europe, all across the United States. And those women were sharing what they learned with their husbands, who were then discussing the halachos among themselves. Without exaggeration, thousands of people in Klal Yisroel were motivated to think about and change their speech by the daily Shmiras HaLashon learning done by Elana in the merit of a refuah shlaima for Daniel. Tragically, Elana is no longer the devoted and hopeful wife, learning
with 7,000 women as hospital monitors beeped in the background; with the heartbreaking and untimely passing of Daniel Mordechai ben Rav Nachum Meir HaLevi two weeks ago on August 25th, Elana, at age thirty-four, has been left with three beautiful children to raise on her own. The shiva house was a constant, unending stream of people who had never met or spoken to Elana who came from all over to tell her and Daniel’s family how Elana and her learning had effected a change in how they spoke. An email was set up for women to express their heartfelt condolences and express how learning with Elana had made a difference in their lives, and those messages were read throughout the shiva. Continued on page 16