RABBI JUDAH MISCHEL
Mashpiah, OU-NCSY Executive Director, Camp HASC Author of Baderech: Along the Path of Teshuva (Mosaica 2021)
Yom Kippur
W
idely regarded as the Poseik haDor, haGaon Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, zt’l, was one of the great leaders of the last century, a definer of matters of Jewish law, as well as a source of inspiration and guidance for countless Jews around the world. For more than sixty years, Rav Elyashiv was married to Rebbetzin Sheina Chaya, a daughter of the Tzadik of Yerushalayim, Rav Aryeh Levin, zt’l. During the shivah for Rebbitzen Elyashiv, a visitor standing in the back of the crowded room seemed visibly emotional, and a family member asked if he had a personal connection to the nifteres. It turned out that he had arrived from Canada that morning to be menachem avel and pay condolences to for the wife of the gadol ha-dor, but also to show hakaras ha-tov, appreciation for the Rav and Rebbetzin’s efforts in helping his
In loving memory of our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather
Dr. David Feigenbaum z"l on his fourth yahrzeit ט תשרי תשע"ח Renee & family 32
TORAH TIDBITS 1436 /
family through a painful and tragic ordeal. The Jew related a bit of his difficult, personal story: After years of struggling to make a parnassah, the man had moved his family from Eretz Yisrael to Canada to search for a new beginning and greater success. The drastic change and adjustment was very challenging, and his oldest daughter veered away from Jewish practice, abandoning almost every vestige of Yiddishkeit and Jewish identity. She had even married a non-Jew and separated from her family, moving to far away Switzerland. The Yid wept as he explained how he felt responsible for all of this, uprooting his family from Eretz Yisrael, and causing his daughter’s descent from the path of Torah and Mitzvos. Some time after moving to Switzerland, in the beginning of Chodesh Elul, his daughter’s marriage ended in divorce, and then, on the day following Yom Kippur, she suddenly died, all alone. As she had intermarried, cut all ties with the Jewish community and lived as a non-Jew for years, the Rabbanim in Switzerland denied her a burial in the Jewish cemetery there. “Broken hearted, I called Rebbetzin Elyashiv,” the man continued, wiping his tears. “I requested that she ask the Rav for a p’sak, a halachic position on the
YOM KIPPUR - HA'AZINU - SUKKOT - SHMINI ATZERET/SIMCHAT TORAH - B'REISHIT
