There has been a deterioration in the health of the noted mashpiah Rav Sender Erlanger at the Maayanei HaYeshua Hospital in Bnei Brak.
Rav Erlanger, who is 64, recently suffered a blood clot in his brain and was hospitalized several times, undergoing surgery.
On Erev Shabbos, he was hospitalized once again, and over Shabbos his condition turned critical.
All are asked to daven for Rav Chizkiyahu Alexander Yitzchok ben Yehudis l’refuah sheleimah.
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}
A Chassidic police officer, Getzel Ungar, with the Spring Valley Police Department in Monsey, NY, arrested a young man after asking him his name for allegedly drinking a glass of wine outside the Atrium Plaza wedding hall in Monsey.
After calling for backup, the policeman arrested the man, claiming that he lied to police when asked what his name was. The officer asked him for his name because, the officer said, he was drinking a glass of wine “in public” outside the wedding hall.
Another clip shows the same officers, on the same night, at the same location, going after another young man, who eventually fled and ran back into the wedding ballroom.
WATCH:
{Matzav.com}
Friends and admirers of kiruv pioneer Rav Yitzchok Dovid Grossman of Migdal Ha’emek recently threw a seventieth birthday celebration for him. Guests included leading rabbonim and politicians, as well as Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, who presented him with a peace dove made of Gaza rocket fragments.
“This symbol represents the rov’s work,” Lapid said as he handed it to him. “Just as a peace dove was made from a missile, so Rav Grossman’s work over the years has transformed evil to good. Happy be his portion.”
Born a sixth generation Yerushalmi in 1946, Rav Grossman decided in 1968 to move to the Lower Galilee development town of Migdal Ha’Emek in order to provide chizuk to its population of poor North-African immigrants. Shortages of jobs and education had turned the town into a center of crime.
Rav Grossman threw himself into kiruv work and shiurim. He became known as the “Disco Rabbi” due to his frequenting of the town’s discos and pubs with hat, coat, beard and peiyos, where he engaged teens in dialogue and drew them back to Yiddishkeit.
After a year in Migdal Ha’emek, at the tender age of 23, he was unanimously elected Chief Rabbi of Migdal Ha’Emek with lifetime tenure. Three years later, in 1972, he opened the Migdal Ohr Educational Center which has been mekareiv over 17,000 youngsters over the years. In 1991, it was awarded the Nivchar He’asor (Best of the Decade) award and was acclaimed as the best educational network in Israel for the past ten years. Rav Grossman also opened a prison rehabilitation through Torah study program.
Rav Grossman has been honored with a number of national awards for his work and is a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council which advises Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. He twice declined offers for the position of Chief Rabbi of Israel.
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}
After three huge family weddings of the Belzer Rebbe’s grandchildren have been held in a tent in Kiryas Belz in Yerushalayim, Belz will hold the fourth such wedding, the chasunah of the Rebbe’s granddaughter, at the Arena stadium in Yerushalayim to accommodate the many devotees who wish to attend.
Due to safety issues and other considerations, including financial costs, it was decided to hold the upcoming wedding at the stadium.
Belz will thus return to the stadium for a second time this year, after gathering there during Adar to mark the jubilee since the rebbe took the helm of the chassidus.
The chupah, we are told, will first be held in Kiryas Belz. The celebration will then follow at the stadium.
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}
It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the passing of Rav Reuven Bezalel Berger z”l, one of the heads of Ichud Mosdos Gur. He was 67 years old.
Rav Berger was born on 3 Sivan תש”ט to his father, Rav Chaim Alter Berger, who survived the tribulations of the Holocaust. Rav Berger was a mispallel at the Gerer Shul on Rechov Chiddushei Harim in Bnei Brak and maintained a special kesher with the admorim of Ger.
Rav Berger’s carried on his father’s gemach, which helped thousands of families in the early years of Bnei Brak. He also founded and managed an institution for children with special needs in Petach Tikva.
In the last decade, he devoted his life to the institutions of Ger.
Rav Berger was a rare combination of talmid chochom, askan, and exalted oveid Hashem.
The levaya started today at 12:30 p.m. at his home of Rechov Nechemiah in Bnei Brak, followed by kevurah at the Ponovezher bais hachaim in Bnei Brak.
Yehi zichro boruch.
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}
Rav Tzion Boaron, one of the leading Sefardi poskim in Israel, commented on those who foretold the outcome of the recent US elections, saying “Nevuah (prophecy) was given to shoytim (fools).”
The rov made his remarks in a shiur that he delivered in Bet Shemesh.
Rav Boaron was responding to reports that were being circulated on social media declaring the election results in the name of certain mekubalim. Some had foretold a clear victory for Donald Trump, while others declared a landslide win for Hillary Clinton.
“Their words are less (significant) than air,” he said, quoting the Gemara in Maseches Bava Basra which states that from the day the Bais Hamikdosh was destroyed, nevuah was granted to fools and minors.
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}
The Israeli Yated Ne’eman this morning published remarks from Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, rosh yeshiva of Slabodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and member of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah of Degel Hatorah, that academic studies for men and women may involve heresy.
“If there is a school lecturer who does not believe in the Torah, it cools off one’s yiras Shomayim,” he said.
“There is no one who is immune,” he added. “In every school of academia, there is a danger. We are talking about…serious things that amount to apostasy.”
The words of the Slabodka rosh yeshiva were publicized part of an information campaign conducted by an organization in recent weeks against what is being called “the ravages of academia.”
“One must distance himself from hearing any talk that includes heresy, even the smallest suggestion of ideas that are contrary to Torah. And if a father says that his daughter is ‘a strong girl’ [and can handle it], it is a serious mistake … The most outstanding young men who are learning, davening, etc, may have thoughts in their hearts [that are contrary to Torah] that no one from the outside even knows.”
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau / Photo: Moshe Goldstein}
In 1979, former President Jimmy Carter saved Rav Nachman’s kever from being buried by a Soviet high rise building project, the Jerusalem Post reports Speaking to the Metro news agency, Rav Nosson Maimon, co-founder of the Breslov Research Institute and former head of the Breslov World Center, said that the story began when Mrs. Zabada, the woman in whose backyard the kever was located, told Breslovers of the Soviet plan to build high rises over the mass grave of victims who died in a 1768 massacre where Rav Nachman was buried.
“She had been informed by the local authorities that all the houses there, including hers, were to be replaced by nine-story buildings,” Maimon said. “…It was her concern for her garden and her chickens that really moved her and she used the importance of the shrine in her backyard.”
Israel based Breslov leader Rav Michel Dorfman held an urgent meeting in Yerushalayim where he noted that since the building plan was not local but part of a Soviet five-year plan, the best course would be to have the American government intervene.
Dorfman flew to the United States, where the Lubavicher Rebbe instructed activists to enlist the help of Rav Pinchas Teitz of Elizabeth, New Jersey, who had invited Carter to speak in Elizabeth during his election campaign. As a result, Rav Teitz had a letter from Robert Lipshutz, Jimmy Carter’s liaison to the Jewish community, stating, “Should you ever need to call on the White House, you are welcome.”
A detailed cover letter explaining the situation in Uman and the importance of the kever was submitted to Lipshutz at a meeting arranged by Rabbi Moshe Sherer of Agudath Israel. Shortly after the 1979 Vienna Summit, where President Carter and Russian President Leonid Brezhnev met, the Russian ambassador said that Brezhnev had personally received the request. The high-rise project was to go ahead with the exception of Rav Nachman’s plot at 1 Belinski Street on the corner of Pushkina Street, which was to be declared an international shrine.
{Matzav.com}
A newly-publicized song with words written by the Imrei Shaul of Modzitz is believed by some Chassidim to be the next hit melody in the chareidi world.
The words and the tune were composed by the rebbe.
Modzitz is renowned for its prowess in the world of neginah, and this niggun may be the latest example of this.
The words to the song come from a letter written by the Imrei Shaul:
“הוי דע לך כי נקודה אחת של אור מבריחה הרבה חושך ואפלות, ניצוץ אחד יוצא מתחת פטיש ההתחזקות ושורף את כל הקשות והחמורות.”
The following is a video of the present Modzitzer Rebbe leading a group of Chassidim in Tzefas singing the song on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan.
WATCH:
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}
A team of devoted volunteers from the tri-state area has unfortunately not yet found two pairs of missing tefillin that were thrown out and ended up in a landfill in the Rochester, NY, area.
Despite reports to the contrary, the tefillin have not been recovered.
Matzav.com spoke to an individual who believes that it was his message, sent out last night, that triggered the false report that the tefillin were found. He had sent a photo of a tefillin bag to a reporter, and the photo was mistakenly thought to be that of the missing tefillin. This individual’s message was picked up by two media outlets – including one Israeli outlet, with Hebrew and English websites – and was then spread on social media.
The individual regrets that it led to false jubilation, as the tefillin still remain lost.
One version purports that a television report, a video of which was posted on Matzav.com last night, led to the misunderstanding, but the time frame suggests that the aforementioned individual’s message was the actual trigger of the rumors.
“It was a simple misunderstanding,” he said of the false report, “but it could have been prevented.”
The group of volunteers returned home after searching in over a dozen trash receptacles. The search is expected to continue with a new cadre of volunteers.
As reported on Matzav.com last week, a mispallel at the Lee Garden Shul on Lorimer Street in Williamsburg was shocked to discover on a recent Thursday morning that his tallis and tefillin were missing from the cubby in which he placed his bag after davening at the Satmar shul the day before. Unbeknownst to him, the tefillin weren’t stolen, but rather fell into a garbage can next to the cubbies Wednesday evening, as can be seen in the video clip below.
This revelation, however, only became known when the surveillance cameras at the shul were examined. By that time, the garbage bag was already collected by the New York Sanitation Department and dropped off at a transfer station, where it was mixed with thousands of tons of refuse. It was then shipped several hundred miles via rail to a landfill in the Rochester area.
A desperate operation was launched to save the tefillin.
The private waste transfer firm and landfill owners understood how painful and important this matter was. They zeroed in on 50 rail cars – containing approximate 1,000 tons of garbage – where the tefillin might be, and graciously agreed to provide a large site at the landfill where the content of these rails can be spread out to be sifted through by volunteers.
Volunteers were outfitted with special rakes and safety gear to work at the landfill, and were provided with travel expenses and food.
The following are photos and video from the search:
{Matzav.com}
The Viznitzer Rebbe is currently in New York for the chasunah of a grandchild, as well as the chanukas habayis of a brand new building of the Viznitzer Talmud Torah and Beis Medrash.
An uplifting Shabbos will be spent together with the Rebbe in the sprawling tent that has been set up to accommodate the many chassidim that will be arriving to participate in this historic Shabbos–the first that the Rebbe will spend in Williamsburg.
Motzoei Shabbos will mark the inauguration of the brand new building. A masterful Aron Kodesh will be unveiled at this occasion, along with the beautiful paroches that has been especially and exclusively created by Mefo’ar Judaica–a fitting kavod for the Torah–donated by the noted philanthropist, Reb Naftali Tzvi Tzig.
A rich program is in store, with moving and uplifted music presented by the Viznitzer choir and noted musician from Eretz Yisroel Reb Meir Adler.
{Matzav.com}
A P’eylim / Lev L’Achim reception for the Pine Street area of Lakewood, NJ, was held at the home of Zevi Shick on Canary Drive in Somerset Walk.
The event featured two special guests, Rav Uri Zohar, the legendary leader of the teshuvah movement in Eretz Yisroel, and Rav Eliezer Sorotzkin, director general of Lev L’Achim and Chinuch Atzmai and rov of the Ramat Efraim neighborhood of Netanya.
PHOTOS:
{Matzav.com}
Photos: JDN
