25 March 2012

Levaya

A few days ago, Rav Scheinberg was niftar.

Rav Scheinberg was an American boy. He grew up playing stickball on the Lower East Side.
Then the legendary Rav Herman sent him off to yeshiva in New Haven, and he became one of the preeminent Torah sages of the generation.
He also became Rav Herman's son-in-law.
Rav Scheinberg
He made a seudas hodaah (thanksgiving meal) on the day that he was able to hear that "his" baseball team had won the World Series without getting excited.

I have never learnt his sefarim -- I know him mostly as an awesome presence in Mattersdorf, where on Friday nights all his neighbors (and seminary girls staying in the neighborhood) troop up to his apartment for a blessing.
("Doesn't it bother him to have to spend his time giving people blessings?" we asked our teacher. "He did the same thing to the Chofetz Chaim," answered Rabbi A.)
When people rattled off the names of the major rabbis in Jerusalem, it was always special to hear the name of Rav Scheinberg -- whom I met, who spoke to us in English.

I heard later that 150,000 people attended the funeral.


How tragic that he has left us.

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