Chof-Beis Shevat

Reb­bet­zin Shterna Sarah told some­one that when the Rebbe Rashab spoke with her about shid­duchim for the grand­chil­dren, he said, “ Nu, that one is for Chana; and for Musya ( Chaya Mushka), I think, one of Leivik’s chil­dren. ”

“How he thought about ev­ery­thing!” she said.

On Thurs­day, 6 Iyar 5749 (1989) R. Yis­roel passed away at the age of 59. He was buried in New York near the Ohel. (In­ci­den­tally, a few months ear­lier, at the far­bren­gen of 22 Sh­vat of that year, the Reb­bet­zin’s first yahrtzeit, the Rebbe strangely turned to R. Yis­roel and said, “Say Lchaim for your fa­ther. ”)

Af­ter his pass­ing, his son Baruch wrote a let­ter to the Rebbe, ex­plain­ing how he had al­ways felt that his bond with the Rebbe was through his fa­ther. Now, that his fa­ther had passed away, he felt bro­ken and un­sure of what to do. The Rebbe an­swered him, “Your fa­ther is cer­tainly in Gan Eden. There he is high­light­ing your pos­i­tive virtues. If you give him a k’li, a medium, with which to work, he will be very suc­cess­ful. ”

The Rebbe once said that arichus yomim , long life, is not a chrono­log­i­cal phe­nom­e­non, but is judged by the ex­tent of the ex­pe­ri­ence with which a per­son was able to fill his life. Though he lived only 59 years, R. Yis­roel en­joyed a life filled with many pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ences.

He raised a fam­ily who would con­tinue to carry out the Rebbe’s de­sires on both the per­sonal and com­mu­nal plane with the same ded­i­ca­tion. R. Yis­roel’s wife Rochel, the ma­tri­arch of the fam­ily, still main­tains an open house, with guests vis­it­ing at all times. Through her guid­ance and the in­spi­ra­tion of the mem­ory of R. Yis­roel, their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren are ac­tively in­volved in dif­fer­ent di­men­sions of the Rebbe’s work and take lead­er­ship roles within the chas­sidic com­mu­nity.